The Imperfectionists

"GLOBAL WARMING GOOD FOR ICE CREAMS"
CORRECTIONS EDITOR-HERMAN COHEN

HERMAN STANDS BEFORE THE COPYDESK, TORCH-EYES PASSING over the three editors on duty. They halt in mid-keystroke. "And I haven't even accused anyone yet," he says darkly, opening that morning's paper as if it contained a murder weapon. What it does contain is worse: a mistake. He touches the error with contempt, pokes at the despicable word, as if to shove it off the page and into a different publication altogether. "GWOT," he says. He slaps the page, shakes it at them. "GWOT!"

"G what?"

"GWOT!" he repeats. "GWOT is not in the Bible. And yet it is here!" He jabs the article, driving a sausage finger through page three.

They deny responsibility. But Herman has infinitely less time for pardon than for blame. "If none of you nitwits know what GWOT means," he says, "then why is GWOT in the paper?"

An arctic silence settles upon the copydesk.

"Have you read the Bible?" he demands. "Any of you?" He glances at the sorry trio of copy editors before him: Dave Belling, a simpleton far too cheerful to compose a decent headline; Ed Rance, who wears a white ponytail-what more need one say?; and Ruby Zaga, who is sure that the entire staff is plotting against her, and is correct. What is the value in remonstrating with such a feckless triumvirate?

"Sooner or later…" Herman says, and allows the partial threat to hang there. He turns from them, prodding the air. "Credibility!" he declares. "Credibility!"

He elbows into his office, and the momentum of his belly topples a stack of books-he must tread with caution in here, for this is an overstuffed room and he an overstuffed man. Reference works clutter the room-classics like Webster's New World College Dictionary, Bartlett's

Familiar Quotations, National Geographic Atlas, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, along with idiosyncratic tomes like The Food Snob's Dictionary, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes, Technical Manual and Dictionary of Classical Ballet, The Visual Dictionary of the Horse, The Complete Book of Soups and Stews, Cassell's Latin Dictionary, Albanian-English/English-Albanian Standard Dictionary, and A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic.

He notices a gap on the shelf and searches the book skyscrapers rising from the floor for the missing volume. He locates it (A Dictionary of Birds, Part IV: Sheathbill-Zygodactyli), slides it back into place, hikes up his belt, lines himself up with his desk chair, and inserts his bottom-one more bulky reference work returned to its rightful home. He drags the keyboard to his bunchy gut and, condescending to the screen, types a new entry for the Bible:

* GWOT: No one knows what this means, above all those who use the term. Nominally, it stands for Global War on Terror. But since conflict against an abstraction is, to be polite, tough to execute, the term should be understood as marketing gibberish. Our reporters adore this sort of humbug; it is the copy editor's job to exclude it. See also: OBL; Acronyms; and Nitwits.

He hits save. It is entry No. 18,238. "The Bible"-his name for the paper's style guide-was once printed and bound, with a copy planted on every desk across the newsroom. Now it exists solely within the paper's computer network, not least because the text has grown to approximately the size of metropolitan Liechtenstein. The purpose of his Bible is to set down laws: to impart whether a "ceasefire" is, properly speaking, a "cease-fire" or indeed a "cease fire;" to adjudge when editors must use "that" and when "which;" to resolve quarrels over prepositions, false possessives, dangling modifiers-on the copydesk, fisticuffs have broken out over less.

Kathleen raps on his door. "Such were the joys," she says wearily.

"Which joys are these?"

"The joys of trying to put out a non-embarrassing daily with roughly five percent of the resources I need."

"Ah, yes," he replies. "The joys of the paper."

"And you? Whose self-esteem are you dismantling today?"

He massages his fingers and dips them into his trouser pocket, which is swollen as if with pebbles. He retrieves a mound of sucking sweets that have melted together. "You'll be thrilled to hear," he informs her, popping the candies into his mouth, "that I have a new copy of Why? ready." By this, he means the monthly internal newsletter in which he decants his favorite blunders from the paper. It is fair to say the staffers do not greet each edition of Why? with elation.

Kathleen sighs.

"Duty does call, I'm afraid," he says. "Now, what can I do for you, my dear?"

She often stops by for advice. Her deputy may be Craig Menzies, but Herman is her true counselor. He has worked at the paper for more than thirty years, has held most editorial jobs here (though never reporter), and served as the acting editor-in-chief during interregnums in 1994, 2000, and 2004. Staffers still shiver to recall his stewardship. Yet for all his bluster Herman is not disliked. His news judgment is envied, his memory is an unfailing resource, and his kindness emerges for all those who hang around long enough.

"What are your thoughts about my culture shake-up?" she asks.

"You managed to dislodge Clint Oakley finally."

