All The Sad Young Literary Men Part 5

Katie thought Sam was being funny. She studied his face to make sure. Sam tried to look serious. Dinner had ended at some point while he talked, and he had paid, though he couldn't recall how, and they had wandered, almost automatically, into the Irish bar near the intersection of Cambridge and Beacon. Dinner, a bar, conversations about the s.e.x ritual, and a thirty-minute monologue on deodorant-if Sam was any sort of semiotician. . . . But he wasn't sure. Katie was so perfectly composed, and so much better dressed than he, it was hard to tell. They'd kissed once, on a porch in Jamaica Plain, having stepped outside a party for a smoke. They'd kissed and then she'd reminded Sam that she had a boyfriend and, more pointedly still, that he had a girlfriend, and, with autumn in their hearts, they'd stepped back inside. And then he'd failed to call. And then they'd seen each other a few times for coffee and not-kissed. So it was hard to say what exactly was going to happen, but for the moment, while they stood there at the bar, Sam knew he wanted nothing else.

"Look," he said after ordering a gin and tonic for her and a beer for himself. "What's the official Slip position on candles?"

"We're all for." She laughed again.

"OK, how many?"

"We believe"-she cleared her throat-"we believe that anything more than three begins to feel a little spooky. Like human sacrifice, basically."

"So, three. That's your official position."

"Three's good."

"Right. I just can't get over how programmed it all feels. It's like right now"-Sam looked at his watch, it was almost midnight, any minute now Katie would announce that she had an early flight; he needed to suggest that they go home, but he couldn't figure out how!-"all across America, diligent men who've been studying your s.e.x columns are lighting three candles in their little bedrooms and demanding of women, 'Does this feel good?' 'Does this?' 'Does that?' It's like three candles and twenty questions."

"So what you're saying is"-Katie looked up and her eyes flashed at him-"you don't want to take me home?"

"Oh," said Sam, losing his cool, "I do. So much. You have no idea."

They were leaning against the bar. The place was just crowded enough that they were pressed together but not so crowded that anyone would elbow Katie, forcing Sam to kill him. They had been locked for some time in a de facto embrace, and yet there was drama, there was drama and antic.i.p.ation, when he crossed over and kissed her. He had no idea what would happen, until she kissed him back.

"OK," he allowed afterward. "I'll take you home. But no twenty questions."

"No questions is fine with me," she said.

And then they were walking down the street, down interminable Beacon Street, to her house. Because of course they couldn't go to Sam's, it was too messy, and of course his car hadn't started that evening, and of course, of course. They hadn't been able to find a cab-they had begun to walk, thinking a cab would come, but it never came, it never came-and though it was a warm April evening, and though they occasionally stopped to make out against some fence, the walk was so long that he was beginning to lose his buzz. Why, he'd lost it. Two in the morning, a night of drinking behind him, six hours of it, $140, that would be $25 an hour, almost, more than he made at Fidelity, gone, all gone. He recalled now, nostalgically, the moments during the evening when he'd been pleasantly drunk-after the first two quick beers, before eating, his face already flus.h.i.+ng and his voice animated with indignation about his Google, and then again in the bar, oh the bar, where he'd gone to the bathroom after their kiss and returned to find her there, still at the bar. still at the bar. For a man who'd been to as many bars as Sam, had been to them alone and left alone, this was no small thing. He kissed her neck, then, in the bar. He kissed her lips, sloppily. Conscious of the stares, he had broken it off, had taken her hand, as if to say: We cannot be here any longer. Another minute and we'll be tearing our clothes off. We might get arrested. Let's go home and f.u.c.k. For a man who'd been to as many bars as Sam, had been to them alone and left alone, this was no small thing. He kissed her neck, then, in the bar. He kissed her lips, sloppily. Conscious of the stares, he had broken it off, had taken her hand, as if to say: We cannot be here any longer. Another minute and we'll be tearing our clothes off. We might get arrested. Let's go home and f.u.c.k.

But that was forever ago. Before the Long March down Beacon. Now it was two, it was past two, and soon it would be dawn and his p.e.n.i.s would turn into a pumpkin, and all was lost, all was darkness and loathsomeness, his buzz gone, his erection gone, and we are all so alone, surrounded by people so powerfully unlike us, and then she was kissing him again, and they were on her doorstep, they were on the little porch in front of her house, they were kissing-stumbling into her room, all was darkness, loathsomeness, but they were kissing and their lips described ovals around each other's, their tongues came out, bit by bit, they eased themselves into a kiss, standing next to her bed, and suddenly he wanted to kiss her shoulder, her arm, to press himself against her, and her throat, and then, kissing that throat as she threw back her head, he remembered her belly b.u.t.ton and descended, felt the cool of her silver studs, the futuristic metallic taste of them against his tongue, as if he were making out with a female robot, and who wouldn't want that?

