EARLY THAT evening, I popped a black beauty and started writing.

“You’re up,” my mother said, stopping by my room at midnight to investigate why I was hunt-and-pecking on my sister’s old portable Smith-Corona. “I’m proud of you. I told Dad if you found something you liked, you’d be able to concentrate. Should I fix you a sandwich?”

Buzzing along on the speed, the thought of food made me gag. I declined and went on working, downing another black beauty at 2:00 a.m. and finishing the article as the sun rose. Glenna had told me she woke up about seven, and after pacing my room for an hour, I called her. She said that later in the afternoon she had to go to the library at Columbia University to read through some psych journals, and we agreed to meet nearby at the West End Bar.

Glenna was a mere nine minutes late. I was at a table in back, surrounded by a rowdy bunch of jocks swilling beer, intellectuals eating hamburgers, and revolutionaries munching potato chips and debating what SDS had accomplished at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. (“Scared the country enough to vote for Nixon!” one of them shouted. “That’s what we’ll get! Nixon!”) I waved to Glenna when I saw her come in wearing a rose-and-violet batik peasant dress. She paused to say something to the radical conclave, then sat across from me.

“Is NYMSRAL part of SDS?” I asked, when the waitress had gone off with our order.

“They’re Palmer’s pals. And Robin’s—my other housemate. Palmer’s a gourmet cook, and he invites them over for dinner. They rant and rave about poverty, racism, and the war with Palmer’s beef Wellington stuck to their faces.”

Glenna rummaged through her burlap shoulder bag and extracted a paperback of Portrait of a Lady.

“I have this friend, Rick Siner,” she said, handing me the book. “He wanted to be a writer, but went to med school instead. I asked him, and he says Henry James is the great modern novelist. So I bought this for you.”

I was touched and astounded by the gift. My response was to demonstrate my masterly humor and the brassiness of my balls by saying, “I’ve read James, The Golden Bowl. And the thing is, the word fuck wasn’t in it one time.”

Like all bad jokes, it had seemed funnier when I thought of it. Spoken, it had sounded crude. Glenna didn’t laugh; she seemed confused, hurt, and I castigated myself for being a jerk. Finally, after the waitress delivered Glenna’s gin and tonic and my Jack Daniel’s, Glenna said, “You like that word?”

“What word?”

“Fuck.”

“It’s one of my favorites.”

“Then why don’t you ask me out? Or do we have to do another interview?”

I swallowed my bourbon wrong and started coughing.

“Very romantic,” she said.

Chapter 6

“WHAT’D YOU DO?” I asked my father. “Knock off Grabstein’s Deli?”

I was in the den lacing up my work boots, and Dad was sitting upright in his Barcalounger, transforming a TV tray into a smorgasbord, spreading out plates of seeded rye and pastrami, cans of soda, a jar of mustard, and a container of coleslaw.