Invisible

That’s the way I am. Life is too short for dawdling. My third-grade teacher used to tell us the same thing—with exactly those words.

I found the whole business ugly, off-kilter, sick. Perhaps I should have spoken up and told him what I thought, but I was afraid—not of Born exactly, but of causing a rift that might lead him to change his mind about our project. I desperately wanted the magazine to work, and as long as he was willing to back it, I was prepared to put up with any a

You’re a political scientist, and I’m a literature student. If you’re thinking of starting a political magazine, then count me out. We’re on opposite sides of the fence, and if I tried to work for you, it would turn into a fiasco. But if you’re talking about a literary magazine, then yes, I’d be very interested. Just because I teach international r

You and your sister are no longer the floundering, ignorant puppies you were on the night of the grand experiment, and what you are proposing now is a monumental transgression, a dark and iniquitous thing according to the laws of man and God. But you don’t care. That is the simple truth of the matter: you are not ashamed of what you feel. You love

I could dump all the money in your lap tomorrow, of course, but that wouldn’t really help you, would it? Margot is worried about your future, and if you can make this magazine work, then your future is settled. You’ll have a decent job with a decent salary, and during your off-hours you can write all the poems you want, vast epic poems about the my

I spent the next nine hours in a torment of anticipation, daydreaming through my afternoon classes, pondering the mysteries of carnal attraction, and trying to understand what it was about Margot that had worked me up to such a pitch of excitement. My first impression of her had not been particularly favorable. She had struck me as an odd and vapid

Anyway, Margot wasn’t talking about Vietnam. Yes, you might land in jail—or come home in a box two or three years from now—but she wasn’t thinking about the war. She believes you’re too good for this world, and because of that, the world will eventually crush you.

I loved my brother, Jim. When I was young, he was closer to me than anyone else. But I never slept with him. There was no grand experiment when we were kids. There was no incestuous affair in the summer of 1967. Yes, we lived together in that apartment for two months, but we had separate bedrooms, and there was never any sex. What Adam wrote was pu

I knew that Adam had a sister, but this was the first I’d heard about her being in New York—a resident of Morningside Heights, no less, and doing graduate work in English at Columbia. Two weeks later, I caught my first sight of her on campus. She was walking past Rodin’s statue of the thinker on her way into Philosophy Hall, and because of the stro

And Margot? I barely knew her. I was told she killed herself. A long time ago now—all the way back in the seventies. And Born? Last year. I think. But I’m not absolutely sure. There’s a slim chance he’s still alive somewhere.