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Lincoln is late for the movie, and Flam is cross—he’s finally had his big date, and he’s eager to dish the details. Instead, they have to rush to claim the last two empty seats in the small screening room buried in a nondescript Loop office building. “Last-minute crisis,” Lincoln whispers in apology as the lights go down.
Even during A Serious Man, which Lincoln likes, he can’t stop brooding about Buford’s poetry collection—or, more to the point, Lincoln can’t stop worrying about how to get rid of the guy. Detective Evinrude must have been right: the criminal complaint was just a prelude to a civil suit (and the homeowner’s policy won’t be any help—the snippy insurance agent confirmed that). Buford seems to be offering a way out through blackmail, but Pistakee obviously can’t publish him. The house has been working hard to build a reputation for quality, and L would deflate that in seconds. Lincoln can imagine the look on the faces of the Pistakee sales reps as he holds up the galleys and explains in feigned seriousness that this white-bread verse by a black man touches the pop-culture zeitgeist.
Maybe he can send Buford off to another small publishing house. Or a vanity press—for a few thousand dollars, Buford can pay to get his book printed. Lincoln slouches in his seat as the Serious Man watches his lush neighbor sunbathe in the nude. Whatever, Lincoln suspects darkly, Buford is unlikely to go for it.
After the movie, Lincoln and Flam walk north across the river to Harry Caray’s, the noisy Italian steak joint founded by the late broadcaster for the Cubs. Their waitress is young and blond and offers a faint recollection of Scarlett Johansson. She wants them to order steaks, the expensive entree. Lincoln has been trying to ration his meals of red meat, so he goes with the linguine with clam sauce. Flam is happy to engage the young woman in several minutes of flirtatious discussion before finally settling on a New York strip, medium rare.
“You’re not worried about your arteries?” Lincoln asks after the waitress has tripped off.
Flam smiles. “She was working hard,” he says.
Lincoln considers his tall friend—curled in his chair, legs tangled and arms wrapped around his soft torso, his high, intelligent brow as smooth and white as an egg. No man has ever been less sexy, Lincoln thinks. “So tell me about the big date.”
“I drove up to Avondale to pick her up. Met Mom and Dad. Very solid. Polish. Born over there. Both still have heavy accents.”
“What did they think of you?” Lincoln tries to imagine this effete, thirty-six-year-old suitor making small talk with the Old World parents of a nineteen-year-old babe.
“They seemed fine with me,” Flam says crisply, as if slightly put off by the question. “Editor at the Tribune, college degree, settled—I think they appreciated th
at I was interested in their daughter.”
“Of course. So then?”
“First we went down to see Whatever Works, the new Woody Allen movie, then I took her to dinner at Brasserie Jo. I like that place. Very French, sort of romantic. The waiter even let us speak a little French to him. We stayed late, talking. Karolina—that’s her name—Karolina really is bright and eager to learn, in the way that working-class kids embrace education without any of the quibbles and hang-ups of the rest of us.”
“What’s she studying?”
“Accounting, but she’s talking about going to law school.”
“So, what was the denouement?”
“After dinner, I drove her home. It was a beautiful evening, and we sat on the stoop and chatted. Very 1950s. Every now and then a neighbor would walk by and call out hello. It was late, but people were still out, walking their dogs. Finally, it was time to go.” Flam sits back, his eyes drifting, as if he were recalling a moment from long, long ago. “I said good night—no kiss or anything, just a sweet au revoir.”
“And that’s it?” Lincoln asks. “That was the whole date?”
Flam stiffens. “Then I went back to my apartment, took out my collection of old Playboys, and whacked off. Twice.”
Lincoln hoots. Heads turn at neighboring tables. “Jesus Christ, Flam,” he says, lowering his voice, but still laughing.
“It was the most sensually satisfying evening I’d had in years.” Flam’s narrow face barely cracks a smile.
“Why old Playboys?”
“I don’t like shaving.”
Lincoln cracks up again. He thinks: Flam knows exactly what he wants and never reaches beyond—maybe that accounts for his unchanging demeanor of calm authority (the quality that won him the job of literary editor, Lincoln has always suspected). Or maybe (less charitably) he’s calm because he lives a kind of meta-life, essential experiences several degrees removed from perilous reality. “Are you going to see her again?”
“I see her every day at Starbucks. Nothing has changed. Whether we go out again...” Flam wraps himself in his arms and shrugs.
The next morning at work, Lincoln tries to borrow some of Flam’s cool detachment in an e-mail to Tony Buford. He thanks the writer for sharing his poems. He offers, somewhat honestly, that the work shows imagination and a care for language. He posits that the poems might well find an enthusiastic audience. With the cushioning in place, however, Lincoln gets tough: several years ago, Pistakee made a firm decision not to publish poetry, and the house intends to hold to that resolve. Lincoln names a few other small publishers in the Midwest who might be interested, but doesn’t insult with the suggestion of a vanity press. Then he dropkicks Buford with a concluding sentence: “We appreciate your interest, and good luck with your writing career.”
Seconds after hitting the SEND icon on his e-mail, Lincoln is tucking Buford’s manuscript into a new envelope (all that heavy, expensive paper—the guy will probably want the hard copy back) when the phone rings. “Tony Buford is on the line,” says Kim, the receptionist.
“Shit.”
“What?” says the clueless young woman. “Oh, should I tell him you’re in a meeting?”
Lincoln quickly decides that putting Buford off risks another office visit or worse. “I’ll take it.”
