Great Kisser by David Evanier

read Dissent needed to get laid, and even in ways that might not be all that worthy of what they were as people.
    And so I sat 25 years later in Dapper Dan’s Burlesque with the girl on my knee, her boobs in my face, and I was holding my copy of Dissent .
    And still, Karen’s face lighting up radiantly and trustingly at the sight of me.
    She said one night, “I had the loveliest dream that we were kissing on a balcony over the ocean and I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is so lovely.’”
    A letter from Karen when I was in Jerusalem in 1989 researching and writing my novel about Stalin’s murder of the Yiddish poets:
    My Darling Michael,
    Tonight I’ve planned how to complete my old painting, thought about the Butinskys, thought about myself and about you (we both seem extraordinarily clear and vivid to me at the moment, even though we’re half a world apart), read a great deal about the Expressionists, and prepared a canvas for the new painting I want to do of Beth Butinsky. I want to tell you about how I somehow see you even more fully than usual right now. I know you’re getting up up about now, or soon—Dawn in Jerusalem, in an old orthodox hotel! I see your face as though it’s lit by a pink sunrise (although I don’t suppose you really get up at dawn). How strange, that it’s already tomorrow for you, and I’m nowhere near ready to go to sleep today. As I move around our apartment, I see sudden flashes of you, angles of you in books and things I hadn’t noticed before: The Prophet Armed: Trotsky , 1879-1921; Sinatra: L.A. Is My Lady; Tillie Olsen: Tell Me a Riddle . I found Ralph Ellison’s new introduction to Invisible Man you had xeroxed—with your underlines—and I read it. It brought back not only the novel I loved, and the man’s face as we saw it, but also you:
    Ellison: Details of old photographs and rhymes and riddles and children’s games, church services and college ceremonies, practical jokes and political activities observed during my prewar days in Harlem all fell into place … Everything and anything appeared as grist for my fictional mill. Some speaking up clearly, saying “Use me right here,” while others were disturbingly mysterious.
    I see you in all your seriousness of purpose, your total dedication, your (to me) astonishing discipline, your day and night inspirations and connections, your constant process of writing. I feel you in Israel, your excitement as you finally connect with those you want to write about, who you searched out and pursued against all odds. I feel it all falling into place, all coming together. And I know you’ll be able to accomplish everything you’ve set out to do, now and always.
    I love you more than ever. Goodnight and good morning, my love—
    Karen
    Like the tapes, I had never fully read this letter before. I had opened Karen’s letter, I had opened the tapes, but I never really read or listened to them until now. I couldn’t bear the emotions they ignited in me, that burning passion so hard to control. I always knew they were there, waiting for me. I was waiting for me.
    But still, this doesn’t convey all that I want to say about Karen. Of her purity of heart. Of her tenacity. Of going back to school after the endless days of working at hateful jobs and long commutes during the day and studying at night and taking care of me and Kevin. It’s difficult to write about.
    Harder to recall than the Rabbi who murdered his wife and who, after being convicted and facing capital punishment, pled for his life to the jury. Summoning up all his oratorical and oracular gifts from thirty years on the pulpit, smiling and gesticulating, really in his element, the Rabbi in a slick suit gave a 22-minute sermon from Genesis and Deuteronomy and his favorite soap opera and talked about fulfilling “all the days of our lives.” He segued to “the days of my