One night I was visiting a friend in Maine, and she had guests to dinner, a man and a woman who were maybe a couple or maybe close friends who had once been a couple. They were both in the business of meeting you and saying they could feel the secret suffering inside you, and the man, who had a belly in the shape of a beach ball, offered to massage my neck and shoulders. He stood too close. Nothing is ever free. He began the massage, and it felt good. Too soon he asked if he could kiss my shoulders. I already knew how the world works, and I said okay, although when I said okay, I wanted to leave the history of my life. His kisses were embarrassing. In every piece of aggression, a small bird is saying, “Notice me.” When I look back at this moment, I see the thing in the man that is also in me, the thing when people turn away from you forever and leave you wondering what happened. Later, alone with Richard, he said, “Why did you let him do that?” One day in New York City, two large men in long t-shirts flanked Richard on a bench in Central park, where he was reading, and one of the men pressed an object against his jacket and said, “Give me your money or I’ll blow your fucking head off.” Richard said, “No,” and he got up and walked away. That’s the difference in our history.