“So what you think?” Ricky asked me.
“Of what?”
Ricky nodded at his guest. “Of Sam my new boy-man.”
Sammy smiled. He had a gap between his teeth. A few hairs sprung from his pimply chin. Haircut definitely self-inflicted; there was no apparent rhyme or reason to which areas were shaven and which were left long. The resulting look was something between skate kid and surgical patient, mid-prep.
“Sammy, why don’t you tell Uncle Mike how old you are?”
“Eleven,” Sammy said. “I’m about to turn twelve.”
“C’mon,” Ricky said. “Your real age. Humor Michael.”
“I’ll be nineteen in October.”
“Sammy may be young in years,” Ricky said. “But his cock is as old as this dying empire.”
I scoped the young man’s bulge. “Doesn’t look dead to me.”
“What I mean is, it’s a cock from another time, from another era. From back when men were men.”
“Another era?”
“Michael, dear Michael, you don’t understand. It’s not your fault, you’re from a different world. Where you’re from, women are afraid of penises. Penises have been pushed at them their whole lives. Penises have been shoved in their faces, forced into their ears and down their throats.”
“Into their ears?”
“Into their ears, Mike. And who wants that, a dick in the ear? Not women, that’s for sure. Certainly no woman I’ve ever met.”
“I’m not sure I . . .”
“Let me tell you about Boys Town, where I’m from. In Boys Town, there are two types: you’re either carrying a nine-inch hammer like Sammy is, or you’ve got nothing. There’s no in-between. And now, with all this estrogen and soymilk, in this city of soft rodgerings, a nine-inch hammer is hard to come by. You should see him come, Mike, you really should. I could arrange it. Sammy, up for a quick spurt?”
Sammy touched himself through his sweats, literally weighing the option.
“Like a semen bullet,” Ricky continued. “Ten thousand tiny Samuels sprung into winter air. It’s a Nutcracker of semen, the way he can make it fly. His balls do ballet, Mike. A cock from another time.”
“A Cro-Magnon cock,” I said. “A pre-industrial dong.”
Sammy raised an eyebrow, lowered it, leaned back into the couch.
“By the way,” Ricky said. “You look terrible. Really terrible. I’m sorry to have to bring it up, but you’re like a pink elephant in the room with your pink face and fat pink stomach.”
“Thanks.”
Sammy’s penis had subsided, and so had Sammy. Within seconds he was snoring. Ricky laid a blanket over his young friend’s body.
“You ever worry?” I asked. “About corrupting these kids.”
“You know what I worry about, Mike? I worry about you. What are you gonna do with yourself?”
We might lose our jobs, but Ricky, I assumed, would be all right. Ricky was liquid. Ricky owned land in Laos, Tanzania, all the emerging markets. He had a safe in this apartment that contained a hundred thousand in American dollars plus a hedge stash of euros and yen. He even had Chinese yuan, currently worthless, pegged to nothing but its culture’s Darwinian superiority. Yuan was the cockroach of currency, the Keith Richards of capital assets—against all odds it would survive. Ricky had told me he was planning retirement. This was it for him. The economy crashes and he jets on out. He had Cuba in mind, a cheap hideout filled with tan boys thrumming for a true taste of capitalism.
“I’m writing my book,” I said. “I’m finally writing my book.”
“Your book? Oh, of course, your book! What’s the book about? White guys who want to be black, Hispanic guys who want to be gay? Something like that? Am I getting close? Can you write a book on Basic Income—what is it, thirty grand a year?”
“Twenty-three,” I said.
Ricky shook his head.
“It’s about our generation,” I said. “The book is. You know, the generation that came to capitalism too late. Remember?”
“Oh, you’re listening to me now. That’s a bad sign. Our generation? Mikey, we don’t have a generation. We’re post-generational. Rated PG if you catch my meaning.”
“Maybe that’s what the book’s about.”
“The book’s not about anything, Mike, because there is no book.”
“It’s about Eminem,” I said. “The book is about Eminem, and how his oeuvre, including the first three LPs plus 8 Mile and its soundtrack, define our generation.”
“I never knew what you saw in rap music,” Ricky said. “All that crotch-grabbing and queer-bashing—they’re all closet cases, if I say so myself, but that’s irrelevant. I want to ask you a serious question: Does the world need another book? Forget the book. Get a manicure for God’s sake. Get a back wax.”
I lifted a glass stem from the table and tapped it against my palm.
“I was thinking,” I said.
“Uh-oh. That’s never a good sign.”
“I was thinking you might be able to help me.”
“I’m not much of a writer, Mike, hard as that may be to believe. Never had time for all that i before e shit.”
“Except after c,” I said.
“See, I wouldn’t have known that. Proves my point.”
“With money, I mean. I could use some help.”
Ricky responded to this request with an expression of such unadulterated joy, that I’d continue to recall it through the mournful week that followed. I’d recall it as I drove north on the Taconic, and as I drank myself blind at our old hometown bar. And after the open-casket wake, lying sleepless in my childhood bedroom, I would try my best to swap the image of Ricky’s embalmed face with this smiling one instead. I took some comfort in the knowledge that, on his last day of life, my despair had filled Ricky with delight.
“Help you how?” he asked.
He wanted me to beg.
“Well, what would you do if you were in my situation?”
“And what exactly is your situation?
I said, “Chapter Thirteen has crossed my mind.”
This was bait. I knew that, as my best friend, he’d never let me file.
“Terrible idea, Mikey. I can see why you’re so broke, with ideas like that. Never, ever file for
