Free Fraud by David Rakoff

forty and I freaked out. I’m sixty-six now and I thought, If they can do it, why can’t I? And I disappeared for a few years.”
    “Where did you go?” I ask.
    “Aw, I dunno.” He sighs, suddenly tired at what a long, strange trip it’s been.
    The son is as painfully thin as his father, but weak chinned. At least the latter, despite the alpine levels of dandruff and wickedly long eyebrows, still maintains a Martin Landau handsomeness. We decide to head over together to the evening’s concert. Tonight it’s a woman advertised on the flyers pinned up here and there as having “a voice like dark chocolate.” Her tones are not uncocoalike. She sings a lot of noodly Thelonious Monk numbers to which she wrote her own lyrics. In one couplet she innovatively rhymes “just gotta let loose” with “rhythm’ll make your body loose.” Most noteworthy is her earnest, unsmiling quality; even when she smiles she looks serious: Doris Day at Bennington.
    Walking back together from the Lake Theater, we run into a friend of his, also an older Tennis Jew: silver hair, gold chain, athletic wear, tan.
    “So what was today like?” he asks. “You and my wife doing the same
farschtunkener chazerai
with the exercise?” Taking his leave, he tells us he is off to the Omega sauna for a
schvitz.
    The moon is a huge yellow headlight as I walk back to my room alone. I stop to look. An older woman with an ice cream walks by, and I point. She stops for a moment and then, putting a hand between my shoulder blades, says, “Thank you.” Her hand is comfortingly warm; I hadn’t even realized I was cold before she touched me. I sit, moments later, on a lawn chair in front of my cabin, looking up at the stars. Schmuck! I think. Where was this serenity and openness and relaxation three days ago? But I don’t really feel serene, relaxed, or open. What I feel is relief at the impending end of this very difficult, singularly lonely experience. (I will find when my phone bill arrives the following month, over the three days, I checked my messages thirty times. It being a holiday weekend, I received not one call.)
     
    Seagal, expected at nine A . M ., arrives at eleven forty-five for our final session. The entire seminar is ending at noon that very day. “Is everybody getting hungry?” he asks the clearly had-it-up-to-here crowd. A young man appears at the mike, unilaterally deciding to start the Q&A early. “We were wondering where you were last night and why you’re late today. It’s kind of funny and I’m kind of nervous asking, but we’re wondering about the mutual respect thing you keep talking about and why you show up for one hour of these three-hour things.”
    Seagal’s face is unreadable as he answers, neither defensive nor angry. “I was told about the eight P . M . session last night as I was leaving. I’ve been teaching for thirty years and I’ve never taught as much as I taught yesterday and it comes to a point of diminishing returns as to what you can absorb. I would be happy to give you your money back and a bonus.” He then adds a tad tersely, “In my tradition, teachers don’t explain. I’m not here to take your money. I’m not flippant about people’s time and energy, and I’m very respectful to everyone.”
    Immediately mollified about the taking of their money and the disrespect shown by Seagal’s flippant disregard of their time and energy, the audience applauds. The man thanks him for his very direct answer and sits down.
    Meg, seeking to calm yet further the now glass-smooth waters, stands up at the mike. “I’ve been thinking about the chocolate cake that my friend [Not me, I hasten to point out. Someone else] and I have been eating every night in the café?” she upspeaks. “It’s sold in such small slices because it’s very rich? What we get here is very rich?” She sits down.
    Seagal assumes a demeanor of aching humility for the concluding few minutes of the seminar. He asks in the oblique and