“Yes. He wanted us to bring the baby up to be kosher. Wanted him circumcised and for Carlotta to study and convert. Carlotta got mad. She said she didn’t want the baby cut and she was going to bring him up to worship Manitou. There was kind of a row. He said he wouldn’t marry us. He practically threw us out. My folks were really upset. They had this idea that unless the rabbi approved and married us the whole thing was doomed. My mother thought that.

“Then we went around and saw all my old friends. We invited them all to the wedding. They’re all very cool now. My friend Jim, who I think I’ve told you about, is the drug king at Haverford. The word got around somehow, but he’s such a brilliant student that the philosophy department wouldn’t let them expel him so the president of the college called him in and forbade him to set foot on campus. Jim really liked that. He does all his work at home and just mails it to the professors. He says he gets a lot more work done that way.”

Sam smiled and I leaned back against the porch post. I took a drink of soda and handed the bottle to Sam. He tilted it up and the sun shone through purple onto his face and throat.

“Laura came, too, and brought some very interesting people. There was this saxophone player who’s been living for years in Tangiers. Then one day he heard a Rolling Stones album and decided to give up jazz and take up hard rock. He was very big and dark with an Afro haircut that stood out from his head about a foot. When my mother saw him she dived into the kitchen and spent the whole day of the wedding making chopped liver. Once in a while she’d stick her head through the door with a tray of drinks and things. But he’s a very loving, gentle guy. He noticed he was making her nervous so he went into the kitchen and sat talking to her. I looked in and she was feeding liver into the grinder while he turned the crank. He was saying, ‘You got too much syrup in the 7 Up in this country. It’s a real drag on your scene.’ And she was nodding away. His name was King Tut, and by the end of the party she was passing him things, saying, ‘Now, Tut, you try some of this.’”

Sam laughed and bounced his heels on the step below him.