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Eine Geschichte für W.R.
Author’s Note
The following is a work of nonfiction. All events are true as I remember them, though I am unapologetically prone to indiscriminate hyperbole, and some dialogue is approximated due to the passage of time. Most names and many identifying details have been changed, and some individuals are composites to further protect their identities.
A small number of scenes in the chapters “Schriftverkehr,” “Ereignis,” and “Schadenfreude” have appeared in a different form in Slate and on my personal website.
All translations from the German are my own.
“Give it up! Give it up!” he said, and turned away with a great swing of his body, like a man who wants to be alone with his laughter.
—Franz Kafka
1.
Jugendsünde
n. teenage folly, from youth and sin.
ex. Among the most egregious of her Jugendsünden was the intellectual gravitas she granted to Pinky and the Brain.
Dylan Gellner wasn’t German. He was a nonpracticing half-Jew from Oregon, just like me. But all of this is still largely his fault, or rather my fault for falling in love with him.
The first time I ever heard of Dylan Gellner was at the beginning of senior year, when he became a household name at South Eugene High School for getting a 1450 on his SATs. I realize that doesn’t sound like much nowadays, when a 1450 is what you get for spelling your own name with just one typo. But in 1993, it was the best board score at my twelve-hundred-student public school—the best, in fact, I had ever heard of in real life. Certainly much better than mine.
I had already taken the test twice, the first attempt resulting in an underwhelming 1160. My parents—who met in 1965 on their Stanford junior year abroad in Italy and married shortly before beginning joint Ph.D.s in English at the University of Chicago—had many opinions and much advice. “The only thing the SAT predicts is the aptitude of parents to force their kids to spend lunchtime doing practice tests,” said Sharon Schuman, Ph.D., the night before my first ignominious showing. “My SATs weren’t great, and I turned out fine. I got a Ph.D.!” She went back to grading her hundredth freshman paper of the night.
“It’s like studying for a urine test!” added David Schuman, Ph.D., J.D., as he dug into his usual postdinner snack of Crispix cereal dipped in I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! My dad’s own Ph.D. had been supplemented by a law degree after the English-professor employment crisis propelled him to law school just before I started kindergarten. Of course, he’d then snuck back into academia as a law professor, so he had never done anything exciting like defending murderers or helping teenagers divorce their parents.
