Sam and Rennel came back for the beginning of the school year but I didn’t see them until October. It was my birthday, come to think of it, and it was really the beginning of everything that happened. It was my twentieth, worlds ago. I was attending two classes and writing lewd poems in response to some classical text I was reading. I remember I had actually gone down one night to a local spot that encouraged that sort of thing. I sat up on a stool under a spotlight and read my poems to the audience. I hid in my room for days after that, which shows that I had some sense after the fact at least. The poems were to be part of a long revelation of existence pro tem called “The Fever City Series.” These things don’t make me wince anymore; I have the excuse of time, which allows me to despise my youth without being at all responsible for most of it.

Some guilt carries over, though. I heard, by some bit of eavesdropping, that there was another poet in town, a surprise to begin with, who was also dedicating himself to the production of a volume to be titled “The Fever City Series.” At first this was infuriating, but through a further bending of the ear at this private conversation I discovered that the poet’s name was Ram Deweese. I interrupted:

“Forgive me, but is his name really Ram, or did he make it up?”

“His name is Ramses, but his friends call him Ram.”

A magical name. I had to find him. I thought of a golden nape of hair curling down his neck, a glass of wine, my eyes locked with his in the terrible struggle to communicate our affinities. I spent my twentieth birthday walking around the city, clutching a corner torn from an envelope with an address penciled on it. The backs of necks have been fatal to me at times; it was that imagined nape that drove me up one street and down another. The address, for some reason, was difficult to locate. Finally, as I passed a small dingy bungalow for the third time, the door opened and a pudgy, white-haired fellow came out with a saucer of cat food. He bent to put the saucer on the step and glanced up at me through his bleary spectacles.

“I’m looking for Ram Deweese,” I said.

He straightened. “I’m Ram Deweese.”

He had no neck. If he’d had one it would have been pink and covered with eczema. I mumbled something about having admired his poetry.

“Come in and have a drink.”