He asked me whether I found that impressive. I said that of course I did. Then he asked me if I’d like to order some. I told him I didn’t want to look younger, I’ve never wanted to look younger. He said I was in the minority on that one. I pointed out that when you look younger, people treat you like a child. That’s when he said, his words, You’re

Later, Dr. Rosenkleig told me that on the roof I had experienced the loss of the father all over again, a so-called variation on a theme. He suggested that discussing my father’s death through the lens of Paul’s disappearance might help us dig deeper, which made no sense to me, I couldn’t see what one had to do with the other, but then again Dr.

The joke was: What are the three parts of an old-fashioned stove? Answer: Lifter, leg, and poker. Your grandfather and his guests, they had been drinking, all of them laughed hard and I didn’t understand why until I was in the so-called heat of the moment with the woman who would become your mother, and so that’s why I was suddenly consumed with

There were signs on everything, there were signs on the trees, there were enormous billboards, shop signs, there was writing everywhere. My gift has always been gab, but even if I was a stronger reader I couldn’t imagine reading all of those signs, it was like driving through a crazy book, it would take a hundred years to read it all.

I had seen the plaque before, of course, the plaque hung to the side of the counter, everyone could see it, customers and employees. I had seen it and wondered whether I could ever become Employee of the Month, I had pictured it as a jewel in the crown, so to speak, befitting a man of the world, but the longer I worked at the fast-food place, the

I imagined a bus with no windshield and no back window, the bugs could pass straight through.

But one thing they don’t say is that the journey of a thousand miles usually begins with a single step in the wrong direction.

I don’t need to tell you that I can be a slow absorber, I’ve always been a slow absorber, but it’s better than the opposite, your grandfather used to say, which is to be a quick absorber, or sucker.

Paul called it the Grapevine and said that L.A. wasn’t far. He said that was the real world down there, which I did not understand until I got there and saw that it meant a place where it is impossible to make friends with everyone, there are too many people, you’d run out of time. He said that we thinkers had to stick together. That’s when I got