Dinner was consumed with stiff formality, to my thinking, sea trout on a bed of lentils with a coconut crème caramel for dessert, espresso and brandy. Clendon took the edge off things when he spoke of Victoria’s forthcoming show that he had arranged, using his influence with the college art department. Victoria began to talk of her paintings, which were done in the expressionist style. “I like the realists,” I said. “What I really like is that trompe l’oeil style. And I always thought Andy Warhol was totally insane and crazy. Have you ever gotten totally insane and crazy, Jason? When your daddy was little, he used to act that way. Are you ever like that, dude?”

“Yeah,” Jason said shyly.

“Warhol,” Victoria said pompously, “the early Warhol, before he was shot—”

“Where would America be without Andy Warhol?” I said. “He put his stamp on American culture. Think about it, Vickie. He invented superstars and all of that shit. It didn’t quit with the Tomato Soup Can. Andy Warhol was a genius. He—what he had, was this great radio antenna. Picked up on all of the cosmic vibrations. He just did it, I don’t think he knew the half of it. He was one of those idiot savants, I’m thinking. Your paintings are too goddamn vague, Vick. I can’t get a reading on them.”

After dinner, Jason and I went into Victoria’s studio and painted cans of Campbell’s Mushroom Soup. Made a super mess. Pissed her off royally.

In the morning I sat in on a session of Clendon’s creative writing class. It didn’t take any real brainpower to figure out who his protégé was—a bright bohemian type in black leotards and a turtleneck. She read from a novel in progress in a confident low and sexy voice. She couldn’t write and she wasn’t really pretty. What she had going for her was the bloom of youth and a headful of platinum blond hair.

She appeared at Victoria’s art showing, which was sparsely attended by the faculty, public, and student body. I stuck it through to the bitter end wondering if Larry, from the tennis club, would make an appearance, and the deeper I got into the white wine, the more I hoped he would. He did not. I met a number of Clendon’s colleagues that night and began to understand why he had nearly broken down getting his Ph.D. I remembered people like that from medical school. The English faculty had its med school counterparts—the bunch that went into psychiatric residencies. It was those types, the counterpart of those types that considered surgeons to be assholes, but if I have an assholish aspect I can only say—you better go out and get whatever you want on this trip, because this is the trip, the only trip.