The Best of Youth

by Michael Dahlie

  7

  IT DIDN’T TAKE more than a few weeks for plans along these lines to unfold. About a week or so into November, Abby proposed another visit for the two of them over Christmas.

  Holidays were, needless to say, a troubling matter for Henry because he had lost his parents. It was true that he was on good terms with plenty of relatives from assorted branches of the family and he managed to see them every so often. Some lived in the city, others in Connecticut, and still others in places like California and Washington, D.C., although he saw these particular people with much less frequency. Festive events, of course, provided the main occasion for visits, but ever since Henry’s parents had died, he shied from these sorts of things because, rather than making him feel safe and secure in the bosom of family, he found that he mostly felt very lonely and missed his parents terribly.

  For this reason, Henry found that he liked to spend holidays alone. The first time around it was a bit hard, but this was mostly because he felt as if he were missing out on something, not because he was staring into the abyss of death and misery. And staring into the abyss of death and misery was obviously much worse than missing a happy event. Henry did, the previous year, try having Thanksgiving dim sum with some foreign friends, but these people, who had no reason at all to celebrate Thanksgiving, seemed just a bit too interested in why he wasn’t with family over the holiday, and he didn’t particularly like having to explain himself on this matter. Mostly, what he liked to do on holidays was walk around and drink coffee and read and think (in a pleasant way) about what he had loved most about his mother and father. The fact was that this was generally what he liked to do anyway, and perhaps it was the routine and the ordinariness that gave Henry some relief from contemplating the unhappiness of it all.

  That particular Christmas, however, Henry decided to agree to the plan proposed by Abby. “I know you’re a strict loner at Christmas,” she had said. (They were drinking wine and eating a small dish of roasted Brussels sprouts at some sort of Czech restaurant.) “And that’s totally cool. But my aunt and uncle are going to be in the Caribbean, in St. Croix, for the week of Christmas, and their caretaker has plans as well, and they’ve asked me to head up to Vermont to keep an eye on the place. I’ll go up on Christmas Day—after presents and breakfast at home—and you could meet me then. Or you could even go up on Christmas Eve and have the place to yourself. No one else will be there. The caretaker is leaving that day for Cleveland or somewhere for a few days, so you can still do your I-want-to-be-alone thing.”

  “Well, it’s very nice of you to invite me,” Henry said. “And maybe I’ll take you up on it. Let me think. I probably shouldn’t say yes right away.”

  But it did seem to Henry as he first considered the offer that he probably would, in fact, take Abby up on it. Henry really had liked the farm. And he especially liked the goats. And if he was alone at least until the afternoon of Christmas Day, that seemed like it would be all right. As far as he was concerned, it was Christmas Eve that had always counted most, and the holiday had always felt over by noon of Christmas Day anyway. And the fact was that Henry thought it would be fun to spend time with Abby, even if he was still concerned that he hadn’t quite left his crush behind. At any rate, it didn’t take more than a day for Henry to consider it all. He called Abby at the place where she was house-sitting in Park Slope to tell her that he’d love to come.

  “I like the idea of at least spending an afternoon over Christmas with someone I know,” he said.

  “I like that idea too,” Abby replied.

  8

  AND HENRY REALLY was looking forward to the trip, but he did have several other issues that were also occupying his thoughts.

  First, there was the matter of Suckerhead, which had an organizational meeting one evening at a place called Tamerlane, a bar that offered beers of the Pabst Blue Ribbon sort, a wide array of grilled sandwiches, and, for reasons Henry couldn’t quite understand, an extraordinarily expensive wine list, which included several bottles that went for over $300.

  Henry did like Tamerlane quite a bit, though. It had old leaded windows and pressed-tin ceilings and antler chandeliers (which were clearly not original but gave the bar a sort of old-time feel). And the music was always good. Henry didn’t really know that much about music, other than the things that all people in Brooklyn knew, but he found that the bartender’s iPod always seemed to have interesting material on it.

