Vernon Downs by Jaime Clarke

told the driver. The car found the nearest curb and Vernon turned in his seat. “Here’s how you can return the favor.” The directness of his tone spooked Charlie and he was taken aback by the cold fear he felt. He hadn’t previously considered Vernon to be dangerous, but even the driver averted his eyes. “Write me five hundred words on why kids are ruining America.”
    â€œYou mean like an essay?” Charlie asked, laughing.
    Vernon smiled, clenching and unclenching his fists as if the reps were part of a daily exercise routine. “It’s for
George
magazine. I told them I’d do it, but that was only because I wanted to meet JFK Jr. I’m just not intoit now.” He searched Charlie’s face for complicity. “Do this for me and I’ll show your story to my friend the editor.”
    Charlie nodded, knowing the hunger for ingratiation. “Sure. When do you need it?”
    â€œYesterday.” Vernon grimaced. “Why don’t you bring it with you to KGB tomorrow night. There’s a book party. Seven p.m.”
    â€œOkay,” Charlie agreed. It was easy to agree without considering what he was agreeing to.
    â€œThis is you,” Vernon said. It took Charlie a moment to realize what Vernon was saying.
    â€œWatch traffic,” the driver warned from the front seat.
    â€œSorry about lunch,” Vernon said.
    Charlie waved good-bye and walked up Sixty-eighth Street, irresolute about the direction he was headed until Central Park came into view, orienting him. He was lost as a tourist uptown—his second trip in as many days—and almost collapsed in frustration until the doorman at the Plaza indicated with a nod the direction of the subway entrance under the hotel.
    Charlie mounted the steep stairs to KGB, emerging at the tiny second-floor bar whose walls were lined with Soviet memorabilia, framed posters of Stalin and Lenin and other unnamed politburo chiefs menacing the crowd of oblivious hipsters from above. He spotted Vernon under a poster of Yuri Andropov. As he knifed through the throng, he spied Jeremy Cyanin behind a near-life-size black-and-white head shot of the author whose books were stacked on the corner of the bar.
    Charlie crept forward. He’d been confused by the lack of real instructions for delivering the
George
magazine piece—he surmised that Vernon hadn’t asked him to e-mail it to avoid an electronic paper trail—and felt foolish for bringing it to the book party, even if those were Vernon’s instructions. He’d nearly abandoned the assignment, unable tocome up with a slant that seemed worthy of a slick magazine, until he’d solicited Derwin for his assessment of youth culture. Derwin had given him a soulful look. “Murderers, rapists, gamblers,” he’d said. “You never heard of these things when I was young.” Charlie had no independent knowledge about whether the comparison was true or not, but once he embraced Derwin’s point of view, the piece flowed quickly:
    Teens are running roughshod over this country—murdering, raping, gambling away the nation’s future—and we have bills for counseling and prison to prove it. Sure, not all kids are bad—but collectively, they’re getting worse. Why should we blame ourselves? Things have changed drastically in the last twenty years, to the point where one can really only chuckle in grim disbelief. Cheating on exams? Smoking cigarettes? Shoplifting? You wish. Murder, rape, robbery, vandalism: The overwhelming majority of these crimes are committed by people under twenty-five, and the rate is escalating rapidly.
    He’d gone to sleep feeling mentally fatigued, spent from rearranging sentences and auditioning words and phrases, searching for artistic expression of his borrowed idea, but also from the charge of aping Vernon’s cool attitude.
    Vernon nodded in his direction, calling him over.
    â€œYou made