told the driver. The car found the nearest curb and Vernon turned in his seat. âHereâs how you can return the favor.â The directness of his tone spooked Charlie and he was taken aback by the cold fear he felt. He hadnât previously considered Vernon to be dangerous, but even the driver averted his eyes. âWrite me five hundred words on why kids are ruining America.â
âYou mean like an essay?â Charlie asked, laughing.
Vernon smiled, clenching and unclenching his fists as if the reps were part of a daily exercise routine. âItâs for
George
magazine. I told them Iâd do it, but that was only because I wanted to meet JFK Jr. Iâm just not intoit now.â He searched Charlieâs face for complicity. âDo this for me and Iâll show your story to my friend the editor.â
Charlie nodded, knowing the hunger for ingratiation. âSure. When do you need it?â
âYesterday.â Vernon grimaced. âWhy donât you bring it with you to KGB tomorrow night. Thereâs a book party. Seven p.m.â
âOkay,â Charlie agreed. It was easy to agree without considering what he was agreeing to.
âThis is you,â Vernon said. It took Charlie a moment to realize what Vernon was saying.
âWatch traffic,â the driver warned from the front seat.
âSorry about lunch,â 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 uptownâhis second trip in as many daysâand 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. Heâd been confused by the lack of real instructions for delivering the
George
magazine pieceâhe surmised that Vernon hadnât asked him to e-mail it to avoid an electronic paper trailâand felt foolish for bringing it to the book party, even if those were Vernonâs instructions. Heâd nearly abandoned the assignment, unable tocome up with a slant that seemed worthy of a slick magazine, until heâd solicited Derwin for his assessment of youth culture. Derwin had given him a soulful look. âMurderers, rapists, gamblers,â heâd said. âYou never heard of these things when I was young.â Charlie had no independent knowledge about whether the comparison was true or not, but once he embraced Derwinâs point of view, the piece flowed quickly:
Teens are running roughshod over this countryâmurdering, raping, gambling away the nationâs futureâand we have bills for counseling and prison to prove it. Sure, not all kids are badâbut collectively, theyâre 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.
Heâd 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 Vernonâs cool attitude.
Vernon nodded in his direction, calling him over.
âYou made