  The organizational meeting consisted of twenty-three people—the various editors, editors-at-large, a publicity person who had a day job at Simon & Schuster, and even an astonishingly handsome young man of British origins who had the unlikely name of Whitney. It was all just a little unnerving to Henry, for several reasons, but most on his mind was the fact that the fiction editor was still reviewing the story he had submitted. On this front, Henry mostly felt embarrassed. After all, he was using an unfair advantage to publish his work, and how would it look for him to appear in the magazine, given that he was himself an editor-at-large (and the principal financier)? But he assured himself that this sort of thing happened all the time. “This is how publishing gets done,” he even once said to himself out loud, parroting something he had once heard at the magazine where he had interned. Still, the fiction editor seemed oblivious to Henry’s anxiety and didn’t say a word about his story even though they greeted each other warmly before the meeting started. The fiction editor, named Max, had even introduced Henry to his new girlfriend as “a fellow writer and important patron of the magazine.” This made Henry feel a little uneasy—the word “patron” evoked memories of charitable widows in Lexington, Mass, who doled out money to gardening clubs.

  But Henry was quickly released from his discomfort because he suddenly found himself entirely taken with the fact that this woman he’d been introduced to—Sasha was her name—had more tattoos than anyone he’d ever met, even ones that crept up her neck to her face. Henry was not a prude about this kind of self-expression. He admired such things, or so he told himself as he said hello to Sasha. But just as he said, “Nice to meet you,” she was distracted by another friend who’d just arrived and only managed to give Henry a quick smile before turning away, leading Henry to believe suddenly that he ought to take a more dismissive position toward people with tattoos. After all, Henry was now convinced, this was precisely the kind of woman who tended to dislike him, generally using words like “dull” and “tiresome” if the subject of his character or personality came up.

  At any rate, the meeting soon began, and Henry sat quietly in a corner listening to reports on things like advertising, typefaces, the possibilities of color art, and whether or not they should solicit work from poets with whom the poetry editor had studied. The main topic, though, was where they should have their printing done. One of the associate editors, a woman named Karen, whom Henry had always found very attractive, had been researching the possibility of sending the work to a printer in a developing country. This was, in fact, not such a far-fetched idea, and certainly many publishers had books and magazines printed in countries other than the United States. Karen had concluded, though, that the best place to have Suckerhead produced was at a company in Ontario, Canada, “because they’re totally green, they pay their employees well, and, frankly, there’s not going to be any hassle. These guys are pros.”

  There was quite a bit of debate following this, including the obvious point, raised by several people, that Canada was not, technically speaking, a developing country. But Karen made fairly complex arguments about uncertain labor practices, questionable workmanship, and environmental issues in the other locations she looked into. Henry, at least, was impressed, although he made an effort to evaluate the matter carefully, from all perspectives and divorced from the fact that he really did find Karen attractive.

  And after the meeting was over, Henry was surprised to find himself delivering a fairly well reasoned explanation of his views to Karen over beers at the bar, where he said things like, “It real
ly seems you’ve done a very thorough job with all this,” and “I really think you’re onto something with this Canada idea.”

  Perhaps more surprising, Karen seemed to be interested in everything he was saying, including his views on modern literature, the viability of print literary journals in the electronic age, and even his opinions on visual art, something Henry knew very little about. Karen, in fact, responded to most of what he was saying by replying, “Yeah, I think that’s right,” and “I never really thought of it that way, but that’s pretty interesting.”

  And after all this, after what Henry decided was truly an exciting conversation, Karen finally suggested that they grab something to eat. “Let’s go to ‘404.’ Texas barbecue. Just opened. It’s supposed to be great.”

  “That sounds good to me,” Henry replied, and, after visiting the men’s room, he soon found himself walking under the BQE on his way to dinner.