"Very proud of myself over that," she says. "And you were right: Arthur Gopal isn't a write-off. Things remain ugly on the stringer front, though. Still no one in Cairo. And Paris remains unmanned."

"How can Accounts Payable refuse to replace Lloyd?"

"It's insane."

"Outrageous."

"You here tomorrow?"

"Day off, my dear. Wait, wait-before you wander away, I wanted to warn you that I have a delightful new correction upcoming."

She groans; he grins.

Corrections have proliferated of late. A handful even earned a place on Herman's corkboard: Tony Blair included on a list of "recently deceased Japanese dignitaries;" Germany described as suffering from "a genital malaise in the economy;" and almost daily appearances from "the Untied States." He types out his latest publishable correction: "In an article by Hardy Benjamin in the Tuesday business section, the former dictator of Iraq was erroneously referred to as Sadism Hussein. The correct spelling is Saddam. We doubt that our typographical error impinged on the man's credibility, however, we regret-" He checks his watch. Miriam leaves tonight, and Jimmy arrives tomorrow. Herman still has much to do. He slips on his coat, jabs a finger in the air. "Credibility!" he says.

The front door to his apartment in Monteverde won't budge, so he shoulders it halfway open and, with a grunt, squeezes inside. His wife's luggage is blocking the passage. She is scheduled on an overnight flight from Rome back to Philadelphia to visit their daughter and grandchildren. The click-clack of her heels sounds down the hallway. "Sweetie pie," he calls, and edges past the luggage. "Sweetie pie, I'm afraid I banged one of your suitcases. The red one."

" Burgundy," she corrects him.

"That's not red?"

At work, Herman makes the corrections. Not here.

"I hope I didn't break anything. Were there presents in there? Should we open and check? What do you think?" Awaiting her judgment, he contorts as if before a teetering vase.

"It was packed perfectly," she says.

"I'm so sorry."

"I took ages doing that."

"I know. I'm terrible. Can I help?"

She kneels to unbuckle the luggage straps, and he raises a finger-not to prod the air this time but to beg permission. "Darling, might I possibly make you a drink? Might that be nice?"

"Can I check my bag first?"

"Yes, yes, of course."

He takes refuge in the kitchen, dicing carrots and celery. At the sound of her clicking heels, he swivels around. "A nice, hearty soup to fill you up for the long trip."

"You make me sound like a thermos."

He resumes chopping. "These vegetables are delicious-could I slice you a few?"

"Such a pity you can't come. But I guess you prefer Jimmy."

"Don't say that."

"Sorry," she says. "I'm being awful." She steals a carrot.

"Are you worried about the flight?"

She blinks in affirmation, then studies his soup mix. "Needs salt."

"How can you say?" he protests, then tastes it. She is right. He salts the soup, stirs it, kisses her cheek.

After dinner, he sees Miriam off at the airport and speeds home in their dented blue Mazda, a tiny model that, with him inside, looks like a bumper car. He tucks fresh sheets on the spare bed for Jimmy and tidies up. But there is not as much preparation as he'd expected. He runs a finger around the pot of cold soup (acquacotta di Talamone: chopped carrots and celery, chopped pancetta, pumpkin, zucchini, kidney beans, lima beans, artichoke hearts, grated pecorino, ground pepper, eight boiled eggs, fourteen pieces of toast). He and Jimmy met in Baltimore in the late 1950s, the only Jewish kids at a Presbyterian private school. Herman had been sent there by his father, a foul-tempered Zionist and a dead ringer for Karl Marx who believed the best school in the district should be forced to swallow a fat little Jew, namely, his son. The fat little Jew himself saw few benefits in being someone else's battering ram. But, thankfully, he had been preceded at the school by another Jewish kid, Jimmy Pepp, who enjoyed legendary status there for having climbed atop the church library and smoked a pipe on the roof. They said he had descended via the drainpipes and kept the tobacco smoldering all the way down. And it had been windy. The tale was dubious, but there was no denying that as a youth Jimmy had kept a pipe, a curved marvel with a meerschaum bowl and mahogany body that he puffed on the hill behind school, often leaning over a book of poetry-E. E. Cummings, say, or Baudelaire. He was also notable as the only pupil not to wear the school blazer, which he evaded with a falsified doctor's note claiming "seborrhoeic dermatitis." None of the teachers dared ask what this affliction consisted of-a fortunate turn, since Jimmy himself could only have guessed. The reason for his subterfuge was simply that he preferred to wear a donnish tweed jacket with elbow patches, in whose left pocket he kept a copy of Ulysses-the Modern Library edition, missing the dust jacket-and in whose right pocket he stored his calabash pipe and a tin of Mac Baren Club Blend tobacco. The balance between left and right pockets was grossly uneven, Ulysses being a notably heavy volume, so he evened it out with fountain pens, which often exploded, bleeding a constellation of indigo blotches into his right pocket. For a reason Herman never understood, Jimmy protected him at school from the day they met.

