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came in contact with, how sex shaped everything they did and thought about, whether it was politics or art or just having to work for a living. I was not sure how I felt about any of that; the thought of sticking my thing in a girl unnerved me as much as it excited me—guess I thought it seemed vaguely unsanitary even if it doubled the charge I had already learned to enjoy by other less complicated means. But I wished that I had done that anyway, simply so I would know what the rest of the world was up to. I felt neglected that Pop had never gotten around to completing that part of my education, and I resented it. It was typical somehow of the way he thought about me, as opposed to Manny. He was a busy man, I know that, he didn’t have the time, but somehow he found time for Manny, and it never occurred to him to find it for me.
    I always liked to hear Manny talk about what happened the summer night nearly a decade before, his first time with that girl in the whorehouse in Harlem, and I’d get a hard-on myself just thinking about it, never mind listening to him telling me about it, how he and Pop sat around in this parlor talking with the girls who came in to talk with the customers. They weren’t naked but they were the next best thing. They wore these skimpy clothes you could pretty much see through, or imagined you could, which was just as good.
    It was a warm night and a breeze came in the window and lifted the curtains as it lifted the girls’ dresses, so you could see almost everything, and Pop told Manny to pick out one that he liked, and he did, and the girl took him off to another room, with a big bed and freshly ironed sheets and a lamp with a rose shade on the table beside it and she took off her dress, her covering, whatever it was, and began undressing Manny, took off his shirt, socks, and pants, and ran her hand over his chest and touched the bulge in his BVD’s, and then slipped her hand inside and held him, then stripped his underwear off as well. “And then what did you do?” I remember saying. “The semaphore was saying ‘Clear track ahead,’” I remember his answering. “The semaphore just shot right up and told me what to do after that.”
    â€œWhat was her name?” I wanted to know.
    â€œI don’t know. Why would that matter?”
    â€œI don’t know. I guess I’d want to know who she was.”
    â€œI think maybe she said it was Clytemnestra, her name. She said she came from the south and people had names like that.”
    That must have been it then.
    â€œWas she black?” I wanted to know. Really black? Was her hair kinky and what did it feel like when you touched it? Not just her head, down there, what did it feel like, but I didn’t ask any of those things. I asked, “What was Pop doing while you were with this girl?”
    â€œHow would I know,” Manny said. “When I came back to the parlor he wasn’t around. Later on he and the woman who ran the place came downstairs and had a glass of wine together. I had one too.”
    â€œHad he been with her?”
    â€œHow would I know? But what would you have done?”
    I wasn’t sure.
    I used to tell myself that Pop was different from other fathers. He didn’t just have a job. He was someone other people depended on for their lives, their happiness, their future.
    We had moved uptown, to the Bronx, around the time I was born and settled into a big sprawling house on a broad tree-lined street with elm trees that met overhead, keeping shade all summer. Our house was a fairly new one; it had a steep slate roof and lots of towers and turrets; inside there was dark wood gleaming everywhere, staircases, banisters, and paneling, with room for us all to live and Pop to maintain his practice.
    The Bronx was a grand and beautiful place in those days, with fields spreading out behind the houses, and in many ways it was far more attractive than