  In the spirit of authenticity (which, of course, New York was famous for), 404 sold its food by the pound from one of various “stations,” and if it was meat it was wrapped in beige waxed butcher’s paper. (Sides such as baked beans and coleslaw were served in white Styrofoam containers with opaque plastic lids with straw holes.) Henry and Karen decided to buy a pound of brisket and a pound of pork ribs, two orders of beans, and one order of coleslaw. It was far too much. That was obvious. But they had been drinking, and they were having fun together, so it seemed reasonable to make a celebration of the evening. In this spirit they also each got a beer and a shot of Maker’s Mark, and before long they were seated at a long table surrounded by other diners and with clusters of condiments and rolls of paper towels laid out before them at regular three-foot intervals.

  “I’m really excited to be here,” Karen said as she unwrapped the pork ribs.

  “Yeah, it’s a really cool place,” Henry replied. “I’m glad we came.” He looked down at the ribs and started to wonder if there was a dignified way to pull the fat off one before eating it. He wanted to do what was appropriate. But Karen quickly grabbed a rib from the pile and shoved the end in her mouth without any of the trimming Henry was planning, and thus Henry did the same, eating the fat with feigned abandon.

  In any event, the food was magnificent (as was the bourbon) and the conversation flowed well, and as the piles of paper-wrapped meat diminished, Henry started to wonder if he ought to start planning out his next moves. After all, this was precisely the sort of occasion where young men in Brooklyn ended up having sex—as far as he could tell—and if sex was a possibility, he should certainly have a plan.

  It turned out, though, that no plan was needed. Near the end of dinner, Karen took a large bite of coleslaw, nibbled on the end of a rib, and then said, “Why don’t you come over to my place after we’re done here? My housemate’s out of town. We could have another drink. And then maybe we could sleep together.”

  Needless to say, this particular proposal was stunning for an almost endless number of reasons. Mostly, though, it seemed to be very clear evidence of something that Henry had long suspected—that sex for everyone else was an entirely natural and easy arrangement, and (and this was the important corollary to this suspicion) Henry was somehow, due to a kind of cosmic injustice, excluded from this easy sexual exchange—excluded for reasons that Henry could never quite decipher but which he imagined had to do with his outrageous self-consciousness, unreasonable fears of perfectly normal things, and the general confusion that he seemed to feel when he was around women.

  It was a very interesting matter. But Karen’s was not a complex proposal, and Henry had to answer with some ease and speed if he was to keep up this spirit of casual intimacy. “That sounds cool to me,” Henry finally said.

  Henry ate the rest of his brisket with alarming speed, and soon he was back at Karen’s apartment in Greenpoint, sipping another glass of bourbon and wondering (again) just how to make the first move. But Karen once more took the lead, kissing Henry and slowly unbuttoning his jeans, and before long Henry found himself in precisely the sort of heroic and, to Henry’s surprise, just a bit raw situation he had always wanted to be in with Karen.

  9

  AND (to Henry’s happy astonishment) they saw each other again. Six times, in fact, by Henry’s exact count, and each time was the same: an indulgent dinner of fatty meat and distilled alcohol followed by interesting bedroom acts that kept Henry in a state of delight and self-congratulation well into the next day.

  Still, it was hard to say what all this meant. They were both in their mid-twenties, after all, and in this day and age exclusivity had to be affirmed and not assumed, as Henry sadly found out when he first arrived in Brooklyn. And Henry could never quite escape the suspicion that Karen was just a bit too good for him—just a little too attractive and a little too savvy. But by the sixth date (now the first week in December) he felt some small amount of confidence. Henry decided that perhaps this so-called relationship might have some kind of future. However (and this, sadly, surprised Henry not one bit), the whole thing ended very badly.

