Most people would probably choose an author and spend dinner asking about books.

I’d invite James Baldwin.

I can see him sitting across from me, cigarette balanced between his fingers, legs crossed. His forehead creases as he listens to my first question. There is something about those eyes—large, intense, examining—that makes me wonder whether he’s considering the question or deciding whether it’s worth dignifying with a response.

I’d be a little star-struck.

Hell, it’s James Baldwin.

I start carefully.

“How much did your personal struggles contribute to the insight in your work? Being Black, American, and gay during that era—how much of that struggle found its way onto the page?”

His expression doesn’t change.

“That isn’t what you really want to ask, is it?”

Well, shit.

“I was trying to be cool and respectful. I’ve been weaned on your legend. But your writing tells me if I suck up to you, you’d be offended.”

He studies me for another moment.

“Behind your eyes, I see that they have witnessed far enough for you to come at me in this manner.”

Still no expression. Just that gaze.

Ursula walks over and places my pipe and ashtray beside me before taking her seat at the end of the table. She lights her Cohiba and settles back.

No help from her.

Baldwin and I continue examining each other.

There is a peculiar experience in finally sitting across from someone you’ve known only through words, photographs, recordings, and legend. Part of you wants to meet the man. Another part can’t stop seeing the monument.

So I try again.

“This is something I’ve never completely understood about your work. You had every damn reason to hate. Yet somehow you kept looking beyond what people did to ask why they needed to do it. How?”

I pause.

“It’s almost as if grace wasn’t an option, but a necessity.”

His eyes hold mine.

For the briefest moment, I catch something in his gaze I want to call respect. Not the respect given to an equal—I ain’t foolish enough to believe that—but enough to tell me he no longer considers me a joke.

Then it turns to vapor.

Baldwin takes another drag from his cigarette.

I pack my pipe.

Apparently we’re going to be here awhile.

I strike a match, get the tobacco burning, and take my first pull.

Baldwin leans back.

“What were you trying to do in those earlier essays of yours? It’s as though you were writing pieces of one essay and publishing them separately. You posted them not because they were ready, but because you thought they were cool.”

I hold the smoke.

Did Baldwin just call me out?

Another pull from the pipe buys me a couple of seconds.

I got nothing. He nailed it.

Damn it, man.

At the end of the table, Ursula pours her white cheddar Cheez-Its into a china bowl.

I stare at it.

She ain’t never done that.

She’s fronting for Mr. Baldwin.

Hell, I didn’t even know we had china.

Of course, I can’t complain. I have on my good T-shirt.

“I didn’t have any idea what I was going to write about,” I finally admit. “Back then, I thought it was enough just to write. I’d probably call it something else now.”

I think about it.

“Perhaps not. Life is madness, and it’s all the rage.”

Ursula reaches for a bottle of mezcal, sets it on the table, pours herself a shot, and knocks it back.

Apparently we’re done pretending to be civilized.

Baldwin’s attention shifts toward the end of the table.

“Who are you, darling?”

Ursula pours another shot and knocks it back. Her face twists as the liquor burns its way down. She recovers, clears her throat, and looks at him.

“I’m Ursula. His muse.”

Baldwin looks at me.

I draw on my pipe.

Ursula reaches into the china bowl for another Cheez-It.

Then she looks at me.

“You know you’re touched, right?”

I raise an eyebrow.

She gestures toward Baldwin with her empty shot glass.

“You just spent the better part of dinner having a conversation with a dead writer, and gods know what twisted region of your mind I crawled out of.”

She holds out one lime-green hand and stares at it.

“And seriously… lime-green? What the hell?”