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"Like what?"

"You need help Professional help I’m not sure your mother realizes the seriousness of your condition--how o away"

"She won’t listen to you She’s crazy"

"May I call her? Please," Herr Silverman says

I suck my lips into uing with hi worse

"She’s under Fashion Designer Linda," I say while I’ the pattern to unlock my cell I hand him the phone and say, "But she probably won’t answer anyway She never answers after ten Says she needs her beauty sleep, but really it’s because she’s sleeping with this French guy who loves sex and Linda is a nymphomaniac"

I wish I hadn’t said that last joke, especially because Herr Silverh

He calls Linda, but she doesn’t answer

He leaves athat I’m with him at his apartment and he’d really appreciate a call back, because it’s an es up

"Guess ait for her to call," Herr Silverht

I know from experience

Herr Silverman pulls a pad of paper from a drarites down Linda’s phone number, and sticks it in his shirt pocket

"Did you paint this?" I point back at the X-ed-out-tree-with-fallen-decapitated-heads-of-fas over the couch I don’t knohy I ask Maybe just to change the subject Maybe because I feel bad about Linda’s not calling, and Herr Silverhts up like he’s either really proud of the painting or he’s just happy to have so to talk about besides how fucked I am "No," he says "I purchased it when I went to Israel a few years ago At an art show A friend of a friend Had it shipped hoood," I lie I don’t really like it at all I just feel like I should be nice to Herr SilverainstI told hiood side

"I like it," he says

"What does itto ?"

"I don’t know I thought art was supposed to "

"Can’t it just exist without an explanation? Why do we have to assign ? Maybe it exists to evoke feelings and ee what he’s saying, even though it sounds a little like art-talk bullshit todeep conversations about art and life and everything, and it actually starts to make me smile

Life beyond the übermorons

If I weren’t so tired, I’d continue the conversation, debating back and forth, just like in Herr Silvero on for hours and hours, but I feel likeon me--like I only have time for one or two more questions--so I ask, "Would you say it’syou’d see in MoMA in New York City? I’m sort of interested in modern art lately"

"Well, it’s art and it’spainted recently is called contemporary art"

I nod and say, "Do you think a picture of a Nazi handgun set next to a bowl of oatmeal could be contemporary art or maybe just art?"

"Sure," he says "Why not?"

"Okay," I say, and then we just sort of sit there silently until I realize I’erously exhausted--that my brain is maybe at the end of its rope--and I can’t wait for Linda to not call all night, because I just don’t have the energy My eyelids weigh a h a yawn, I say, "Do you ht ahead," he says "Make yourself comfortable"

As soon as my head hits his couch, the rope snaps

It feels likedown into so

THIRTY-FOUR

There’s a war

The lights are off and the curtains have been pulled, but the glow of the city creeps in frole of the s

It takes ot here on my Holocaust teacher’s couch, but once I do, I feel a rush of adrenaline course through my veins

I sit up and think, "What the hell happened yesterday?"

Then I replay it all in et to the part about Asher Beal, I feel like maybe I shouldn’t have told Herr Silverman about what happened--like it was a horrible mistake I trust hiet me help, and what if those other people think I’s to me that will fuck my head up even worse? How can I trust people I don’t know? I don’t knohat’s going to happen next, and that makes me feel like I’m covered in super-pissed-off scorpions and spiders I didn’t really think h It just sort of happened

Maybe I shouldn’t be here

Maybe I really should have killed myself

I also start to worry that Herr Silverhoff--which would really rab my cell off the coffee table, hit the camera button, and see as recorded