Free Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem Page A

know what was wrong. I couldn't explain.
    The comic led to an unusual interview with a Yale scout. The first question he asked was what my favorite single book was. I said
Travels in Arabia Deserta
, which I'd never read. He looked taken aback. “That's
my
favorite book,” he said. “I didn't realize anyone your age was reading it.” “Yeah, well,” I said. “I'm an autodidact.” I hoped that would account for my grades. I don't know if it did, but I had the scout eating out of my hand after the lucky coincidence. Fortunately he didn't ask me what I liked about
Arabia Deserta
.
    Matthew got into Reed. I helped him get the application out, in one desperate night before the deadline. Reed is one of those colleges where they don't give grades, where you can major in things like harmonica or earth sculpture. It's in the Pacific Northwest, far from New York, which probably would have been good for him. But he didn't go. He convinced his parents that he needed a year abroad before he could decide what to do. Sending him to college would have cost about the same, so they went for it. He and his marijuana fumes were out of the house either way.
    Matthew was talking about becoming a Zen monk a lot at that time, and he even carried around an Alan Watts book called
The Wisdom of Insecurity
for a while. I'm sure he thought our pranks were a form of native Zen. An example: We took an 8-by-11 sheet of clear Mylar to the Xerox shop and asked for a copy. The clerk indulged us. The result was a photograph of the inside of the machine, of course, but Matthew insisted on calling it “a copy of nothing.” Just like one hand clapping, see? He cared nothing about Buddhism, needless to say. If there had been such a thing as a Dada monk he would have wanted to become that. But Zen it was, so he went to Asia.
    Matthew visited me once at Yale, junior year. I lived in a suite with a roommate, and I was embarrassed to have Matthew stay there. He and I were beginning to look different. He was sunburned and wiry and seemed quite a bit older. He was still dressed like a boy but he looked like a man. At Yale we all dressed like men but looked like boys, except for a few who were working on beer stomachs.
    Matthew was back temporarily from Thailand, where, he explained excitedly, he'd gotten involved with a charismatic drug lord named Khan Shah. Khan Shah was more powerful than the government, Matthew said, and was trying to legitimize his rule by making poppy cultivation legal. He was a man of the people. Matthew was learning to speak Thai so he could translate Khan Shah's manifestos.
    This didn't sound like Zen to me, and I told Matthew so. He laughed.
    “Are you doing what you want to do?” he asked me suddenly.
    That question didn't compute for me at the time. Matthew was making me very, very nervous. I could still admire him, but I didn't want him in my life.
    Cracking old jokes for cover, I hustled him back down to New York with excuses about a girlfriend's demands and a paper I had to write. He spent just one night.
    That was the last I saw of him for eight years. Except for postcards. Here's one from a few years back. The front shows Elton John, in spangled glasses. In Matthew's hand on the back it says “Vacant Lot/Living Chemist.” No return address. The postmark is Santa Fe, New Mexico.
             
    I ONLY had an hour's warning. He got my number from information, he explained on the phone. I gave him the address. An hour later he knocked on my door.
    He wobbled slightly. “I parked in the green zone,” he said.
    “That's fine, it's two hours.” I stared. He was still tall and bony, but his face was fleshy and red. I immediately wondered if I looked as bad, if I'd lost as much.
    “Here,” he said. “I brought you this.”
    It was a rock, fist-sized, gray with veins of white. I took it.
    “Thanks,” I said, checking the irony in my voice. I didn't know whether I was supposed to think it was mainly funny or mainly