Why not not do something as inevitable as being home on time for dinner, Antonio reads, not remembering having read this or any other thought from Hershleder, the protagonist of The Revisionist, which Antonio has been rereading for almost a decade, and although he doesn’t ever remember too many specifics from The Revisionist, he does remember this short fiction as (1) a performance of delay, (2) too dependent on its reversal at the end, (3) paradoxical because despite knowing about (2) he always cries in the end, and of course once he rereads The Revisionist, as he’s doing now, Hershleder’s delay becomes less about (1)(2)(3) and more about Hershleder’s desire to delay his trajectory back home, Hershleder’s desire being Antonio’s desire, of course, though less so over the years, yes, why not watch a movie during the day instead of going home, Hershleder thinks, why not enter the Silver Horse, as Antonio had done many years ago as he waited for an acquaintance to let him into a nightclub nearby (how ridiculous the word nightclub sounds to him now — just as ridiculous as all those years I wanted the freedom to exhaust myself at nightclubs, Antonio writes—), and so as he waited for his nightclub acquaintance, Antonio hesitated about entering the Silver Horse because he liked to believe he wasn’t the type to enter the Silver Horse or any other so-called gentleman’s club due to a faulty youthful logic of why pay for women to dance for me if I can just pick them up at nightclubs — completely different pleasures, Antonio writes — the fading wise man of the flesh, eh? — go away — and yet to pass the time that night almost a decade ago he did enter the Silver Horse, where he discovered a glass room like an aquarium that the management had named the Smoking Room, and because this room had been built by the management in the back, facing the stage, and because this room had been sealed by the management such that inside the music sounded muffled — ahora ya soy un Axolotl — Antonio could watch the dancers on the stage and the men interacting with the dancers working the floor as if he were watching a television show with the sound off, with the added benefit that he didn’t feel as guilty about staring at the dancers from inside the aquarium, plus every now and then the dancers would step out of the television and into the aquarium and ask him for his name, a smoke, a dance, and so every Friday or Thursday, soon after marrying his future former wife, who was already four or five months pregnant with Ada, he wouldn’t do something as inevitable as being home for his future former wife, but instead he would switch on the television at the Silver Horse for an hour or two — a show without consequences, Antonio writes, unlike pursuing women at nightclubs — and one evening, during summer #1, while his (not yet) former wife and his newborn were in Czechia with Babička and Děda, he switched on the television to find the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life — call me Hari — and she stepped out of the television and into the aquarium, lit a Camel Light, and then (and he will never forget this moment — I will never forget this moment, Antonio writes — a moment he hasn’t shared with anyone because who wants to hear about a thirty-year-old South American flummoxed by a beautiful hippie at a strip club? — the moment when he said to himself dear god — dear god who doesn’t exist, Antonio writes — dear god, please, just this once, inhaling and summoning all the available knowledge he’d accumulated over his thirty years of life and then) he said this, that, everything, anything she might care about, Che Guevara, she said, his biography by Jon Lee Anderson, he said, which he’d happened to have been reading, recent graduate of Evergreen State College, she said, Grateful Dead concerts with my parents when I was a child, she said, and so they exchanged phone numbers and a week later they drove together to Burning Man, a party in the desert marketed as a transcendental utopia that is just an excuse for Americans to consume psychedelic drugs — welcome home! — what’s your playa name? — Cosmic Harenina at your service — Berthe Trépat at your service — joven! — and perhaps years from now, when he’s old and alone and banished from his loved ones, he will no longer remember that their safeword was elephant, or that Hari, the most beautiful woman he’d ever encountered, would politely request that he slap her legs, face, thighs, that he tie her to chairs, drag her by a dog collar to a water bowl on his kitchen floor — I didn’t know I could be into this, Antonio writes — and perhaps years from now he will no longer remember the night he’d shown up at the Silver Horse at 1:45 a.m. and she’d told him to wait for her outside but on the corner nearby because she wasn’t allowed to leave with customers, and so he waited for her on the corner nearby and she swung open the door of a taxi still in motion and said quick, jump in, and so he jumped into the taxi as if into a toboggan — wheeeee — and inside the taxi she provoked him on purpose so he would slap her in the face, and he did comply and slap her in the face — don’t mind us we’re role-playing — and when they arrived at her rundown hotel near Venice Beach and she said quick I am not allowed to bring anyone with me and there’s cameras everywhere — the closet-sized room in a sliver of hotel inserted between buildings as an afterthought where she was living in complete squalor, Antonio writes, the floor and bed and desk covered in vintage summer dresses, glitter, handmade leg warmers, which were banned from the Silver Horse soon after — no hippies allowed, buddy — but what Antonio will never forget, even when he’s old and alone and banished from his loved ones, is that moment he said dear god, please, just this once — dear god, Antonio said when he saw Dora for the first time, please don’t let me approach her I have a three-year-old daughter at home — dear god, Antonio said when he saw his former wife for the first time at a ski cabin in Tahoe, her face as red as a lobster because she’d snowboarded without sunblock, dear god please end her relationship with that retrograde investment banker soon — a lobster is an excellent choice — and god said goddamn it, Drool, fine, just this once — will you forget Hari’s