The Twelve Read Online Free PDF Page B

father’s empty apartment on 18th Street and Irving Place across from Pete’s Tavern. That was when Max and Lizzie mutually decided to explore the ultimate physical intimacy of what was already an intense and emotionally charged love.
    Once they began making love, they never stopped. The Beatles’ song of the day was “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road ? ” and, of course, Lizzie and Max did so—there and almost everywhere else.
    When Max entered Yale the following September, it became harder to arrange to see Lizzie, but he wrote to her regularly. She wasn’t as diligent in her responses, so he was blissfully unaware when it became apparent that she was no longer interested in him.
    She was still only sixteen and in high school, and having a college boyfriend made no sense to her. She wrote Max a goodbye letter, which he received on December 12, 1968, his nineteenth birthday.
    Max was devastated when he received this letter. He fell into a state of utter despondency.
    His depression was exacerbated by the fact that he hadn’t taken well to Yale—hadn’t enjoyed being in a dorm that bordered College Avenue, with trucks changing gears all night long, waking him up or keeping him from falling asleep altogether. He hadn’t enjoyed having a girlfriend who was far away and unavailable. He hadn’t enjoyed classes with as many as six hundred students and professors who didn’t even know their names.
    As a math major, he didn’t appreciate going to math classes where his Australian math professor used mathematical notations that were different from the ones he had learned in high school. In a world that was turned upside down by the Vietnam War and the proliferation of recreational drugs among his fellow students and even the professors, he questioned the relevance of being a math major altogether.
    His other studies offered little solace. He studied Piaget and learned that according to Piaget’s stages of development it was impossible for a young child to hold and examine abstract concepts. This left him baffled, for he could not dismiss the reality of his own childhood visions and experiences.
    Then there was the political unrest—the assassination of the Kennedys, Kent State, Abbie Hoffman, and finally the assassination of Martin Luther King. Amid such chaos, his one significant emotional anchor had been removed, and he had no way to cope.
    ***
    That fall Herbert and Jane moved from Scarsdale, New York, to Greenwich, Connecticut, so they were actually closer to Max—only a forty-five-minute drive from Yale.
    Consolidation was the buzz word of the day, and Herbert had been courted by Litton Industries, one of the large companies that had decided to incorporate publishing into a broader media business model. Litton began buying up smaller publishers, and Herbert received one offer . . . and then another.
    Competing offers followed from other companies. The prices were high. Finally, one of the buyers found a way to break down Herbert’s resistance. Perfect Film, an instant photo company, promised to appoint Herbert the head of the publishing division. He would be able to use Perfect Film money to buy other publishing companies.
    Herbert had no desire to actually sell his own publishing company, but he very much liked the idea of running a larger organization, so he began to make preparations. These included moving out of New York State and into Connecticut where—in 1968—there was a much lower capital gains tax and no state income tax.
    ***
    Consequently, Max no longer had his room above the garage, or any real base, emotional or otherwise, when he returned “home” for Christmas. Jane was often inebriated or asleep, and because of his focus on the possible sale of his company, Herbert was rarely available to Max either.
    Max was forlorn.
    It was an unsettling time, and many young men were afraid of being drafted and sent to the constantly