He considered her s.e.x column. Would this be featured? s.e.x with the former future author of a Zionist epic? At the conference tomorrow-was he anecdotal material?

They had fallen into bed, her room was tidy but filled with knickknacks, things would have been knocked over, damage done, and so they were in bed, and taking off their clothes, and suddenly Sam realized with a start that he wasn't hard. He was betrayed! Full of l.u.s.tful thoughts, although also many other kinds of thoughts, but lacking l.u.s.tful deeds. Saint Augustine had written of this-impotence, rather than sinful pa.s.sion, was the crowning argument in his proof that l.u.s.t was evil, that it was not subject to the human will. And now behold poor Sam: It was one thing to go out with a woman and possibly sleep with her, knowing all the while that she would eventually tell her friends about Sam's various idiosyncrasies-that is to say, this was already bad enough-but to not-sleep with a woman who had access to a Web-based media outlet? That was a terrible idea! And it wouldn't even raise his Google, because obviously she'd use another name.

Here's how it was, in short: if in the next five minutes Sam failed to produce an erection robust enough to last while he located his jeans and extracted a condom from his right front pocket-tens of thousands of readers would know about it before the week was out.

Just then she said, as if to seal the contract of his humiliation: "Relax."

An hour later, it was over. There had been a few false starts, but Katie turned out to be an exquisite machine. It did not mean, as Sam had often thought it meant, a knowledge of s.e.xual arcana, but rather a sensitivity, an efficiency. Katie's body was, as Henry James would have said, one upon which nothing was lost. And Sam himself had been here and there, had certain interests, proclivities, higher math. In short, an hour after his panic they lay, pleasantly out of breath, and she had placed her head on his shoulder, trapping him underneath her.

"You know," she said, sighing, "I think Brown gave me an unrealistic idea of what life would be like."

"Hmm?" Sam perked up. He was always anxious about s.e.x, about the physical mechanics of s.e.x-poor Saint Augustine!- but he loved talking after s.e.x, sometimes he wondered how people talked at any other time. "What did you think it was going to be like?"

"I thought it was going to be, you know, Marx on Tuesday, naked copulation on Thursday, and then on the weekends I'd go out with guys kind of like you."

"Like me?"

"Maybe not you exactly. But, you know, idealistic. Maybe a little crazy."

"Ah."

"I think you're sweet," she concluded, and dozed off.

He lay there half trapped underneath her, the words ringing in his ears. Oh, Sam. You idiot. Katie was a s.e.x advice columnist but she didn't sleep with you because she wanted advice on s.e.x. She slept with you because you represented something, or the idea of something, even if it was just one of those gooey ideas they fed kids in the semiotics program at Brown: for all your problems you still read books, you were still a thumb in the eye of the way things were. You still thought, despite what you told Toby, that you had something new to say. Why should Sam of all people be famous, why should his words be disseminated via his Google count across the earth? Did he think Israel would pull out of the West Bank because of him? Did he think the Palestinians would finally relax? No, not exactly, but also, well-who knew? Secretly, quietly, he still believed this, and apparently so did Katie; believed that Sam wasn't like the guys she knew, the pretty boys with online movie reviews, big-Googled hipsters still showing up at the 1369 to read the first thirty pages of Infinite Jest. Infinite Jest. Not enough books in their apartments to cause a clutter if they'd combined them all together and thrown them in the doorway. Not enough books in their apartments to cause a clutter if they'd combined them all together and thrown them in the doorway.

Katie was different. She had books on shelves, lots of books, and books on her windowsill, neatly pressed together as if the windowsill were a shelf. This was surprising. There was some art on the walls, some photographs; the only thing Sam had on the wall was a PEACE NOW map of Israeli settlements of the West Bank and Gaza. Katie's apartment was less tidy than it at first appeared, it was pleasantly cluttered, a pile of DVDs lay next to the television in the corner-her mind was at work, by the looks of it, her mind was engaged. And her activity seemed suddenly to speak to his own lack of activity. What was he doing here? He should be working! All at once he felt the guilt descend, as it almost always did, the desire to be back in his apartment, to be out of this girl's life, which was not his life, and back into his own. He had a wish, an insane wish, to update his lists, to move Katie from the kissing to the sleeping column, he saw it in his mind as an Excel operation, the dragging of a cell.