He is among the last to emerge off the afternoon flight from Frankfurt.

"Welcome," Herman says, beaming and reaching for Jimmy's bag, then changing his mind and throwing a thick arm around his narrow friend. "You got here."

He leads Jimmy to the car and they set off for the apartment. "Since I didn't know where your body clock would be," Herman explains while driving, "I have four possible dinner options. Scrambled eggs with truffle oil-very nice, I recommend it. Alternatively, homemade pizza. Or fresh bresaola, salad, and cheese-I have a great Taleggio. Also, there's leftover acquacotta di Talamone, which is a soup. Or we could just eat out. Is that four options?"

Jimmy smiles.

"What?" Herman asks, grinning back. "It's my job to fatten you up, no? Sorry, I have to concentrate here-I'm gonna crash us." He drives on in silence for a minute. "Good to see you," he says.

Jimmy journeyed from Los Angeles via Frankfurt, and the trip totaled almost twenty-four hours. He stays awake as long as he can, then falls asleep in the spare room. The next morning around dawn, he is padding around the living room in boxers with a design of lipstick kisses. His chest hair is white. Herman emerges in pajamas, kneading a knot in his back. "You want coffee?" he asks, and gives Jimmy the morning paper. Over breakfast, they talk politics-who's ruling America, who's ruling Italy. Soon, it's time for Herman to go to work. "You only just arrived, and I'm already abandoning you-some host," he says. "You got everything you need? You want to use the computer? It's outdated, but we have the Internet. And I got the technicians at work to install word processing so you can work on your book while you're here. Here, let me log you on."

With his rumpled copy of the paper under his arm, Herman strides into the newsroom, shooting accusatory glances. Reporters murmur "Morning," and editors compress their lips and nod at the floor. He elbows into his office, pops a sucking sweet, and spreads out the day's paper, his yellow highlighter poised to lasso any sins. A stack of unopened letters to the editor sits on the edge of his desk. Sometimes it seems the readers do nothing but complain. They're usually on the old side-he can tell from the palsied scrawl and the diction ("Dear Sir, I expect you receive a great many letters, yet I must express my dismay over…"). Admittedly, the paper's readership is only about ten thousand people nowadays, but at least they are passionate. And the postmarks come from all around the world, which is heartening. For many, especially those in remote locales, the paper is their only link to the greater world, to the big cities they left, or the big cities they have never seen, only built in their minds. The readers constitute a sort of fellowship that never meets, united by loved and loathed bylines, by screwed-up photo captions, by the glorious corrections box. Speaking of which.

He spots Hardy Benjamin gossiping at the other end of the newsroom-he still hasn't finished the Sadism Hussein correction. From the doorway of his office, he bellows, "Miss Benjamin, I'll need you later."

"Something wrong?"

"Yes, but I'm too busy to talk now."

"Is it serious?"

"What I'm occupied with now is serious. You'll have to wait, Nancy Drew." He closes his door, irritated with himself. Imagine if Jimmy saw me bossing them like this, he thinks, and yanks a book at random from the shelf, the International Dictionary of Gastronomy. He flips its pages, landing at the entry for "churros." The first time he and Jimmy shared a home was on Riverside Drive at 103rd Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Herman was in his first year at Columbia University, while Jimmy had just returned from three months in Mexico, where he'd been romancing an older woman, an artist who sculpted Aztec monsters and whose husband in Houston had hired a kid to thump Jimmy on the head with a brick, though the kid just threw it and missed. Jimmy claimed that this was the reason he'd returned to America. But Herman suspected, guiltily, that there was another reason: that Jimmy had intuited from Herman's letters how disheartened he was alone at college in New York. There was only a single bed in his studio apartment, so Jimmy slept on the floor without sheets or pillows, which he claimed to prefer. Within a week, he had an entourage of peculiar friends and Herman's home had been transformed from monastic cell to bustling salon, crammed with all the weird of the metropolis: Dyer, the baby-faced waiter from New Orleans, who couldn't have been sweeter until he robbed everyone and bit a policeman's horse; beanpole Lorraine, who smoked marijuana cigarettes and opened her purse to show erotic drawings of herself with spiders; and Nedra, dark eyes disconnected from reason, who said she'd been born in Siam or Brooklyn, who smelled of underarm sweat, whom any street drunk could have and whom most had, though Jimmy let her sleep on the floor beside him and never touched her. Herman asked what had happened after that kid in Mexico threw the brick and missed. Jimmy said that he and the would-be assassin had started laughing. Then, Jimmy said, he'd bought the kid churros.

