Escape the Night

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Book: Read Escape the Night for Free Online
Authors: Richard North Patterson
looking back. But Charles seemed to notice neither awkwardness nor envy, casually including Levy among his friends, scrounging him dates and beers and asking his opinion of their dorm-mates or the books he read, or even Judaism, with a dispassion that suggested this was just another subject on which Levy’s thoughts were interesting. In turn, Levy noted that Charles, too, said little about his family, never showed surprise or hurt or anger, as if he were born a Harvard athlete, unscarred by any past and utterly self-possessed. As months passed, Levy sensed that this unruffled persona —even Carey’s flat, sardonic speech—was a cover for a vulnerability that Carey could not admit. With a shock of recognition, Levy saw his own loneliness in Charles Carey.
    One night, in a waterfront Boston bar filled with smoke and sailors and the stale smell of beer drying on the floor, the two sophomores got very drunk. At a point Levy could no longer remember or define, they passed beyond mere palship amidst the noise and haze, and became friends.
    â€œWhy do you hang out with me?” Levy had asked. “I’ve been thinking maybe you were hard up for Jews.”
    Charles shrugged. “If you didn’t study so fucking much, you’d probably notice you’re one of the few people around here worth talking with.”
    â€œIt’s premed—the worst grind there is.” Levy drained the Scotch, smoky on his tongue and throat. “Frog-cutter to the world, that’s me. I want to be a halfback.”
    â€œIt’s an overrated thrill. Besides, you wouldn’t do all that if you didn’t want to.” Carey peered at him with exaggerated concentration. “Would you?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Levy stared at his empty glass. “My father thinks I’ve got ‘surgeon’ stamped on my genetic code. My Son the Doctor , a Martin Levy Production. God help my sister—he’s got her cast as Lillian Hellman.”
    â€œCan she write?”
    â€œNot a lick,” Levy said mournfully. “But she can read.”
    Carey grinned. “Then we’ll make her an editor. How old is she, anyhow?”
    â€œThirteen?”
    â€œWell, when she grows up send her around to Van Dreelen and Carey. ‘Literacy and Loyalty,’ that’s my father’s watchword.” In a different voice—low and intense—Charles finished, “You don’t have to do what he wants, Bill.”
    Levy caught himself smoothing his cowlick, a habit born of confusion. “What else would I do?”
    Charles called for another round.
    The din grew louder. A sailor next to them pitched from a sitting position face forward onto the table, as two others talked over him without missing a beat. The barman brought their drinks. Charles raised his in a mock salute and said, “Become a psychiatrist.”
    Levy tingled with surprise. “A shrink?”
    Carey’s eyes locked with his. “I’ve watched you. You see people—look, I know you’re on to me.” His gaze broke. In one quick motion he snapped a lighter at his cigarette: drunk, he had the trick of doing small things perfectly, seeming suddenly sober. “The point is that you’ve got the insight to help people, maybe even the need. Think of this business with your father. He wants a chest-cutter, so you wear yourself out over whether to be one. What psychiatry says is that people can escape the ambush of their own childhood.” Charles stopped as if embarrassed, then began laughing. “Besides, think of all the great cocktail-party stuff you’ll have: football molesters, guys who are fixated on Eleanor Roosevelt, frigid women …”
    Now, treating Alicia Carey, Levy recalled with double poignancy that Charles had helped him to do so.
    After that drunken night in Boston, Levy took his first psychology course. It was Charles who had queried him about it, smiling at his

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