Sometimes I Feel Exactly Like Satan,

like when, for instance, talking to someone much younger than me or much stupider than me, who has a much sweeter view of the world, how I worry I am seeding that sweetness with

something that contains its destruction, like the professor I had as an undergraduate, the alcoholic who, having made us read The Quiet American, having made us dinner (and drinks), having waited until the stupidest student left, said to us, “that guy, I don’t know about that guy, that guy

is Pyle,” which, I don’t know if you’ve read The Quiet American, but Alden Pyle, somehow, against all odds, believes in the Vietnam War despite everything awful happening around him—not out of an unthinking loyalty (to what? Not his country, per se, but to his

privilege), but rather out of

that sort of smart person’s naivete that, yes, was my signature at 18, 19, 20, thinking you can outthink

the US government, the Vietnamese landscape, my sexual assault, or abusive roommates. “That guy is Pyle” meaning

“that guy is the worst kind of destructive sucker who” (we didn’t, at that time, talk about it this way, per se, but) “falls for his own whiteness, his own richness, which he thinks are brains.” Which, I’ll be honest, I’d never heard a teacher talk about a student that way before. And I don’t remember what I did— defend the student? join in (I did find him

stupid)?—but later (we kept drinking Natty Light, which is what this professor bought to keep the fridge stocked—there were

hundreds of empties in his

overflowing recycling), later when the conversation turned to my other favorite professor, the Very Successful Poet, this professor, the alcoholic, called him a sellout and

changed the subject to his own brilliant, unagented novel and The Alexandria Quartet. “You can’t be a success without selling out.” And me so permeable, so drunk and only (maybe? if that?) 21, so sure the world contained a seed of fairness (not luck), I said, “NO,” I said (something like), “sometimes there is something so good in the world

that others can’t help but see it. Sometimes the world rises up and gives us something unequivocally GOOD.

I will write poems that earn their own way, without schmoozing, and you will read them one day and be astonished.” And he said “YOU are Pyle!” and I thought not, but maybe only because I didn’t want to be a tool for anyone, least of all the United States government? But certainly this idea entered me and, without me wanting it to, wriggled down inside me—the idea being, honestly, plain old jealousy, which contains, too, the idea that anything you yourself succeed at is, on some level, unearned and unwholesome, a little bit fake, and—looking for fathers as I am—this idea

fathered me, became my father, and gave me all its unwholesome nurturance, the nurturance of a father, and begat, I guess, this of me, this version of me.

And honestly it reminds me of Brothers Karamazov, which

we also read

that semester, that Grand Inquisitor part, where

Ivan Karamazov reenacts the temptation of Christ with Alexei, where he presents the argument that even perfect goodness is badness, when viewed just the right way. But in Bros K, Ivan has no power over the firmness that is Alyosha. Ivan, who is pained. Ivan, who is me. I hope I am not Ivan, or if I am Ivan, I hope I am powerless. Please, let all these little prayers keep their

parts intact. I don’t want to be a temptation.

I don’t want to be a satan to you, your good, sweet, innocence (I know, I know,

I’m condescending), which is a kind of intelligence in itself. I say many things I only halfway believe, finding out as I say them. I say many things that are only half-formed, as early as they are in my throat. How can I tell you which parts are bullshit? How can I keep you

keep you intact?