that summer, for I used to go there often in the evenings to visit Laurent, unable to resist his company, though I feared he might grow tired of me. Then Iâd stand under the light of the videos, pretending not to know him, while he explained to someone the advantages of Aiwa over Sony. When he wasnât with a customer, weâd talk, or (more aptly) heâd play with one of the little credit-card-sized calculators he had in his display case, and Iâd stare at him. But I couldnât stay at the drugstore forever. After twenty minutes or so, fearful of rousing the suspicions of the ash-blond woman who was in charge of Laurent, Iâd bid him adieu, and heâd wink at me before returning to his work. That wink meant everything to me. It meant my life. Powered by it, I might walk for miles afterwards down the Rue de Rivoli, along the Seine, across the brilliant bridges to the Latin Quarter, filled in summer with joyous young Americans singing in the streets, eating take-out couscous, smiling and laughing just to be there. Often friends from college were among their number. Weâd wave across the street as casually as if we were seeing each other in New York. It astonishes me to think how many miles I must have charted that summer, zigzagging aimlessly across theParisian night for love of Laurent. It was almost enough, walking like that, wanting him. That wink was almost enough.
Laurent had been to America only once, when he was fourteen. His parents had sent him to New York, where he was to meet an aunt who lived in Washington, but the auntâs son was in a car accident and she couldnât come. For a week he had stayed alone at the Waldorf-Astoria, a little French boy who didnât speak English, instructed by his mother to avoid at all costs the subways, the streets, the world. These days, when the meanderings of my life take me to the giant, glittering lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, I sometimes think I see him, in his French schoolboyâs suit, hiding behind a giant ficus, or cautiously fingering magazines in the gift shop. I imagine him running down the halls, or pacing the confines of his four-walled room, or sitting on the big bed, entranced by the babbling cartoon creatures inhabiting his television.
Craig is by nature a suburbanite. He grew up in Westport, Connecticut, where his father is a prominent dermatologist and the first Jew ever admitted to the country club. One evening in college he embarrassed me by getting into a long argument with a girl from Mount Kisco on the ridiculous subject of which was a better suburbâMount Kisco or Westport. On the way back to our dorm, I berated him. âJesus, Craig,â I said, âI canât believe youâd stoop so low as to argue about a subject as ridiculous as who grew up in a better suburb.â But he didnât care. âSheâs crazy,â he insisted. âMount Kisco doesnât compare to Westport. Iâm not arguing about it because I have a stake in it, only because itâs true. Westport is much nicerâthe houses are much farther apart, and the people, theyâre just classier, better-looking and with higher-up positions. Mount Kiscoâs whereyou go on the way to Westport.â
Suburbs mattered to Craig. He apparently saw no implicit contradiction in their mattering to him at the same moment that he was, say, being given a blowjob by a law student in one of the infamous library menâs rooms, or offering me a list of call numbers that would point to the libraryâs hidden stashes of pornography. But Craig has never been given much to introspection. He is blessed by a remarkable clarity of vision, which allows him to see through the levels, the aboves and belows, that plague the rest of us. There are no contradictions in his world; nothing is profane, but then again, nothing is sacred.
He was in Europe, that same summer as me, on his parentsâ money, on a last big bash before law
Laurent had been to America only once, when he was fourteen. His parents had sent him to New York, where he was to meet an aunt who lived in Washington, but the auntâs son was in a car accident and she couldnât come. For a week he had stayed alone at the Waldorf-Astoria, a little French boy who didnât speak English, instructed by his mother to avoid at all costs the subways, the streets, the world. These days, when the meanderings of my life take me to the giant, glittering lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, I sometimes think I see him, in his French schoolboyâs suit, hiding behind a giant ficus, or cautiously fingering magazines in the gift shop. I imagine him running down the halls, or pacing the confines of his four-walled room, or sitting on the big bed, entranced by the babbling cartoon creatures inhabiting his television.
Craig is by nature a suburbanite. He grew up in Westport, Connecticut, where his father is a prominent dermatologist and the first Jew ever admitted to the country club. One evening in college he embarrassed me by getting into a long argument with a girl from Mount Kisco on the ridiculous subject of which was a better suburbâMount Kisco or Westport. On the way back to our dorm, I berated him. âJesus, Craig,â I said, âI canât believe youâd stoop so low as to argue about a subject as ridiculous as who grew up in a better suburb.â But he didnât care. âSheâs crazy,â he insisted. âMount Kisco doesnât compare to Westport. Iâm not arguing about it because I have a stake in it, only because itâs true. Westport is much nicerâthe houses are much farther apart, and the people, theyâre just classier, better-looking and with higher-up positions. Mount Kiscoâs whereyou go on the way to Westport.â
Suburbs mattered to Craig. He apparently saw no implicit contradiction in their mattering to him at the same moment that he was, say, being given a blowjob by a law student in one of the infamous library menâs rooms, or offering me a list of call numbers that would point to the libraryâs hidden stashes of pornography. But Craig has never been given much to introspection. He is blessed by a remarkable clarity of vision, which allows him to see through the levels, the aboves and belows, that plague the rest of us. There are no contradictions in his world; nothing is profane, but then again, nothing is sacred.
He was in Europe, that same summer as me, on his parentsâ money, on a last big bash before law
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