His notebook was in the back pocket of his jeans, which lay in a puddle atop what seemed to be Katie's travel case, and now he slipped gently out of bed and picked them up-only to find, as in a mystery novel (was it the bit of moonlight beginning to slice through the window?), that something had caught his eye. Underneath the jeans, atop the suitcase, was a little red book, the kind sold at fancy airport stationery shops, the gift you typically give to people you don't know, and now it was, just as typically, oh Katie, a diary.

It went back an entire year. And what a canny, savvy young lady this Katie turned out to be! For all her s.e.x advice and Brown, for all her books and semiotics, there was a lot of career in here, and more career-Should she pitch this magazine? Should she e-mail this editor? Should she take a job in publis.h.i.+ng? Sam was a little puzzled. He flipped through for the graphic s.e.x descriptions, but they were absent. Maybe she kept them for the s.e.x column. Maybe Sam would be featured, after all.

At last he found some Sam in the diary. I've been interested in him for a while, I've been interested in him for a while, said Katie, said Katie, but I don't know if he's good for me. He's a little crazy and I'm just finally getting back on track with things. I wonder why he couldn't finish that book, though, or hold on to Talia. She was cute. but I don't know if he's good for me. He's a little crazy and I'm just finally getting back on track with things. I wonder why he couldn't finish that book, though, or hold on to Talia. She was cute.

He went through the rest, looking for himself. A little s.e.x here, more career, more editors, some clippings. No Sam. Then, two days ago, this: I think I'll sleep with Sam this time, I think there's a good chance. I don't expect too much, but it might be nice. He's funny. And he has I think I'll sleep with Sam this time, I think there's a good chance. I don't expect too much, but it might be nice. He's funny. And he has such beautiful eyebrows, I want to kiss them. I promise you this, though: if he starts talking about Israel, I'm out. It's over. A peck on the cheek and a see you later. such beautiful eyebrows, I want to kiss them. I promise you this, though: if he starts talking about Israel, I'm out. It's over. A peck on the cheek and a see you later.

Oh?

Really?

He set the journal down-he was sitting on the orange bean-bag in the corner of her room-and looked at Katie. She slept soundly, one thin sheet draped diagonally across her back, a thin long arm stretching out from beneath it. A beatific scene, and the anger that had flared up over the Israel comment subsided. So she didn't want to hear about the depredations of the IDF; and so she worried a bit more about her career than was strictly proper. So? Didn't he have enough integrity and self-denial for two people, for five, for all the good it did him, and enough Israel talk? And that bit about his eyebrows-how interesting, how strange. And wasn't she pretty, there, and sweet? And weren't they two very human people, on long lonely Beacon Street in Somerville, wasn't this all they ever wanted, really, wasn't it enough?

Meanwhile the journal had fallen open to its very last page. On the inside of the back cover, writing-in Katie's slightly loopy hand, in different-colored pens, at different times-a list. First names and initials.

Katie's List!

Sam glanced up nervously to make sure she was still sleeping. She was. So he counted. And counted. And counted.

It was longer than his by six.

And what was worse, after all that money spent, all that charm expended, all that panic and anxiety, he hadn't even gained on her.

He was still holding his jeans in his hand, poised in case she awoke and he needed them to cover the journal, and now he extracted his pen from its little niche in the rings of his own notebook. This practice of keeping the pen in the ring binding of his little notepads was bad for the notepads but it was good for the pen-his beautiful pen, the translucent Gel Ink Roller G7. He unsheathed it now and as the moonlight crept into the room, as it touched his bare back, a swimmer's b.u.t.terfly back, and as it kissed his gel-point pen, he flung himself defiantly in the face of all the Katie Rieslings in all the world. When he'd finished, he returned the diary to the suitcase, dressed, and let himself out of the house. It would be waiting for her next time she opened it, he thought as he inhaled the cool April predawn air, perhaps on the morning's Delta Shuttle, or perhaps on the way back from New York. Perhaps with another notch in her belt. It would be waiting for her in his best, his square and manly hand. "Samuel Mitnick," he said it aloud as if it mattered, Samuel Mitnick, Samuel Mitnick, as he made his way back home. as he made his way back home.

Sometimes Like Liebknecht

Just after the civil war in Russia, and just before Stalin started starving the peasants, there was NEP. NEP was nice, people liked NEP. But then Lenin died, and there was the struggle for power, and Stalin moved to consolidate his control of the Party. In response, Trotsky tried to organize a resistance. He gathered some of the old gang again ("We're getting the band back together!" "The band?" "To overthrow the government!"), and just as before they met in cramped apartments, agitated secretly among the workers, wrote intelligent a.n.a.lyses of the situation. But it was 1925 now, and things had changed: they were fighting their former comrades this time, and the working cla.s.s was exhausted. Some of their number defected, some gave up, one of their friends committed suicide. A follower wondered aloud what would become of them. Even Trotsky had to admit he didn't know. "Sometimes you end up like Lenin," he said. "And sometimes like Liebknecht." Karl Liebknecht was the German communist murdered in prison alongside Rosa Luxemburg after their bid for power failed in 1919.

