Month: September 2017

All the fun and games started at 43rd and Warwick. The two-bedroom apartment housed three of us—me, a college friend of mine, and former submariner and hopeful radio personality who was into vitamin supplements and Scientology. My roommates took the bedrooms and I made a room of the solarium—a windowed…

Udo was not an icebreaker. He also wasn’t one to put his foot down. I recognized the tendency as fear. I possessed plenty of it. When I didn’t want to make a decision, I left it to the group or whoever I happened to be with. “What would you want?”…

Silence filled the house. Down in the basement apartment, where Nick, Virginia, and I were staying, the roots of a grapevine adorned with colored glass drops floated in a corner. Markus’ paintings of hairy-footed horses—like Clydesdales—hung on the walls. The horses all seemed to be in motion, running, something that…

Things—actions, interests, motivations—come to me in phases. I get into a new thing and exhaust it, wear it to death. I think what happens is that I figure whatever I’m doing out and move on to the next challenge. I will become the master of almost nothing. I don’t have…

We’d been bumbling along two-lane French highways for almost six days. We’d been out to see things. We didn’t rush and run. But all that cross-county movement took its toll on Udo, Virginia, and Nick. They were as ready for a rest as I was to continue. As we neared…