Herman closes the International Dictionary of Gastronomy and feeds it back into its slot on the shelf. He opens the paper to the culture pages, which have improved considerably under Arthur Gopal. Nevertheless, Herman spots an offender: the word "literally." He snarls, wakes up his computer, and types:

* literally: This word should be deleted. All too often, actions described as "literally" did not happen at all. As in, "He literally jumped out of his skin." No, he did not. Though if he literally had, I'd suggest raising the element and proposing the piece for page one. Inserting "literally" willy-nilly reinforces the notion that breathless nitwits lurk within this newsroom. Eliminate on sight-the usage, not the nitwits. The nitwits are to be captured and placed in the cages I have set up in the subbasement. See also: Excessive Dashes; Exclamation Points; and Nitwits.

On his way home, Herman drives to Enoteca Costantini in Piazza Cavour to pick up a bottle of Frascati Superiore. Tonight he is preparing a traditional Roman meal for Jimmy: deep-fried fiori di zucca and carciofi alla giudia, a straightforward bucatini all'amatriciana, homemade pizza bianca to mop up the sauce, and pangiallo for dessert (this last item, alas, is store-bought).

At the apartment, he finds Jimmy flopped on the spare bed, back turned. He rolls over.

"How you feeling?" Herman asks. "Jet-lagged?" He readies dinner as Jimmy recounts his day. He went for a walk and got lost, and someone followed him for a while-a thief, he thinks-but the guy gave up.

"Sounds more successful than my day," Herman comments. "My style guide is out of control. It's ridiculous. Those poor putzes I work with!"

At dinner, Jimmy eats little and drinks only water. As for tobacco, he has quit completely-it's curious to see him without the customary cloud of smoke. Herman asks about life in L.A., and Jimmy says he's busy-time just races by, consumed by all the minor activities: buying groceries, watching his TV programs, going to the laundromat. And crime is a worry.

Herman pats his gut, sauntering with intent toward the liquor cabinet. "Care for a digestivo?" he asks. "One thing I don't have, I'm afraid, is your favorite: Barbancourt rum, right?" The old Modern Library copy of Ulysses remained in Jimmy's pocket throughout the 1960s. Leopold Bloom was his hero, not least because they shared a taste for animal innards-fried pork kidneys in particular. However, the overpowering sizzle and stench of Jimmy's food in their shared New York apartment diminished over that decade as he spent more time in Mexico, pursuing his drama with the married sculptress. He claimed she resembled Molly Bloom, which amused Herman-what on earth does Molly Bloom look like? Herman graduated from Columbia with a degree in political science and took a job as a copyboy at a city newspaper. In his conception, this was all backward-Jimmy, not he, was supposed to go into journalism, starting out as a sportswriter, say, or covering cops, then writing a Runyonesque column about booze and betting and all the affable lunatics who gravitated toward him like bugs to a bulb. The next step for Jimmy would be to cover a war overseas and perhaps take part, like Hemingway or Orwell, then publish a book about it. His first novel would follow. After that, Jimmy's career would take off. Years later, Herman could write a biography-the definitive account, composed by Jimmy Pepp's best friend, who had known the great writer from school days in Baltimore to the mad nights in New York to the sculptress in Mexico to the first crackle of publishing success and the iconic fame that followed. But at the time of this reverie Herman was alone again in New York, a gopher at a local newspaper, fetching quarts of bourbon for ulcerated editors, making smoke runs, picking up corned beef on rye on Ninth Avenue, with the inevitable "No, hang on, kid, make mine pastrami on brown with extra mustard, and don't forget the napkins." Other copyboys busied themselves by stuffing live mice into the pneumatic tubes that connected the various departments, rocketing the creatures through the network until they popped out squeaking in the secretaries' pool. With this sort of competition, it was easy for Herman to shine.

The editors gave him a tryout as a proofreader, and he had a knack for it-finally, arcane knowledge and pedantry came in handy. The day of this promotion, he happened to meet Miriam at a friend's party and, inflated by professional success, found the courage to ask her on a date. In the coming months, he fell in love with her. But he worried about introducing her to his best friend, afraid that he, Herman, would wilt by comparison. Yet when Jimmy next passed through the city, Herman bravely arranged for them to meet for dinner. He was nervous all that day. Surprisingly, Jimmy seemed somewhat witless during the meal: his romantic exploits in Mexico sounded childish, his writing came off as half-baked. He spent most of the meal praising Herman, boasting of his friend's brilliance at Baltimore Presbyterian (untrue), of his sparkling college career (a gross exaggeration), and of the triumphant future that inevitably lay ahead for Mr. Herman Cohen (hardly credible). After dinner, they split up. Herman felt odd parting from Jimmy and going home with Miriam-he and his oldest friend still had all the real catching up to do.

