If she thought I was there, her behavior would change. She’d look for me, look at me, and the unknown mysterious maybe-person would pick up on it. I made some reassuring sounds that I would find a way to check things out.

Was someone watching me? It seemed likely.

Elizabeth said that Kaylee Biggs Posey had slipped her leash and come to the office unobserved. Maybe. Maybe not. If her minders had tracked her, they might have picked up on me. All things considered, it seemed sensible to be armed. If things did go off the rails, better a gun that traced back to someone else. I went to my hiding place, lifted the rock, opened the box, and took out Elizabeth’s little hot pink and black Glock 43.

It was a wet, windy, ugly night. Traffic was slow. I was late. It was hard to find a parking spot. I ended up farther away than I wanted to be.

The wind came in gusts, abrupt and hard, blowing the rain sideways. I don’t like umbrellas. If a hard rain is going to fall, I wear a Western hat and a duster. Imagine a ten-year-old dressing up for a Sergio Leone Western. It keeps me drier than most other things.

—

The slam was in a small theater with a stage and raked seating called, for no apparent reason, The Ballroom. It was well attended. The very few empty seats were in the back, near the corners. That suited me.

Within the first few moments, I was glad that I was late. A young black man was yelling at me about how badly oppressed he and all his people were. For a really long time. It was all true. Or close enough. I couldn’t complain about that. I agreed that black lives matter and I even believe in reparations so long as the Baptist Church and Princeton University are paying them. But I’d heard every word he was saying by 1962.

Rule #2 was: Poets are given three minutes to read their own original work.

Another excellent rule. Yet time stretched. As it did for Einstein on that trolley in Bern, making him envision relativity and change the very meaning of time.

At last it was over. There was applause. He left.

There was an introduction. A four-woman crew was next.

They had not simply memorized their material; they had created an act, individual bits, echoed responses, and moments when they all recited together. They were angry. As well they should have been. For the abuse, exploitation, and body shaming they had suffered. They were loud. Strident. Over and over, I thought of the question, “How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?” and the answer, “That’s not funny.” I knew that it was only my status as a privileged white male that permitted—nay, that demanded—that I respond that way and I sincerely tried to feel guilt.