So why was Mark always always ending up like Liebknecht? There was something about him-in his vicinity, women seemed constantly to decide to exercise their virtue, to try it on. They always emerged from relations.h.i.+ps for whose moral shortcomings and s.e.xual frenzy they wished to compensate, somehow, with Mark. "Every guy I've dated since I got here turned out to be a major a.s.shole," Leslie Devendorf told him just the other day as they drove home from a history department potluck, with Mark, fairly drunk, wondering if he should try to kiss her. "Just f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king," Leslie went on, of the guys. "But that's over now." She smiled sweetly at him. Mark shook his head, amazed, and did not try to kiss her. ending up like Liebknecht? There was something about him-in his vicinity, women seemed constantly to decide to exercise their virtue, to try it on. They always emerged from relations.h.i.+ps for whose moral shortcomings and s.e.xual frenzy they wished to compensate, somehow, with Mark. "Every guy I've dated since I got here turned out to be a major a.s.shole," Leslie Devendorf told him just the other day as they drove home from a history department potluck, with Mark, fairly drunk, wondering if he should try to kiss her. "Just f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king," Leslie went on, of the guys. "But that's over now." She smiled sweetly at him. Mark shook his head, amazed, and did not try to kiss her.

Half man, half Liebknecht, he drove home and called Celeste. It was still early. Maybe she'd invite him to New York?

"I cheated on my last boyfriend," said Celeste, who now had a different boyfriend, "and that turned out badly."

"I'm not asking you to cheat on him," said Mark, desperately. "I'm asking you to leave him."

"Mark," said Celeste. "Seriously. You live in Syracuse. What would we do, meet up on weekends in Scranton?"

This was painful to hear. "I have a car," Mark said with dignity. "I have a fast car and I can drive it to New York."

"Marky, you're sweet. I'm tired."

"Next weekend," said Mark. "Let me come down next weekend. Let me spend the night."

"Oh," said Celeste kindly. "Let me think about it, OK? Just let me think about it a little."

"OK," he said, and they hung up.

That was a week ago, and now he stood in his apartment, his and Sasha's old apartment, waiting for Celeste to call.

It was a little over a year since Sasha left. Or maybe he had asked her to. Or perhaps they'd decided it together. It was a little hard to piece together now. In any case, why'd they do it? They loved one another, were true to one another, even after moving up from New York they'd had a nice time together, more or less, driving to Skaneateles, going to bookstores, camping in the national parks. But his dissertation was taking too long, and really Syracuse was killing them. "If I have to spend another week in this f.u.c.king town," she had said, in English, "I will go f.u.c.king crazy." Usually she spoke Russian, but there were certain expressions she preferred in English, and to be fair they'd spent three years in this f.u.c.king town.

"Well," said Mark, coughing a bit, and choking, and making a face-and though this was an important moment, a really crucial situation, Mark saw an opening, a joke, and he was powerless not to take it. Sasha-his wife-was already f.u.c.king crazy, was the joke, and that's what his face said, and his cough, and his second cough, when he said, "Well." was the joke, and that's what his face said, and his cough, and his second cough, when he said, "Well."

"Merzavets," she hissed, and she meant it. She'd never called him that before. They made up after that but they did not make up, they fought again and it got worse, and in the end it was typical Liebknecht on his part to have let her go. Yes, he had a dissertation to write on the Mensheviks, and yes, it was important that he write it. He was married to the Mensheviks, say, like all those socialists were married to the Revolution. But, with the notable exception of Liebknecht, they were also married to their wives. Liebknecht was not married to his wife. Liebknecht had a hole in the head. she hissed, and she meant it. She'd never called him that before. They made up after that but they did not make up, they fought again and it got worse, and in the end it was typical Liebknecht on his part to have let her go. Yes, he had a dissertation to write on the Mensheviks, and yes, it was important that he write it. He was married to the Mensheviks, say, like all those socialists were married to the Revolution. But, with the notable exception of Liebknecht, they were also married to their wives. Liebknecht was not married to his wife. Liebknecht had a hole in the head.

It was early afternoon, an early Friday afternoon, but that made it early Friday evening in New York-that is, by the time he got there-so time was running out. Mark paced his apartment, what was left of his actually very attractive Syracuse apartment, and wondered what else he could do.

