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To: Louise Katz

She’s lovely. uncomfortable in the outer seat. We switch places. He’s charming, self-deprecating, but no, not humble. I wonder if he’s ever had a father, or, if he was just so accustomed to margins, that they were family. Never assume that an eloquent person is necessarily well-adjusted or that the performance of gratitude makes a good person. He praises our congeniality. Thanks us for listening when in private he has no lobes. Maybe it’s the admiration he dislikes or the muscle memory of a signature. Maybe I’m the phoney. The scent of plastic is somewhere, anyway. And as we leave, she tells me she watches him burn others. She’s seen the heat of his bitterness, but she didn’t want to ruin him til it was over. I wondered why she continued to see him –if she knew his pieces. And how quick he threw out thank yous. I wondered if he thanked anyone for his pulitizer - or the government for his anarchy. I wondered if I liked him anyway and so did she. Not everyday has the courage to be rude. And to her: I wondered if she’d ever have the courage to read herself.