  It had been decided, after some discussion, that people friendly with other people Henry knew were gathering to watch the New England Patriots play the New York Jets at a bar on Metropolitan Avenue, a bar which was known for having several popular video games. The idea for this particular gathering had started with Karen, who had proposed it to a friend in an email (as such things were done then), an email which had been (quite thoughtlessly, as it turned out) forwarded to subsequent people and, finally, after perhaps thirty people had received it, to Henry. The thing was that the first email, the email that had proposed the plan, included (obviously due to a careless and also catastrophic mistake) information about Henry, and Karen’s feelings toward him. In response to a mercifully deleted question, it said the following:

  Yeah. Henry. Strange guy. Or not strange as much as a bore. Milquetoast, as my mom says. But all that money he’s got is pretty appealing. Ha, but even that’s not enough for me to stick around. Only taking one for the team! All for the good of Suckerhead’s finances! Oh, and one thing I’ve got to say, because I’ve got to tell somebody, is that he makes the freakiest facial expressions during sex. Crazy shit.

  Henry was so completely startled as he finished reading this (again, it was far at the beginning of a long string of emails) that he found he had an absolutely shocking and adrenaline-fueled sense of awareness of every single aspect of just how terrible this was. The fact that he was called milquetoast and a bore was, needless to say, entirely demoralizing. Worse was that somehow the sex had been turned into a type of painful barter for the $30,000 he’d put up for the magazine, and the future money they’d probably need. More worse, and his hair really did feel like it was standing on end when he contemplated this, was that he made strange (and clearly disturbing) faces when he had sex. And the worst of all (by far the worst): people around Brooklyn now knew about these particular faces he made. Karen was telling people. And even if she wasn’t telling a lot of people, it was now on an email circulating throughout Williamsburg. How long would it be before some other person read back to the beginning of the exchange and then posted his discovery on one of the then-new and popular social networking sites?

  It was all more than Henry could bear. And after just two or three seconds of the adrenaline-fueled awareness, his thoughts began to dissolve, and, without any ability to stop himself, he burst into tears.

  He was at home and he was alone. At least he had that. Henry had, on more than one occasion, burst into tears in public, so he was happy, at least, that he wasn’t using some café’s Wi-Fi and weeping into his coffee.

  The crying lasted for nearly five minutes, but then quickly subsided, although the agony did not, and soon he was walking alone through Williamsburg with his collar pulled tight around his neck and wondering how he was going to get through all this. He began thinking about those relatives he had in California and how he had always had a vague desire to live close to a proper, sun-drenched beach. But
after that fantasy ceased and he concluded that he would actually not be that happy spending more than a month or so living on the beach, as it were, he decided that what he really needed to do was take some sort of action. If not an angry phone call or a hostile email, then, at the very least, the announcement that he was not interested in going out with Karen again. Surprisingly, however, by the time he got home, now just a few hours after his horrifying discovery, Henry found that he had an email from Karen, canceling their next date and adding, almost as an afterthought, that she had decided that they probably shouldn’t be romantically involved anymore. Of course, in this era, especially in Williamsburg, it had long been entirely appropriate to break up with someone on email, and this wasn’t even a breakup, given the fact that they had only gone out on a handful of dates. Still, Henry wondered if she hadn’t suddenly realized that she had disseminated her offensive thoughts about him and decided to bail out before he did. Henry even formulated a long email response that accused her of this, discussing the importance of privacy, the lack of care and kindness in our troubling world, and how it was nobody’s business—not even that of her closest friends—what he looked like while having sex.

  It felt good to write this hostile email. In the end, though, Henry decided not to send it, thinking it would only make him look worse, and probably be more fodder for Karen to make fun of him to her friends.

  And so he abandoned his email, and began to cope with his feelings of humiliation by starting work (and it actually went very, very well in those next hours) on a story he had long wanted to write about a ninety-year-old man who had to struggle with the sorrow of having to commit his hundred-and-six-year-old mother to a nursing home. This project took him well into the night, and, mercifully, through the next week and a half. And, with some amount of thanks for the distraction, Henry even sent it out to several literary journals as soon as he had finished, although, given the odds and his recent luck, it seemed likely that he would not be particularly successful with this project either.