In October 1973, Harvey moved to Flagg Street, three houses away from me. We work all the time, are news addicts, walk around the Square looking at bookstore windows, talk about working less, go to the movies, jog by the Charles River, go to restaurants for Szechuan Chinese food, sit on the front stoop. Because the criteria and pressures of our work are so different, Harvey and I spend a lot of time explaining to each other what is going on, what matters. Sometimes I wish he were a photographer too or a novelist (a presumption since he's such a rare and creative criminal lawyer]. We have separate sets of friends and though we often see them together, we each spend a lot of time with them by ourselves. And up to now, we've never mixed them, his with mine. Whenever I have my friends over, Harvey runs out in the middle of the evening for rum and lemons so he can make his marvelous daiquiris for everyone -- or for homemade pies -- apple, cheese, pecan, blueberry.

Our fights are about coupling, distance, intimacy, the real/imagined demands of our work, how we each think we should live. We have them every couple of months; they're quiet, almost monosyllabic. Harvey provides the situation and I provide the words. After about a day and a half we're hack together as if nothing happened; we usually make the remedies but we never talk about what just passed.


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