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each other, which makes it hard to tell just from their names which one is which. Gregor sorted it out. He had eggs and bacon. There was kudzu growing outside the veranda. Beyond that, tall pines and Spanish moss. There were plaques commemorating dead dogs on many flagstones. “Morton, Great Dane, 1937.” “Muffie, Spaniel, 1941.” Dommy, whose mother was a maid, or a domestic, or whatever they then called it, was uneasy about the blacks, whom we seemed to be calling staff or help. None of us is leading quite the life we were at all prepared for. We were born in Beirut, Boston, Albuquerque, Rome, the Bronx, Antibes, Ontario, Tel Aviv. Vlad is a resident in orthopedic surgery. He has a scar on his hand from the day an eccentric surgeon in a temper slapped him with a scalpel. Some of us are vegetarians. Some drink. Some take pills. It is possible that we have, separately, acquired the capacity to say a qualified No to any going, too going, concern.
    Dispersed as we all are, though, what we seem to have entirely in common is a time, a quality of meaning no harm, and a sense that among highly urban and ambitious people we are trying to lead some semblance of decent lives. Marriages of the second house break up. A couple may study blueprints for this second house, and build it, or they may buy a farmhouse that is very old. A trailer, or a diner, or a diner in a trailer, always seems to materialize across the road from this second house. Even if it doesn’t, by the end of summer, wife and children do return to the first house in the city. The husband borrows an apartment or moves to a hotel. Not in every case, of course. In a lot of cases. None of us is, however, at all one of those stencil bohemians who live in the Village, cultivate for their public lives something leftish and for their private lives a guru or an analyst, who are likely to be by birth and accent New York, and who are likely at parties to have somewhere in the room a stereo; elsewhere a baby, pale and whimpering, until its mother, having until last week breast-fed it at just such parties as this one, mashes a little Phenobarbital into its bottle and around its pacifier; elsewhere still one large Cuban or Jamaican, who is cooking something difficult, which includes rice and bananas and which, since it is very late and is the only supper, makes it certain that everyone will be joylessly, sickly drunk all evening on the Gallo wine and sangria in paper cups. No. On the other hand, we are all linked to lives of all sorts. Phoebe Aaron, a medieval scholar at our university, used to be listed in the phone book as P. Aaron. She was always being called by heavy breathers. Recently, she moved out to Chicago, as a full professor. She decided to list her full name, Phoebe Aaron. The first time her phone rang in her new place, it was just another breather, Middlewestern. “Hello, Phobe?” he said.
    Vlad, who wants to specialize one day in surgery on adult hands, finds himself these days working on babies. There is a relatively new surgical procedure that, if it is performed within fourteen hours of delivery, will keep alive a baby who would otherwise have simply, surely died. After the lifesaving procedure, Vlad gets the baby. He does what he can for it with orthopedic surgery. It is perfect practice for a future with delicate, adult hands. Vlad thinks that, like so many valuable learning experiences, it cannot, cannot in the end ever be or have been worth it. I once saw, however, what might have seemed an altogether hopeless old man on crutches, making his way out of Disneyland, with a large Mickey Mouse balloon.
    In Bootsy Garn’s final college year, my first, the girl across the hall from me bought a snake. The girl’s father had been a famous American fascist in the thirties. It was assumed the girl had problems. But pets were not permitted in the dorms. The college knew nothing of the snake. The girl in the room next door to mine bought an alligator. Her father