voice, too? — I used to ask Hari to leave messages on my voicemail just so I could hear her voice, Antonio writes, a voice I can’t describe without thinking of preschool, mantel, nurse — Hari did volunteer at Casa Linda, a preschool in Santa Monica, Antonio writes, the same preschool my daughters would attend years later — sana sana / culito de rana — and when you are old and alone and banished from your loved ones, you will dial the deathbed number assigned to you and Hari’s voice will tell you again no se que decirte pero, how do you say it, me gustas mucho? — commuters, Hershleder thinks, men who travel to and from their wives, their children, the office, men with secret lives in foreign lands, Hershleder thinks, who delay going home by having yet another round of drinks, and although Hershleder doesn’t delay his trajectory back home by entering a so-called gentleman’s club or attending Burning Man with a dancer from the Silver Horse — while in his heart he lusted after irresponsibility, Hershleder thinks, he was never bad enough — pues fíjate que yo sí — and here Antonio, proud of his former irresponsibility, decides not to search for the divorce papers his former wife filed five years ago, as soon as Eva was born, which document the consequences of his irresponsibility (but of course Antonio does search for them and does reread them — Antonio goes out partying several times a week, his former wife wrote, usually around 7:00 p.m. and doesn’t return until three or four in the morning — I am frightened of him and frightened for the welfare of my daughters, his former wife wrote—), Hershleder does encounter someone in the subway who sells him a Thai stick, which he does smoke, and so the ghosts that lived inside him, Hershleder thinks, spiraled around in concentric circles — I ask the court to order a random full-panel alcohol and drug test, his former wife wrote — and so Hershleder decides to walk a mile and a half to Itty and the kids, a mile and a half from his home and future heart failures, Hershleder thinks, and as Antonio rereads The Revisionist, he wonders if he should start adding a date next to the passages he has underlined and will underline as a way to track what has mattered to him about Hershleder’s trajectory over the years, or perhaps he should add a date next to the passages he should have underlined but didn’t — there was a locker room of vile language in the homeless woman’s head, Antonio doesn’t underline, but her face seemed apologetic — he made a mental note to give in to Itty, Antonio underlines, she’d been begging him to agree to get a pup for the kids, 9 12-15-22-5 25-15-21, Antonio underlines, stopping to decode what Hershleder’s son had once said to Hershleder at bedtime, bringing tears to Hershleder’s eyes, and just as Antonio can never remember too many specifics from The Revisionist after he’s done rereading it, he can’t remember if in his previous readings he’d also stopped at this juncture in The Revisionist, three pages away from the end, once Hershleder has reached the front porch of his house, hesitating, thinking of his wife, Itty, the potter, hungry for connection, attention, stopping at this juncture of The Revisionist and thinking why go on, I know how it ends and I don’t feel like reading three more pages of short sentences in English, and so he stops reading and goes to sleep — good night Hershleder, good night Hari — and weeks later his former wife says your daughters want a dog and he says no, we don’t need a dog, what difference would a dog make in our lives, a dog won’t exist for me just as the outside world doesn’t exist for me, just as his sister doesn’t exist for him unless he receives calls from the owner of Any Day Bail Bonding asking for his money, as Antonio does the next morning on his work phone at Prudential Investments, you and your mother signed her bail, Ron Graebel says, you are responsible for her, my sister’s disappearance is a tragedy for our family, Antonio says, especially for my mother, who can’t endure the thought that her daughter might be living in a homeless shelter somewhere in the United States, this shows a welcome sincerity, Ron Graebel says, it is disheartening to us to have your private investigators threatening us over the phone, Antonio says, I’m not aware of any specifics as to dealings you have had with the investigators they are financially motivated to find her, Ron Graebel says, it is unnecessarily callous to call my uncle Lucho to make accusations that my mother is hiding my sister in Colombia, Antonio says, I did hear from my office manager that you have been uncooperative with them, Ron Graebel says, I understand you have a business to run but can we avoid adding more suffering to the already unbearable suffering my mother is going through, Antonio says, the investigators deal with all sorts in our business and at times it’s hard to know who is sincere and who is lying, Ron Graebel says, this is not some theoretical suffering I am talking about, Antonio says, I am sure they are as frustrated as you are, Ron Graebel says, my mother is physically ill from everything that has been transpiring with my sister, Antonio says, keep in mind they are trying to save you from paying the full bail amount, Ron Graebel says, but I will speak to them and convey your thoughts, and weeks later Antonio returns to that sentence he’d underlined in The Revisionist about giving in to Itty about getting a pup, and once again Hershleder’s reaching the front porch of his house, and a young jogger is entering Hershleder’s house, and Hershleder is wondering what’s the meaning of this, and Hershleder’s jamming his key at a lock that doesn’t fit, and Hershleder’s ringing the bell and waking everyone up and Hershleder and the jogger are shouting at each other, please, sweetheart, Hershleder’s wife says to the jogger (to the jogger!), and she’s sitting on the slate steps and explaining to him, Dr. David Hershleder, M.D., patiently and for the thousandth time, that this is no longer his home, that he has to stop coming around here, upsetting her, upsetting the children, that it’s time, Dave, to take a good look at himself, when all Hershleder is capable of looking at is her, his wife, sitting with him on the stoop of his house in his neighborhood while his children cower inside.