I would make a poor paparazzo

I suggested a walk or hike for several couples in my orbit, because I find my life more pleasurable when I have seen a friend within the last twenty-four hours. Holly and Ken are the only ones to respond in the affirmative and select Poets' Walk over the more rustic and marginally more arduous Ferncliff Forest.

I arrive within a few minutes of punctuality, enough that they are waiting for me but are not yet irritated that they are. Given that I am coming from only a few minutes away, such that I might bike here on a good day, I would have no excuse for further tardiness aside from that momentary grip one always gets when the introverted imp tell you to play sick.

I am still at the stage in knowing Ken that I wouldn't recognize him immediately, though I could describe him to a sketch artist well enough that he would be nabbed within the hour. I know what he looks like, but it doesn't yet read spotting him instantly.

He has an open, oval face, his hair shaved on the sides and back, a few seafoam inches on the top where Holly dyed it. It is a haircut recently purloined by American white supremacists, though I suggest no other affiliation between Holly's partner and Nazis. If he held those sorts of opinions (and I suspect he is socially liberal), Holly would have already elbowed him in the nose and thrown him out, as is the custom.

He is taller in my memory of him than he is in fact and more solidly built, so I am always slightly surprised that he doesn't tower over me.

He has been with her something like three months - I am uncertain of the official beginning of their relationship - but it doesn't seem at though they previously reached the crucial "Visit Poets' Walk" stage of their relationship, so I get to join him of this discover. Both Ken and I have brought DSLR cameras, though I know from repeated experience that there are a dearth of photographic opportunities unless one is keen on bark: The gazebo, the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge through the trees (ideally at sunset), the Summer House, the bridge in the woods, and that is about it. One can riff a bit, but I would guarantee most of the attempt at artful photography pay homage to these locales and not much else.

Ken teases Holly for not bringing her own camera and she replies simply that it didn't occur to her, likely because she has a full set of the requisite photos.

Everyone takes this picture

I brought my camera less because I want to revisit the settings, of which I have dozens of photos each, but I hoped to covertly snap a worthwhile picture of the two of them that I might use it as evidence later. It is easier to do this when my subjects are none the wiser, so I lull them into distraction ostensibly focusing on leaves until they forget me.

I mention to Holly that I was unaware she was vegan, as a woman at the party had told me. Holly looks baffled, since she is not vegan, but chalks this up to a misunderstanding. She does not mention if she thinks this is my mistake or the unnamed woman's. I decide to take it as vindication that I might not be as ignorant of my friend's details as I had feared.

I warn Ken immediately that this might be the beginning of the interrogation, but then do not end up asking him many questions. I have googled him, as he is a creative and it would be suspicious if he didn't have much of an internet presence, and I have scribbled down what I could draw out of Holly. At this point, I would not be interrogating Ken as much as Holly's version of him. Actually knowing him will be a longer process, which might one day transcend probing for chinks in his armor and all his microexpressions.

Some take this picture

Ken doesn't need to put too much effort into me, realistically speaking. He had his art to do the talking for him, and that is impressive enough. Before meeting him for the first time, I had listened to some of his songs, scanned through his photographic portfolio, and watch a few videos he had made. I had made my aesthetic judgments and he passed, as much as he needed to. From there, it is not so much a matter of deciding if he has any personal deficits as assessing if he is going to provoke a call from Holly when her heart is ripped from her chest. I haven't decided this yet, nor do I think I could so quickly.

There are some things I know about him on sight. Her ex (whose name I am going to forebear using as much as possible to decrease his defenders' occasional interruptions to the quiet of my writing and because, in Holly's shoes, I would no longer want to read his name) was never going to propose and particularly never going to marry her. He lacked an essential component of his humanity that would prevent him even from having the tact to pretend.

I had another friend whose supposed fiancé told the tale of proposing. I knew it was only ever going to be a story. He hated that he was supposed to marry her now. He just wanted some dramatic, ideally Byronic moment of salt and sea, where he was the dashing rogue wooing the maiden. I knew in the moment what she couldn't let herself see until he left her: that he didn't love her enough for anything real. That he, in fact, did not much love anyone but himself because he lacked the emotional maturity to do anything other than be pretentious.

