In which the American dream becomes a nightmare

Everyone here seems worried. Dow Jones is on the slide and it’s all going horribly wrong on Wall Street. The yellow cab driver, haunted look, unshaven, edgy, very Travis Bickle, talks about it. The news vendor hollers: Wall Street crash read all about it. Even the impenetrable uber-cool wise guy known as the Stalker looks worried. Why do I find this hilarious? – it’s only money, after all. Saul is only bothered because he’s just moved house, shifted his base across the river from Manhattan to Brooklyn Heights. Downsizing is his name for it.

Sunday, we take the car out of town. Saul drives all the way out along Atlantic Avenue, across to Long Island, where he has this old abandoned beach house. It’s where he and Alison spent that long infested summer of 07, getting wasted in the heat. I stand on the veranda,recalling her photos of that time. I imagine them clinking glasses together, then making passionate love on the bare boards. His mouth full of her salty hair, her long thighs clamped around his waist. I feel nothing – not envy, not jealousy, no regrets.

You don’t mind coming here d’you says Saul. It’s just great to get away from civilization.
Which seems to be ending, I suggest.
I stare at my reflection in the hall mirror. Maybe later it’ll be my turn to be seduced here. I wouldn’t mind, it’s nicer than the city. And kind of romantic. Saul seems changed, more subdued.
No regrets, I guess, I say.
He’s alone on the balcony, listening to waves crashing out on the beach. For a moment she crept back in his memory. So close yet so far out of reach.

We’re in the kitchen, Saul is handing me a cold beer from the fridge. He slumps onto the sofa and spreads his arms wide.It’s kind of cold at night here, so we get closer.
Tell me about her, about Alison, I say.
He plays with a strand of my hair, sighs.
It's a long story, he says. Maybe some other time?
Okay, another story.
Well, there is the one about Fitzgerald.
You mean Scott Fitzgerald?
F Scott. Used to be one of the neighbours.
This, as it turns out, was also a long story.