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for the new arrivals. He remained paralyzed for what seemed like an eternity, or even two, and only after he detected the crash of continents and the resulting eruption of mountains did his heart begin to beat; slowly at first and then faster, until the icy torment he had already endured became a forgotten past and like Pyrrhus and Attila he was delivered into the boiling Phlegethon, doomed to flail in a river of lava. His bones and arteries disintegrated into a glutinous mass and he begged for relief from whatever caused this agony, until in his futility he was merged with the sun and then cast out like a beam of light into the remote beyond, and only when this crossed his mind—this nothingness, néant—did the pain begin to ebb, as if someone had turned off a spigot. He felt snow falling, melting away one flake at a time in his slowly pulsing blood.

35

We Have to Wake Up from the Existence of Our Parents: In This Awakening, We Must Give an Account of the Nearness of That Existence

NEW YORK CITY, 2002. It was just after five o’clock, and the January sun—shifting north after the winter solstice—was about to set. Martin contemplated the ember tones reflecting off the ice patches on the Hudson and allowed his eye to drift up to the arched towers of the George Washington Bridge, grandly backlit in the manner of a Parisian monument. Now into his fourth month of retirement, he did not cultivate a routine, although he didn’t resist one, either. Besides taking care of the cats, he let himself be occupied by small tasks, e.g., alphabetizing his records, reading his favorite Schopenhauer passages, trolling eBay for missing pieces in his silverware pattern (Gorham Hanover), or perusing alpine plant catalogs. Some days he went for walks in Fort Tryon Park or—if the weather was bad—took naps in the afternoon, a luxury that still seemed pleasantly unimaginable after so many years in an office. He spoke to his sister on the phone and several times met Jay Wellings for lunch or dinner downtown. He almost never thought about his old job, and his chronic health problems had improved if not disappeared entirely.

With a thought to follow through on his exploration of a longer-term relationship, he had imposed a moratorium on the shorter kind. Having taken no other steps to make a longer relationship happen, he knew something was holding him back, though whether habit or history—or more likely, some combination—he could not yet say. In the first few months after 9/11, it had seemed “too soon” to date, but he was starting to acknowledge that the expiration had passed on that particular excuse.

“You just hate not being good at something,” Suzie said to him when he admitted his failure to answer even a single “LTR” personal ad, as he had resolved to do. “I call it big-brother syndrome.”

“I’m not very good at gardening, either,” Martin replied, “and I don’t have a problem admitting that.”

“That’s true,” she said, “but the difference is that because of other things you’ve done—hockey, law, whatever; things that don’t require so much emotional investment—you can easily see how to get better. You take a class, you practice, you research, you start small and then you improve. It’s more logic than emotion.”

“So what’s different about dating?”

“Actually, nothing!” she insisted before continuing more earnestly. “It’s just that you—like many of our gay brethren—missed out on the usual starting-small phase that others take for granted, the kinds of institutionalized opportunities that allow for healthier and more stable romantic relationships.”

“You’re using your Ph.D. voice.”

She ignored him. “The point is, at your advanced age it feels kind of ridiculous—especially for such a ‘man’s man,’ ” she added slyly, “to own up to your lack of skill in what is effectively an art.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Martin laughed. “I think I’ve been schooled enough for today.”

“Small steps, big brother—small steps.”

…

AS MARTIN CONSIDERED his sister’s admittedly sensible advice, he remembered something not entirely dissimilar that Leo Metropolis had