History was a science, according to the old revolutionaries; its laws could be studied. Mark had spent a year mourning for Sasha-yes, mourning, though it might not always have looked like mourning. He played hockey, he went to Tap's and got drunk, and gradually he began to relearn some of the movements he'd forgotten, some of the expressions his face needed to make to communicate with people who weren't Sasha. In the realm of women, in the realm of talking to women, it was particularly hard to tell what they thought. And it was hard to tell what he he thought, what Mark thought. When he'd been married, all non-Sasha women seemed equally very attractive. Now he had to make some distinctions. thought, what Mark thought. When he'd been married, all non-Sasha women seemed equally very attractive. Now he had to make some distinctions.

In that first year of his mourning, then, Mark studied the Internet. He found some very disturbing things. He found a site, for example, that showed the filmed adventures of a group of men who drove around in a van, or a small bus-technically speaking it was a van, though they called it a bus, the Buck f.u.c.k Bus-and picked up young women, college girls possibly, on the street, and paid them a dollar for filmed s.e.x. "f.u.c.k yeah it's real," claimed the site, antic.i.p.ating Mark's objections. For he did have objections. He could not believe that one could simply drive around in a van and pick up women-good-looking women-and get them to have s.e.x with you, in your ratty little van.

What if Mark were to purchase a van?

The Buck f.u.c.k Bus disturbed Mark's equilibrium. It wasn't that he wanted to operate his own p.o.r.n site, exactly; he was fairly certain that was not why he'd let Sasha go. And the anonymity of the filmed and very graphic s.e.x did not appeal to him-it was the only site to which he ever subscribed, and he'd quickly canceled his subscription. Really it was the principle of the thing. If there were men Mark's age driving around in a ratty van, having s.e.x with women, with complete strangers, and paying them a dollar for the pleasure-even if the women were their friends, or aspiring p.o.r.n stars, or were being paid a lot more than a dollar-still, even then, what was Mark doing in the library? what was Mark doing in the library? "I have spent," he had said the other day to Celeste, "most of my life in libraries." This was not quite true: he had spent most of his life in hockey rinks and gyms. And the time he spent in libraries these days was mainly spent looking at naked people on the Internet. But he'd not spent-this was the point-a single minute on the Buck f.u.c.k Bus. Now he watched the wasted hours drift away, all those hours he had spent with Sasha, those warm gentle hours, gone forever with their marriage's collapse. Mark was like those stunned post-Soviet Russians during the draconian free market reforms, watching their ten-thousand-ruble lifetime savings, still active in their memories, turn overnight into fifty dollars. The Devaluation, it was called. And it hurt. "I have spent," he had said the other day to Celeste, "most of my life in libraries." This was not quite true: he had spent most of his life in hockey rinks and gyms. And the time he spent in libraries these days was mainly spent looking at naked people on the Internet. But he'd not spent-this was the point-a single minute on the Buck f.u.c.k Bus. Now he watched the wasted hours drift away, all those hours he had spent with Sasha, those warm gentle hours, gone forever with their marriage's collapse. Mark was like those stunned post-Soviet Russians during the draconian free market reforms, watching their ten-thousand-ruble lifetime savings, still active in their memories, turn overnight into fifty dollars. The Devaluation, it was called. And it hurt.

So in the second year of Mark's mourning he endured humiliations. He went to bars. He tried to talk to women. It was horrible. He was almost thirty years old! In a college town like Syracuse, they had a name for people like Mark, and it wasn't "graduate student in the department of history." It was creep. creep. He bought girls drinks, as if he could afford to buy drinks; he asked them to dance, as if he knew how to dance; and then, alone, he stumbled home, or stumbled to his car, in which case he and the car stumbled home together. He bought girls drinks, as if he could afford to buy drinks; he asked them to dance, as if he knew how to dance; and then, alone, he stumbled home, or stumbled to his car, in which case he and the car stumbled home together.

One night, driving-stumbling home through the empty Syracusean streets after a wasted night in the bars of Armory Square, he saw a girl on a street corner near the horrific highway underpa.s.s, crying. The girl looked like she'd fallen through the s.p.a.ce-time continuum, out of a dance club in Manhattan into the scariest part of Syracuse, so scary there wasn't even a gas station in sight; it was so scary that even drunken, careless Mark had rolled up his windows and turned down his radio, just in case. In addition to the usual horrors, the Syracuse Post-Standard Syracuse Post-Standard had been filled that week with the arrest of a man who for nearly a decade had been kidnapping teenage girls on the street and keeping them in a kind of dungeon he'd built under a shed in his backyard. Eventually he'd blindfold them, drive back to where he found them, and leave them there, and when they went to the police, unable to say where they'd been and who had done this, the police didn't believe them. Now Mark was not a teenage girl, but the crying teenage girl was a teenage girl, and so he pulled his car over in an especially nonthreatening manner and asked, before the girl could become frightened, if she was all right. had been filled that week with the arrest of a man who for nearly a decade had been kidnapping teenage girls on the street and keeping them in a kind of dungeon he'd built under a shed in his backyard. Eventually he'd blindfold them, drive back to where he found them, and leave them there, and when they went to the police, unable to say where they'd been and who had done this, the police didn't believe them. Now Mark was not a teenage girl, but the crying teenage girl was a teenage girl, and so he pulled his car over in an especially nonthreatening manner and asked, before the girl could become frightened, if she was all right.

