He had come to Porter Square Books to talk about Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End Of Civilization and had attracted the crazies you might expect — white-haired war enthusiasts who raised their hands aggressively, all ooo, ooo ooo ooo, warbling incomprehensible yelps about 1914, or why we shouldn’t negotiate with madmen (madmen who have hurt others before! Fool me seven times? Fool, ff-fool me fourteen times?), or with new historical scenarios — if we invaded then, don’t you agree, surely you can’t deny, we would have immediately won the war?

Some kid in hipster glasses wanted to know what all of this said about global warming.

“… I don’t know,” Baker shrugged, good-natured. “I can’t even begin to talk about global warming right now.”

Afterwards, my friend Angie and I joined the book-signing line — which was, granted, a little slow-moving, with all the crazies and their follow-up questions. I had brought my copy of Counterpoint, and she asked me what it was about.

“Oh, it’s great. It’s about these two guys … so, one of them wants to kill George W. Bush, he’s the kind of crazy one, and it’s a play, and … um, so, the play is about him wanting to kill the president … and he talks about why that might be justified. And it’s just the two of them talking, about that.”

“Huh,” she said. “Hey, do you like Soduku?”

“I have two potentially gauche questions for you,” I said. “One, is it okay to ask for a signing of a book that isn’t Human Smoke?”

“Of course!” he smiled. “I’ll sign anything!”

“And two, is it all right to ask you to sign more than one book? One is for someone else; she introduced me to your work.”

“Of course, of course!”

I glowed in the shadow of this physical and metaphorical giant, and inwardly congratulated myself for both casually using the word gauche, and neglecting to make a complete ass of myself in front of Nicholson freaking Baker.

“Oh,” he said, as he handed the books back to me. “And I heard what you said, about Counterpoint, and that’s really not how I think of that book. It’s more about the man convincing the other, why it is not appropriate to kill the president. Not the other way around.”

It seemed as though the cops busted up the party only because this was a natural defining element of The Quintessential Party, and thus it was our destiny, their destiny, two destinies colliding. Up until the cops arrived, the stage had been set perfectly for their arrival, resembling every party you see in leading young-people movies and which you’ve joked does not actually exist anywhere in reality. There were dozens of sexy twentysomethings in each room, pouring into the hallways like spilled slushees, donning feathered fake eyelashes and anonymous plastic cups, their shoulder blades and butt cheeks leaning up against walls and backing into fireplace mantles. The main question you have in such a house at such a party is but where did they put all their furniture?

We’d had a horrible time at this party because this is exactly the kind of partying we’re bad at, and decided to leave an hour after we’d arrived.

“God freaking dammit,” I said as we faced a veritable mountain of piled coats, purses and scarves. “Well. I guess it’s time to start digging.”

It was dark in the hallway, with no visible light switch. Jurvis stuck his hand into the tower and began rummaging for our belongings by feel.

It was Saturday morning and we were still in bed, beginning a very intense discussion, when you happened to knock on our door. “You’re looking at me funny,” he’d just said. “Like you don’t know who I am.”

“Well, I guess it’s just a side of you I hadn’t considered before,” I said. “Not that it’s wrong, it’s just –”

Knock knock!

“Is that someone at the door?”

We laid there, in our pajamas, staring hard at the wall as if we’d hear better that way. “Nah,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

Knock knock!

“It really sounds like someone at our door.”

“The walls here are so thin. It must be someone else’s apartment, it’d be louder if that was our door.”

We waited, listening for a few minutes. Nothing. If it had been you, you’d given up, we thought.