Miriam said she liked Jimmy all right but couldn't see what Herman had been going on about. And that, Herman knew, had been the point of Jimmy's performance. He saw Jimmy off at the train station and smiled at the sight of Ulysses jutting from his luggage. "Is that the same copy from school?" Herman asked. Jimmy opened it. The pages had been cut out, and planted inside was a leather flask. "It wasn't always like that, was it?" Herman asked. Jimmy offered a sip and said how beautiful it was to see him with this girl, to see him happy. Herman blushed. "What is this poison?" he asked. Jimmy took a swig as if to double-check, then identified it as his favorite drink, Barbancourt rum.

Herman peruses the Bible on his computer screen at work, grinding a hard candy between his teeth. Ever since Jimmy arrived, Herman has turned against the Bible. It's nothing but a list of complaints-whining, organized alphabetically. No time to brood, though. He has work to do. He turns to the Sadism Hussein correction. He calls Hardy into his office.

"I thought I might have escaped," she says.

"Take a seat."

"That mistake was slipped in on the copydesk." This is every reporter's excuse.

"Who on the copydesk?"

"I'm not going to say."

"Yes, you are."

"Are you going to waterboard me if I don't?"

"Probably. Was it Ruby Zaga, by any chance? No matter. Whoever was responsible, it makes us look like nitwits. Now listen, your reporting is solid. And you write well, which is the highest praise from me. You are one of the strongest members of this staff. I hope that's been made clear to you." He taps the Sadism Hussein correction on his monitor. "But I have to think about credibility."

"I realize that. The thing is-"

"Hang on, hang on. If credibility is our goal-and at this point credibility is pretty much all we have left-then we should strive to maintain the reputation of strong staffers. So I wonder if we shouldn't let Sadism Hussein die."

"Seriously?" she says. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll never use spell-check again."

"So it was you."

"And I'll memorize the dictionary, I promise."

"Dictionary, schmictionary."

"The Bible," she corrects herself. "I'll memorize the Bible."

"That's better." He dismisses her and sneaks out for lunch with Jimmy at Casa Bleve, an eatery tucked inside a sixteenth-century palazzo near Largo Argentina. "I took you here on a previous visit, remember?" Herman says. "When you came with Deb."

Jimmy frowns, but can't remember. He says he can't retain anything anymore.

"I'm the same," Herman says. "I used to have perfect recall, but my memory's shot now. I have this new technique: I write everything down. Lists. That's the answer." He's lying. His memory remains impeccable. "Long lists for everything. Consider it. It works. Any idea I have-not that what I do amounts to ideas-but any gripe I have with the paper, I jot down. Thank God I'm not attempting anything as complex as what you do. I admire that. I could never write a book." He flaps the napkin out on his lap. "Do you mind if I ask about the book? I'm wondering-and I don't want to intrude here-but I'm curious to know if you brought the manuscript. My bigger question, I guess, is when do I get to read it? And you should feel free to work on it out here, if you want. You don't have to feel obliged to meet up with me for lunch. I can leave you in the study, bring you bowls of soup, whatever. I spent years in New York bringing food and drink to writers-I know what I'm doing in this field! Seriously, though, I'd be delighted if you made some progress while you're here. And if I could be of use in looking over the thing, I'd be honored. Again, not that there's any obligation. Sorry, I'll shut up."

When Herman was offered a position at the paper in the 1970s, he hesitated: going off to Europe before Jimmy had established himself was all wrong. Then again, Jimmy wasn't even in New York anymore. His affair in Mexico had ended badly and, rather than returning to Manhattan, he had accepted a job taking publicity photographs for the equestrian circuit, traveling the United States in trucks with event technicians. He wrote infrequent memos to Herman about his wanderings. The letters were captivating, the events bizarre. Herman kept the correspondence in a cherrywood box-they'd be useful one day in the biography. He imagined Jimmy's existence: moving on a whim, walking out when jobs annoyed him, staying up all night and waking with unknown women. Herman resented it slightly, as if he were somehow footing the bill for Jimmy's freedom. Miriam encouraged Herman to take the job in Italy, especially while their daughter was young enough to make the transition. It was tempting: the paper held a cosmopolitan allure for Herman. To his mind, it was the publication that a weathered novelist or a spy might fold under his arm. And the 1970s were thrilling times at the paper, with an inventive new editor, Milton Berber, a vibrant young staff, and buoyant spirits all around. So he took the position and urged Jimmy to take advantage of the free lodgings in Rome -he could come and write his book there, full-time and for as long as he liked. (Within limits set by Miriam, naturally.)

Instead, Jimmy settled in Arizona with Deb, who weaved artisanal rugs and had an infant daughter. He married Deb, adopted the girl, and, to bring in money, qualified as a paralegal. Herman was disappointed when he finally met Deb-he'd expected a marvel, and she wasn't that. It rankled that Jimmy should be detained by mediocrity in Arizona when he could have been sparkling in Rome. Herman could easily have got Jimmy hired at the paper, and he'd repeatedly offered to do so.