"I lost my friends!" the girl said, and burst spectacularly into tears. "I was walking and then I lost them and I kept walking. Oh!"

"Hey," said Mark, trying to sound educated and adult as he stepped out of his car. American English was such a flattened tongue by now that it might have been hard to tell-from a few monosyllables-that Mark had once been considered a very promising scholar, in his field. The best he could do was sound grown-up. He moved away from the car a step and left the door open so that the light lit up the car's interior, empty as it was of bandits and fiends. "I can drive you, if you'd like," said Mark.

The girl hesitated, sobbed, and then, after peering into the empty car, nodded her head OK and sobbed once more. She was a soph.o.m.ore at the nearby teachers' college, she told Mark; she had long brown hair and a tube top-she was perhaps twenty years old. The girl's b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed forward against the fabric of her top, which pressed back and dented them slightly, you could see, on the side, just below her shoulder. Mark's stomach clenched. He drove her to her campus. If he were still a man married to Sasha, this would have been an odd situation, nothing more. But things had changed-and Mark, apparently, had changed. He began to wonder if the girl might like him; she seemed to lean toward him a little in the car. What is more, she had stopped crying, and she had gone out of her way, Mark thought, to tell him that she and her boyfriend had broken up just the other day, which is why she had got so drunk with her friends, and then they'd become separated, oh!, and Mark for his part was also reasonably drunk, though he'd sobered up somewhat, and finally, the point is, when Mark dropped her off at her dorm, which she looked at and pointed out as they pulled up, then turned to thank him-there was Mark's face, trying to kiss her! The girl jumped back in her seat, turned her head to the side, so that Mark kissed her clumsily on the cheek. Almost immediately she began to cry again. "I'm sorry," she said, apologizing for it wasn't clear what, and getting out of the car. "I'm not feeling well. Thank you for driving me." And walked briskly up to her dorm.

In Mark's entire life-a life of embarra.s.sment, awkwardness, s.e.xual fumbling, occasional drunken throwing up on people's couches, a really stupid major penalty in his senior-year game against Deerfield, and other a.s.sorted Liebknecht-isms-he had never felt more ashamed. He was a monster! And a loser! But first and foremost a monster! If Jeff, his saintly dissertation adviser, could see him now. Mark was disgusting. He went home and had another beer and tried to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e to some p.o.r.nographic photos on the Internet-but they were too small, or partly obscured, because Mark was too cheap and too embarra.s.sed to pay the four dollars a month, or whatever it was, to have them normally displayed.

The third period of Mark's mourning was even worse-more expensive, more humiliating, more emotionally damaging all around. It consisted of dating. This, Mark knew from watching television, was the prime historical movement of his time: it was the biggest industry, the most potent narrative device. It was bigger than s.e.x, bigger than p.o.r.nography. Dating, Dating, builder of cities. And Mark, of course, wanted to be current, he wanted to be historical, to partic.i.p.ate in the truth regime as it was now const.i.tuted: to date, in other words, with maximum anonymity, without the safety nets of parental and social networks, potluck dinners, and work parties. It was the only way to find out, for sure, who Mark was. builder of cities. And Mark, of course, wanted to be current, he wanted to be historical, to partic.i.p.ate in the truth regime as it was now const.i.tuted: to date, in other words, with maximum anonymity, without the safety nets of parental and social networks, potluck dinners, and work parties. It was the only way to find out, for sure, who Mark was.

So Mark dated. At home after his few duties at the university, he would log on to the Internet dating sites and send out a dozen personal messages to a dozen different women; he also, to widen his search, set up a profile that indicated he was in New York City. It was the way of the times, and Mark believed in the times. Unfortunately there were limits, certain formal parameters he had to observe. He could not post a photo along with his profile, for example, for fear that Sasha would be checking in on him, and in fact every message he ever exchanged with a girl-there weren't very many-was vetted by a subcommission Mark set up, inside his head, to make sure it wasn't actually Sasha in disguise. If he couldn't be sure, he didn't write back, and in this way his already tiny pool of willing women grew tinier still.

