I had only a limited amount of time in NY to accomplish a vast number of tasks.
The most critical was of course my annual pilgrimage to Fabulous Fanny’s to acquire not one but two new pairs of spectacles before dashing off to Chinatown, where people are willing to fill outdated and incorrect prescriptions! Nobody else panders to my desire to pretend that my vision is worse than it actually is: I love NYC.
KTS and Alison let me crash in their new place, which is so vast I hardly believed I was still in one of the boroughs. They were talking about installing either a greenhouse or a forest in some of the unused space – I am constitutionally incapable of jealousy (and love my boat) but I definitely felt flickers of envy over the wood floors and extra bathrooms!
At some point KTS commented on his new job, new wife, new home I don’t know why I’m saying this – but – I’m happy with the way things have turned out.
This was quite an admission from the most sarcastic person I’ve ever met; I’m so pleased that we are friends again, and that his life is trundling along in a manner he enjoys.
One afternoon I was wandering near Union Square and stopped at a shoe store, randomly stumbling across KTS purchasing sneakers. I laughed and laughed as he complained that nobody wants him to be their muse.
We retired to a dive bar (because, as I pointed out, we never went out drinking together at 4:30 in our actual youth – oh, to be back at the Brotherhood in 1992!) where drunk working class women kept stroking my hair as they passed on their way to mysterious errands in an absolutely filthy restroom.
In the nineteen years of our acquaintance I’ve always been strictly truthful but there are assorted topics that we’ve never discussed – to the extent I was not even aware of his first attempt at matrimony. He certainly has no idea (still) of who was sleeping with who in the circus of my student life. This means we have lots of interesting new things to talk about even though we’ve known each other forever – a bonus!
Over the course of an entirely too brief visit and a few scattered meals with Alison we chattered away about life, love, and literature. I interrogated Karl about why he has retained certain friendships and he shrugged and said They’re legacies, about history, not the present.
I’m endlessly thankful that he exercises this prerogative – otherwise, would we still know each other? I doubt it, and he is one of my favorite people ever:
