Raines was afraid Marty might actually cry. So we get together, he thought, to think better of ourselves. He knew Marty meant it: he knew this tone. One night a transcontinental call woke him upand Marty was on the line, drunk and in despair at midnight S.F.time. It seemed his mother had tried to wire floodlights off a transformer to illuminate her shrine to the Virgin of Cali out by the swimming pool and nearly burned the house down. His brother, who lived at home, was off partying locally. By the time Marty reached Olema Mrs. Lee was completely disoriented by firemen and electricians and vallum. When Marty started to scold her she waved a finger in her second-born's face and told him he'd given up a son's rights by abandoning her for the city and blonde bitches. Marty had to swallow this and deal with the authorities and clean up the water damage, which meant he was late for a date back in the city- with, it turned out, a blonde. The young woman yelled at him, and Marty lost it and broke a giant frog of blown venetian glass on her coffee table. Then, his most abject apologies spurned, banished for the second time that day, he went off in search of liquid succor.
       Lying in bed in Massachusetts, groggy and awash in his friend's story, Raines felt a formless danger clogging the line in California, pushing east toward his ear. It was not in him, he realized, to confront the disorder and grief that had woken him up. What he was hearing had no reference points in his idea of their friendship-it was as if Marty had betrayed an agreement. At such moments he suspected there were places in other people's lives that he was inadequate to imagine; with a bump he became aware of the limited being he was encased in. His own parents were the Cleavers, bonded for life in suburban Connecticut. His girlfriend was a level-headed if mildly depressed former student. He found himself lapsing into a buck-up heartiness, and after an hour Marty sounded sober and reserved. "You're a moral person," he told Raines, "and I'm not so it's hard to tell you this stuff but I know you don't condemn me. I hope I'm as good a friend to you." Raines was reassuring. But afterward he couldn't get back to sleep, and his 9:00 class was a fiasco. It was a month before they spoke again: Raines called to describe lunch with an old classmate they both despised who'd become a public radio personality; and the conversation wasn't mentioned. Neither of them ever referred to it again.
       The Conservatory floated by, sunstruck, a crystal-palace greenhouse. Marty said, "Nervous about your talk?"
       "Why, do I seem it? I guess I am. I mean, this is it, I have-"
       "Your stuff is always impressive, Bill." Marty's voice had goneflat. "I'm sure it'll be successful."
       A burr of irritation bristled in Raines. "It's not going to be pretty. Lots of name-tags, white wine, networking in elevators, vicious gossip over stuffed mushrooms. They're not fuddy- duddies in English any more, some of these people have agents."
       "But academia is still on a higher plane. There's still purity in the life of the mind."
       "You're kidding, right?" But he knew Marty wasn't. "If you think auditioning is bad. . . "
       "I don't think it's really the same, Bill."
       "Well, it is, sort of. The MLA bolls down to getting checked out."
       "It's not the same."
       Raines prepared a mild reply, and withheld it. Something was keeping them from being in cahoots, and the lapses and gaps made him cautious. In the silence that followed, Marty reached under his seat, pulled out a car phone the size of an electric razor, removed it from its leather sheath, and plugged it into the hole for the cigarette lighter. He'd once confided to Raines that the phone cost $1200. There had been both shame and defiance in that confession.
       "We're meeting Hilary at six at this new tapas place on Columbus that I want to show you. I really think you and Hilary will get along. She's quite well read for someone who's high- powered in television. Let me 'just make sure she didn't leave a message."
       "I won't be crowding you out with your woman tonight?"
       "My woman doesn't spend the night," Marty said." I'm trying to be cool and not blow this one."
       Other than Raines' own message, there was nothing on Marty's answering machine but what sounded like an obscene hang-up. Raines watched a woman rollerblade past the car and braced for his bad joke. But as he replaced the phone, Marty braved a wry smile.
       "The next one's Hamlet," he said. "Directed by Kurosawa."

***

       His apartment was in the face-lifted Haight, with royal blue Victorian trim and a view of Kezar Stadium through a stand of cedar trees. Mrs. Lee's tropical vines coiled along the crown moldings and her picture smiled sweetly on Marty's computer table. He brought two Anchor Steams from the refrigerator and the friends sat drinking in a long silence. Marty was picking at the wet label of his beer. Raines was trying to think of a graceful way to retreat to his talk, which was worrying him again.
       "I'm in trouble, Bill," Marty said. "Fairly in major trouble."
       Raines leaned forward and panic flooded his face. "Tell me about it."
       Marty shrugged. "I can't find work. The Toyota thing was a prayer. I was on a roll and now there's nothing out there. Everyone feels it. Of course in my case it's ... more difficult. Christ, in L.A. I'd be turning stuff down. But I'm up that creek. And I have expenses most of my friends don't even know about."
       This sounded faintly sinister, like a drug habit or a hidden mistress. But Raines quickly realized that the mistress was Mrs. Josefina Lee, alone with her biker son in the big house in Olema, starting electrical fires. Raines wished that Marty would look at him. He wanted to know that his buddy knew that he was totally on his side. He wanted to be counted among the friends who understood all about secret expenses.
       Yet his inward eye kept returning to Marty's leap in front of the businessmen. He'd wondered if Marty was overspending for his career.
       "It's a lull, buddy," Raines said. "You've got a network in commercials here and it'll come back."
       Marty was shaking his head, smiling at some private insight. "The irony of it, the beautiful irony of it, is there's a boom in serious parts for minority actors. I could be booked solid for stage work."
       "Let's talk about some temporary measures."
       Marty didn't hear. "They're auditioning M. Butterfly in Berkeley next month. But I'm squatting for the auto industry."
       Raines thought: Then quit squatting, and get over to Berkeley. Remember your dreams. But he wouldn't kick Marty when Marty was down and practically inviting him to. That was a can of worms he wasn't about to open.
       "A personal loan," he said. "Short-term, no interest."
       "The thing I've always admired about your life," Marty said, as if he'd 'just noticed Raines' presence, yet still ignored it, "no, let's be honest: envied, is that you don't have to sell out but once you've got tenure you can't fall. When we talk on the phone I picture you back in University Library for some reason, sitting in one of those green-upholstered chairs that have the window view of the quad. Preparing class with some lovingly fingered modern cultural study in your lap." Raines didn't answer. "I envy you the way you envy a friend whose girlfriend has a better body than your girlfriend. You're ashamed, but you can't help it."
       "Want to give my talk tomorrow?"
       "I'd love to," Marty said. "Want to pay my rent this month?"
       "I've suggested a loan."
       "I can't take your money. You'd secretly despise me."
       "Marty. What do you want me to do?"
       Marty laughed vacantly. "Nothing, Bill. Really- nothing." He shook his head. "God, I wish you hadn't walked in on me."
       "There's no need," Raines said, on tiptoe, "for you and I to turn this into psychodrama." He meant you and me. He was appalled; he never made mistakes like that. Too much TV sports. "This is a practical problem. What we need to do is figure out a practical way to cut costs until things get better."
       "How?"
       Raines took a breath. "Pawn the car phone?"
       "You'd like me better without it, wouldn't you?" Marty put his hand over his eyes. "I need it for work."
       Raines didn't ask "What work?", didn't argue whether it was necessary. His stomach muscles were sore with anxiety from the arguing they'd done. It was true: he would like Marty better without the car phone. He missed the younger, hungrier Marty who'd done Euripides and Mamet instead of Jones & Weisberg. Raines still carried a strong memory of walking into a dormitory bathroom as someone inside the toilet stall was muttering, "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt." The stink rose, Hamlet's poetry flowed, the toilet paper roll rattled. Raines waited until he had finished the soliloquy and flushed before applauding. Marty emerged fastening his belt, embarrassed and pleased; the friendship began. It was always easy to feel pure affection for that Marty's ambitions and struggles. In return, Marty revered him. Hard to resist a quid pro quo like that! Raines knew that it was unfair to hold a Toyota ad and a new name against him, that with a little more money and success Marty would be "a moral person" too, that his own stature was a sham. The whole friendship had been built on sand. Raines suddenly felt lonely, and he saw himself as a ridiculous man, Judgmental, secure in his dark socks, fondling his talk, at a loss to say whatever Marty needed to hear.
       Marty gulped the Anchor Steam, plastered its label on his forehead, and leaned back with his eyes closed. His lips silently worked. The phone rang and he was on his feet.
       "No, screen it," he said, sitting down again. "It's probably my mother."
       "Pick up, you fuck!" said the man on the machine. "Martin. You screen your brother? Who's Bill and why the fuck is he so important? Look, we got an emergency. I'm coming over."
       The machine shut off. But Ramon's voice lingered in the living room like a smell.

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