Nonetheless, for all the good it did him, he managed to secure some dates. J., one of his three New York dates (the only one that did not end with him sleeping in the 4Runner), lived in a tiny studio on 80th and Amsterdam, the nicest neighborhood in the city, decorated with posters of Al Pacino movies from the early 1980s, so anonymous, so casually everyone's favorite movies, that a desolation spread over Mark. He was drunk. S., from Ithaca, took him to her capacious sunny first-floor 2-BR, with wood everything and perfect place settings and fifteen books, total, on the shelf. D., who lived in a strange housing complex, with a little fake pond, somewhere between Ithaca and Syracuse, occupied a third-floor apartment with worn brown carpeting and toddler noisemakers for-what? a little girl? She hadn't mentioned that to Mark at the bar.

"It's OK," D. a.s.sured him. "She's spending the night with my ex."

Ex-husband, that is, with whom she'd had a child. Mark was stunned; D. was his age exactly.

And it wasn't as if, once in their rooms, things had gone so well for Mark. In New York, J. pa.s.sed out on her twin bed. Mark lay next to her for a while, calling her name, "J.? J.? J.?," and finally went to the couch to sleep. In Ithaca, S. suddenly froze as they entered her bedroom. "I just can't," she said. "I just can't." "OK," said Mark, "we don't have to now." "I mean I don't know if I'll be able to later, either," she answered. S. was kind of strange; she'd held a long argument with the waiter at dinner about the wine. "OK," said Mark. S. began crying, and motioning for him to go, and he went, stopping at the all-night gas station on the edge of town to pick up a big black coffee that churned his insides out for the whole hour's drive back to Syracuse. D., whose little daughter was staying with her ex, was the only one willing to live up to the dating bargain. And Mark was also willing! But in truth he had gone home with D. largely out of principle-the photo she'd e-mailed him was at least five years old-and now he found to his dismay that he could not do what he had come to do. D. was kind and understanding, and let him stay the night. In the morning he saw that pulling up to the building he'd neglected to put his car into first-a forgetful man under any circ.u.mstances, Mark used first gear as his parking brake-and while he had ignominiously failed in D.'s cheap rooms his 4Runner had rolled backward across the small parking lot, off-roaded it over the little lawn, and landed in the fake pond behind the housing complex. The SUV stood now in the middle of the little lake, and the waves as they rose didn't even lap its m.u.f.fler, and its alarm had failed to sound. Mark took off his shoes, it was summer, and rolled up his jeans and walked out to the car.

Still, for all his failures, he had heard so many things. "New York is a tough place," said J. "You might be the best-looking person in a room, but there will be someone smarter, or you might be the smartest but there will be someone better looking." Then she pa.s.sed out. "I just find the guys at work so mean and hurtful," S. told him at dinner. She worked in the administration at Cornell. "My ex broke the mirror in the bathroom last week because he saw I had an Internet profile," said D. "But if I get a restraining order now, how are we going to share custody?"

And Mark, who was so used to Sasha, who was so used to being kind to Sasha, wanted to say to them: No, no, you are splendid. You are the best-looking and smartest girl in New York; your coworkers are idiots; your ex doesn't deserve you and you should get him out of your life. And to make sure of that I will stay here and repeat this daily. There is no one like you.

But he'd done that once before and now, un-Liebknecht-like, he refrained. You couldn't just go around saying that to people.

Celeste was not calling. The afternoon, the Friday afternoon, moved and waned, but Celeste did not call. Mark was in his apartment, staring at a phone that had become-after eight weeks of Celeste's streaky calling practices-a kind of techno-death trap for the phone calls of Celeste. At first he'd simply used *69 whenever he got home, but that was expensive, and so he'd ordered unlimited *69. Unlimited *69 was good-sometimes he'd dial it just for fun-but it was not enough, because it only recorded the last call, and the trace of Celeste, he realized, could be obliterated by a Sasha call, or a call from Papa Grossman-and so finally Mark ordered flat-out Caller ID, and received, in the mail, a little Caller ID box, for which he bought batteries separately. This was enough, this was basically enough-and yet he worried, now, on this lonely Friday, that Celeste could simply block her number, clever Celeste, and that the cordless's ring was too weak, and he was playing his stereo too loud (all the hip-hop he'd missed, while married, now played on a continuous loop from the overlarge speakers-"Y'all can't floss floss on my level," Mark might have sung along now, if he'd been in a better mood), and also his hearing wasn't so great to begin with, truth be told, and so, in short, at long last, he simply thrust the receiver down his pants. "There!" he said to the empty apartment. "When the phone call comes, I will feel it like a man." on my level," Mark might have sung along now, if he'd been in a better mood), and also his hearing wasn't so great to begin with, truth be told, and so, in short, at long last, he simply thrust the receiver down his pants. "There!" he said to the empty apartment. "When the phone call comes, I will feel it like a man."