When the bill comes for their lunch at Casa Bleve, Jimmy pulls out his credit card.

"No, no," Herman says. "This is mine. I'm the one with the job."

But Jimmy insists.

"Okay, how about this then," Herman says. "I'll let you pay on one condition: that you write something for me-an article, any kind you like-and I get to print it in the paper. What do you say? Obviously, we'll pay you, though I'm afraid we have a lousy freelance rate these days after all the budget cuts. But you can write about anything. An opinion piece, something funny-anything. It'd be a real feather in my cap to publish you. How's that sound?"

That night, Jimmy sits before the computer, leaning his gaunt face into the screen, slender fingers hovering above the keyboard. Herman leaves him there, closes the door, and shakes his fist triumphantly. As the hours pass, Herman paces back and forth in the kitchen, nervously eating slices of homemade lemon-pistachio polenta and browsing cookbooks. He approaches the computer room, places his ear to the door, hears the slow tapping of fingers on the keyboard. It is almost 2 A.M. when Jimmy emerges. The article is there on the screen, but he can't figure out how to work the printer. He's tired, says good night, goes to bed.

By the end of the 1980s, Deb had divorced Jimmy. A few years later, they remarried. But soon she left him a second painful time, and he moved to Los Angeles to get away from the situation. He freelanced as a paralegal, which kept him afloat. But he had no health coverage, so when a molar went rotten he yanked it himself with needle-nose pliers. He was drunk at the time and bungled it, splintering the tooth and leaving chunks in the bloody gum. Herman happened to call a few days later and heard about the tooth and the fever that had followed. He demanded that Jimmy go to the hospital. At the emergency room, they told him the wound had gone septic. While waiting for the on-call dentist, he suffered a heart attack. Jimmy was fifty-six, but by the time he was discharged he had become an old man. In the following months, he aged further, grew forgetful and anxious, suspected that people were walking up behind him. He checked endlessly that his doors and windows were locked, that the gas was off. He often called in sick at the law firm where he freelanced, then eventually retired-it was foisted on him, really. At the time, Herman welcomed the news: finally, Jimmy could focus on his writing. He'd always said he'd finish his book once he retired.

And now he's here, in the spare room, asleep. Still no sign of the full manuscript, but at least here is a taste of Jimmy's writing. Herman prints a copy of the article and two pages emerge. He snatches them from the printer tray, rushes to the sofa, plops down to read.

It takes a moment before he can focus on the text, so excited is he. How many years has he waited for this! Sure, it's just a few hundred words, but it's a start. Might Jimmy have a full manuscript in that bag over there in the corner? Herman would never snoop, but how he longs to.

He focuses on the pages before him.

He reads through them.

Herman has worked as an editor for forty years. It doesn't take him long to realize. This article is no good.

It's a sort of editorial, but without any clear argument, touching on life in L.A., on the proliferation of guns in America, on declining civility. The article is full of grammar mistakes and platitudes. It's amateurish. Is this the right document? Maybe this is a rough draft? He goes to check the computer. By the mouse pad, he finds a scrap of scrunched paper and pulls it apart. It bears Jimmy's handwriting and contains a long list of notes, written, rewritten, crossed out, full of scribbles and question marks and lines and dashes and variations. Hours of effort have gone into this, a worthless piece of writing.

Herman can't sleep that night. He keeps sitting up in bed, turning on the lamp, stuffing himself with hard candies, then brushing his teeth all over again. At 6 A.M., he rises for good-he intends to escape the apartment before Jimmy wakes up. That way, Herman can study the article at the office and work out what to do.

But Jimmy appears from the spare room, saying he wanted to catch Herman before he left: there's a spelling mistake in the article.

"Don't worry. I'll fix it," Herman says.

Jimmy insists on doing it himself. He disappears into the computer room, makes his correction, and hands Herman a memory stick containing the article.

At the office, Herman shoots off an email to Kathleen, saying he may have a late addition to the editorial page. He isn't bound by this, but it leaves him the option. Does he have to run the piece? He could tell Jimmy it was good but that it needed more focus. Then again, honestly, can anything be salvaged from it? And the paper isn't his to fill as he pleases. It's not disloyal if he spikes the piece, is it? What about credibility? "Credibility," he mutters, and it is a sodden, fraudulent word on this day.

He resolves to publish the article. He has the power to. And he will. It'll appear in a single edition, down two half-columns, with a bloated headline and a pull quote to fill out the space, deep in the inside pages. He'll show the clipping to Jimmy tomorrow morning, he'll thank him, he'll throw a thick arm around his narrow friend and say, "After all these years, we got to work together."

He plugs the memory stick into his computer and opens Jimmy's document. But the text of the night before is gone. All that appears is a note: "Don't worry, kid. I deleted the thing. Did you know tonight is my last night in town? I'm taking you for dinner, and I pay. No arguments. Jimmy."

