Damn it, I still can't figure out how to turn these pictures ninety degrees. Does anyone know?
Not to humiliate an extremely responsible, respectable, humane, dedicated husband and father who spends the daylight being an important human-rights activist, but the first time I met Graeme was his birthday, and he was unutterably drunk. “Shooollmeetyouflunch,” he said, which, roughly translated, was “Sure, I’ll meet you for lunch.” Thankfully, at the time I was speaking the same language.
It didn't stop our first meeting from getting canceled. Graeme, mysteriously, was under quarantine for smallpox. It was such an improbable excuse that I believed it—how could anyone ever get away with making that up? Happily, he never succumbed, and we met, finally, at a tavern on Wall Street that’s supposedly existed since 1656. It looked like what the interior decorator of Cheesecake Factory would come up with, given a snifter of brandy and a bottle of Valium: damask banquettes, a plaster ceiling meant to simulate pressed tin, and a plastified menu offering Maryland crab cakes, Cuban sandwiches, penne pomodoro, and tuna melts. The service was straight Cheesecake: a big glass of ice water, ridged for easy stacking, arrived immediately and never went empty. The table of suits lunching at the next table was having a spirited discussion about immigration. From one particularly eloquent fatass: “I’m thinking about crossing Mexico and coming back illegal so that I can collect checks too.”
Graeme showed up, the color of metal. He wore a lucent white cambric shirt with a flat, Nehru-style collar, close-cropped curls colored pepper with a hint of salt, a plain, flat silver men’s watch and a wedding ring. Even his face had a hint of silver to it, like salmon skin.