But it was not coming. He was in the fourth and terminal period of his mourning for Sasha. He had stopped looking to the Internet for dates-you spent eight hours on the computer, an hour in the car, and at the end of it was, well, another human being, who'd have been easier to meet in more human environments. He was still, it must be said, painfully awkward around grown-up and non-grown-up women, but he had met Celeste at a party in New York, and she had responded to him. By her education, her wit- she was a reporter for one of the big newsweeklies, and her tongue was sharp-and by her style, she was a category higher than everyone Mark had been out with since Sasha. That she had a boyfriend only proved it. Now events had reached a crisis. On Tuesday, they had talked about his coming down; on Wednesday he had pressed the issue; on Thursday, they didn't talk, and Mark bravely refused to call, and went to sleep early to avoid temptation. Now it was Friday, and here we were.

More than that, it was four o'clock on Friday; outside, the people of Syracuse were gathering provisions for the long weekend, their cheap wines and jugs of rum and frozen pizzas and romantic comedies. In Syracuse it was better to stay drunk and drugged, and the Syracuseans knew it. On the news it was emerging that the man with the dungeon in his backyard had forced the captured girls to read to him from the Bible, before raping them. Nonetheless the city authorities were still planning to build an enormous mall, the biggest mall in America, on the outskirts of town.

If Celeste did not call soon, Mark would have no choice but to attend the history department potluck that night. He would have to get drunk; he would have to snort pharmaceuticals up his nose; and he might find himself in a situation with Leslie, and then what? He didn't think Leslie was very nice, for one thing, and for another, once out with someone in your department that was it; you were under strict surveillance from then on, at least in Syracuse. Whereas Mark loved Celeste. She came to him from the great world, from which he'd been shut out so long; she represented the possibility of conversation, conversation, of banter, which he'd never really had; and most of all, above all, most incredibly of all, she lived in New York. He loved New York. of banter, which he'd never really had; and most of all, above all, most incredibly of all, she lived in New York. He loved New York.

Celeste was not calling because she had a boyfriend. This did not trouble Mark, very much: all women had boyfriends. The great Ulinsky once said that the Bolsheviks did not seize power-it was lying in the street, they merely picked it up. Mark was not a Bolshevik, however; he did not expect to find a presentable woman of anti-imperialist views lying on First Avenue, or East Genessee. Indeed he would have been suspicious. Women did not leave their men for nothing-they left them for other men. And Mark himself, though he did not leave Sasha for another woman, did leave her for the idea idea of other women-all the non-Sashas out there, he saw them daily at the Starbucks, at the library, wearing fitted sweats, wearing hundred-dollar sungla.s.ses, promising and promising. And who knew? of other women-all the non-Sashas out there, he saw them daily at the Starbucks, at the library, wearing fitted sweats, wearing hundred-dollar sungla.s.ses, promising and promising. And who knew?

So it wasn't her boyfriend that troubled him; it was the position he was in now, and the looming danger of his ridiculousness. Just three days earlier, they'd been flirting on the phone. She was going to Detroit for the nation's biggest auto convention-she was the magazine's correspondent for odd stories, which were often odd criminal stories, and off she often went.

"Come by Syracuse on the way back from Detroit," Mark had offered.

"What's in Syracuse?"

"Misery. Depopulation. College kids getting mugged."

"That's not really national news."

"It will be eventually when the nation is all colleges and ghettos, colleges and ghettos. You should see this place."

"I would, Marky-poo, but it's not like I can just go where I please. Plus where would I stay?"

"You could stay with me. I'd sleep on the futon."

"No you wouldn't."

"You're right. My futon's covered with books about the Russian Revolution."

"No it's not!" said Celeste, and laughed. He could almost see it through the phone, the most glamorous laugh, he'd noticed it the first time they'd met at the party on East 11th Street, her mouth opening wide, and her head tilting back. She'd held out her hand, as if for balance.

No, Mark was not a Bolshevik. He found their tactics-and their rhetoric, their dogmatism, their secret police-appalling. But one thing he had learned from the Bolsheviks: history helps those who help themselves. Yest' takaya partiya! Yest' takaya partiya!-Lenin's battle cry in 1917. We are that party, baby. Mark couldn't get over what a bunch of f.u.c.kers the Bolsheviks were. They yelled "Fire" in a crowded room, as Ulinsky once put it, and then took over.

Well, Mark was a f.u.c.ker too.

"I'll come to New York then," he said. "We'll have a date."

"I can't have a date, Mark."