Kathleen asks about the editorial, and Herman tells her it was a false alarm. She points out a headline-"Global Warming Good for Ice Creams"-and proposes it for his next edition of Why? She adds, "I find it idiotic on so many levels."

"No, yes, you're right," he says, though he's not listening.

Jimmy chooses a touristy restaurant near the Vatican for their last dinner. Herman wishes he himself had picked-he can see from the curled menu outside that this place isn't serious. Food is not the point, of course, but he's on edge: his friend leaves tomorrow and nothing has been achieved. During dinner, Jimmy drinks three glasses of wine, which is the most he's had since the heart attack. As alcohol seeps into him, he rambles charmingly, like in the old days, when he was legendary for tipsy philosophizing, reciting Yeats or Yevtushenko from memory, blathering on about Joyce, and proclaiming the funniest word in the English language to be "rump." Herman associates Jimmy's drunken chatter with their happiest times.

They don't mention his article at first. But the evening is going so well that Herman says, "This whole thing could be an impetus, don't you think? A little reminder, you know. To really write something now."

Jimmy sits up straighter, clears his throat. "Herman," he says calmly, "I'm not writing anything. I haven't yet, and I'm not going to now. I never was going to. I knew that from, maybe, age twenty. You're the one who kept going on about it."

"I didn't go on about it," Herman says, taken aback. "It's just that I thought-I think-that you are capable of something great. Something outstanding. You always had such talent."

Jimmy taps his friend's earlobe affectionately. "There's no such thing as talent, kid."

Herman pulls away. "I'm serious."

"So am I. I should have made it clear forty years ago that you had the wrong idea about me. But I'm vain. I guess I was trying to make a good impression. Only I'm too old to keep trying. So please stop talking about what I'll do. It only emphasizes what I didn't. I've had a good enough life, an average life. And that's fine."

"It's hardly been average."

"No? If not, then what proof is there to the contrary? I have the proof of sixty-five years."

Herman begins to dispute this, but Jimmy talks over him.

"You know what I liked about that article you had me do?" he says. "I liked working with you, Herman-that I enjoyed. Hearing how you'd get it into print. You really know the world of journalism, boy. See-you do useful work. Hard work. Not the hooey I've done. Standards. That's what you have. And I liked getting a sense of how you do it. That's a real pleasure for me. To see how far you've come."

"Don't be crazy. You're the one who wrote that article. Think how quickly you rolled it out. Professional writers sometimes take days over a piece, weeks even, months. Imagine if you really put some time into it? Doesn't that inspire you? To go back and work on something a bit more permanent?"

"I haven't got it in me," Jimmy says. "And I don't like leaning on you anymore. I take advantage of you too much. Always have. Your generosity. Me sleeping on the floor at Riverside Drive? I never paid a dime of rent in how many years?"

"You weren't my tenant. You were my friend. You didn't owe me anything."

Jimmy smiles. "You got a nutso perspective on certain things, Mr. Herman Cohen."

When they leave, Herman takes a handful of business cards from the restaurant and rests his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. As they emerge onto the street, Herman makes a show of looking around for a taxi to hide the fact that he's choked up.

At Fiumicino Airport the next day, Jimmy mentions that he may move back to Arizona. His adopted daughter, now in her thirties, has a place in Tempe. She works in real estate and lives alone. She'd enjoy the company.

As Herman listens, he envisions this life for his fading friend. He and Jimmy are not, as Herman has always believed, gradations of the same man-he the middling version and Jimmy the superlative one. They are utterly different: Herman would never move in with his daughter, would never let himself fall insolvent at age sixty-five, and never need a place to stay. Even now, the notion of retirement is preposterous to him-his fingers still jab far too well, poking that paper to credibility.

They part at airport security and Herman walks toward the exit, but he pauses at the sliding doors. Perhaps Jimmy still needs him for something. What if there's a problem?

He turns back and spots his old friend in the security line. Jimmy hauls his carry-on luggage, jacket slung over his forearm. He yawns-he never did get over the jet lag. He is jostled from behind and scratches his forehead testily, muttering. He has little hair left, a dusting of snow above each ear. His eyelids hang heavy, his ears are long. How Herman has adored provoking laughter from that face over the years! And how thin it has become. A spindly neck knocking around inside a collar, an abdomen retreating into a spine. The security line inches forward until it is Jimmy's turn. With difficulty, he heaves his bag onto the conveyor belt and Herman's shoulders strain involuntarily as if to help the bag up there. Jimmy raises his arms to be scanned, collects his bag, walks out of sight.

Herman drives the blue Mazda slowly home to Monteverde. He finds himself considering it all: Miriam (he smiles), their daughter (what a fine young woman), their grandchildren (each has such a different personality), these extraordinary years in Rome (Miriam was right about us moving here), his satisfaction at the paper (I've been useful). All this has been the most extraordinary surprise; he had expected an unhappy life, yet ended up with the opposite. It's barely credible.

When Miriam arrives home, she raves about the trip to Philadelphia and shows off all the photos on her digital camera. They are so wrapped up in talking about the grandkids that they hardly discuss Jimmy's stay. She turns to Herman on the sofa-they are sitting side by side.

"What?" he asks suspiciously. "What is it?"

"I was just thinking how handsome you are."

"How fat, you mean."

"No," she says. "Handsome." She kisses his cheek, then his lips. "You are. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, either."

"So I've got admirers now?"

"I'm not about to tell you, am I. You might run off."

"I made soup, by the way."

"Yes," she says, amused. "I know."

A couple of months later, Herman receives an email from Jimmy. It is long and rambling, full of philosophizing and poetic citations. Which is another way of saying he's in splendid spirits with his daughter in Tempe, Arizona.

The email, for no reason Herman can articulate, upsets him. He sees no reason to write back, and perhaps that is why.

1960. AVENTINE HILL, ROME

Ott opened his copy of the paper across the dining-room table and touched a finger to his tongue, which was dry from all the medication the doctors had him on. He flipped the pages: Eichmann caught in Argentina, African colonies declaring independence, Kennedy running for president.

He was proud of what the paper had become but sorry to read it here in his mansion and not in the office, among his staff. He had not visited Corso Vittorio in weeks. He'd told Betty and Leo that he was traveling in the United States; he'd told his family in Atlanta that he was on the road in Italy. The only travel he did, however, was to clinics in London and Geneva.

His symptoms had been worsening for months: blood, pain, exhaustion. He came to despise his bathroom in the mansion, all the intimate revulsions awaiting him there. He had the cooks prepare steak, eggs, liver pate, but still he grew thinner.

A surgeon in London cut out half of Ott's cancerous insides, but the procedure did no good. On his return to the mansion, he ordered the servants away. A delivery boy dropped each day's paper outside the gate; a maid left him food. Otherwise, he was on his own.

He washed in the bathtub, soap bar bruising his skin, bumping bones beneath. He climbed out, arms straining on the rim of the tub. In the fogged mirror, he caught sight of himself, thick white towel around jagged hips. He was dying.

He walked across the mansion, bathwater dripping off him, over the floorboards, up the stairs to the second floor. Cautiously, he lowered himself into the chair at his desk-no buttock flesh to cushion him anymore-and opened his letter pad.

The first note he addressed to his wife and son, whom he had left in Atlanta years earlier. "Dear Jeanne and Boyd," he wrote. "The important thing to realize, and I need to make this clear."

His pen hung above the line.

He glanced at the wall, at one of the paintings Betty had chosen, the Turner. He approached it and reached behind himself, as if to take her wrist, to lead her closer. "Tell me about this one. I don't understand it. Explain it to me."

He returned to his desk and started a new letter. It was time, he decided, to explain matters.

As days passed, copies of the paper piled up outside the mansion. The maid who left Ott's meals noticed that they were not being consumed. She unlocked the mansion. "Mister Ott?" she called out. "Mister Ott?"

His family in Atlanta, against all evidence, had always expected him to return. Now they could not even retrieve his body. Legally, there was no way: his will specified burial in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. They refused to believe this had been his wish and boycotted the funeral in Italy, holding an alternative service in Atlanta.

The paper came out with a black border around page one, accompanied by a front-page editor's note in tribute to the founding publisher. Leo sent Ott's brother, Charles, a letter of condolence (he did not respond), then followed up with a polite entreaty that the paper be allowed to survive. Again, Charles-now chairman of the Ott board-did not respond. Nor did he halt funding.

Six anxious months passed before Charles announced that he was coming for a visit. On arrival, he shook hands coldly with Leo and ignored Betty altogether. He made one demand-that at the top of the masthead, in bold print and in perpetuity, it state: "Founded by Cyrus Ott (1899-1960)." Betty and Leo heartily endorsed the idea.

"This is an enterprise that mattered a great deal to my younger brother," Charles said. "Letting it end now would be, I believe, a smear on his memory."

"I thoroughly agree," Leo said.

"How many copies do you people sell?"

"Around fifteen thousand on a good day."

"Well, I want more. I want my brother's name in front of as many eyes as possible. It may not mean much in the grand scheme, but it does mean something to me and to my family."

"We were extremely fond of him," Betty said.

This irked Charles for some reason. He concluded the conversation and went into the newsroom to address the staff.

"Putting out the paper each day is your business," he told them. "But that the paper gets put out-this is my business. I consider the enterprise to be a standing memorial to my brother, and it'll keep standing as far as I'm concerned."

The staff, seeing that he had finished, broke into applause.