I mention these boys because, within a few minutes of being near him, that Ken is serious about Holly, more serious than her ex ever was. I don't know what that means in the long term, but it is certain points in his favor today.

Maybe a couple take this picture

As I sometimes do around people who are new to me, or new to my stories at least, I end up laughing through some personal foible or other, some "Okay, did I tell you about the time I...?", before realizing I might have better ease up. Though potentially extreme, and though my job has blown my fuse for what is considered morbid in mixed company, my stories have the grounding that I likely wrote about them near when they happened (I am working with almost twenty years of archived entries at this point, more than anyone should bother reading), but they come off as unbelievable. I like my stories, but they aren't meant for testing anything but a person's tolerance for my company -- a crucial attribute, no doubt, but not the point of today's exercise.

Holly is a big girl and surely doesn't need my protective urge, but I want to offer it anyway (and I don't think it bothers her yet; should this happen, I will attach its choke chain and leash). Knowing what she has been through in former relationship, having had her weep on the phone over a man who brutally wronged her, I feel I am justified in some wary vigilance. It is not explicitly mistrusting her judgment but feeling a second opinion from a more objective (but not actually objective) third party might help matters. I don't think this is overly inflating my importance, since I am doing this more to quit any potential future guilt rather than that it is warranted; I do not think it is important to her that I do this. I hope, as the subject of continued scrutiny and assuming he ever reads this, Ken leans toward being flattered in general and pleased in specific that his partner has friends who would devote this level of unnecessary attention to her wellbeing.

We explore Poet's Walk. He asks if there is an apostrophe in the name and where.

"One after the s." This is grammar, and so is my language. As I wrote in Flies to Wanton Boys, it is math with words and thus my forte.

"So, it's plural??"

"Right, plural possessive. Somewhere out there are poets whose walk this is. I don't actually recall whom." It might, in fact, be the walk of any poet who cared to take it. (It turns out it is the walk for Washington Irving and, as I suspected, anyone else who might want to lay claim.)

I don't know what Holly makes of this afternoon, though she is frolicsome to hold hand with her lover, more so that it is Ken. My part in this is the activity coordinator, suggester of the walk so I didn't have to enjoy the day alone, and I might be superfluous now that I have summoned them here. My feeling is that they accepted my invitation because Ken wanted to get to know one of Holly's friends better, maybe as a self-defense tactic, but this is only a feeling and I don't bother verifying it by voicing it. I likely could given my personality and general ability to weave intentional faux pas into jokes, but I don't bother.

I mention that Amber and I both stole rocks from the mountain we hiked on vacation, that hers is an unwieldy slab dedicated to her new hermit crabs' cage and mine is a sedimentary oblate sphere with indentations where pebbles either dislodged or were dissolved, the use of which I have yet to find. Ken makes a joke about pet rocks, and keeping it in a cage. He then repeats this a few more times to Holly, laughing.

I wonder if he is trying to impress me or if he is nervous to. In this position, I don't believe it necessary to be worried. I teach literal rapists and murderers, liking some of them enough to miss them when they leave, so my barometer is forgiving one. More than that, I am not a top tier friend of Holly, however much I like and admire her. I am second string and thus disposable if I start mouthing off or writing detailed publicly accessible narratives about her new lover.

I say all these things, of course, because I understand narrative structure. If he turns out to be a grifter, I will have on record initial uncertainty. If I warm to him, then we can see his gradual progress.

I don't know if it is something about Ken that keeps me from being totally at ease, or because I want Holly to be happy and safe and their relationship seems to have happened in compressed time, the sort that makes more sense in a Nicholas Sparks novel about an astronaut cowboy and a woman with an inoperable brain tumor who finds out she is pregnant. As far I can tell, none of these conditions are in effect -- I certainly hope not, because Ken is not ready for space travel -- but there may be some permitted dilation for people who are in their forties, unmarried, and have had terrible prior relationships. Who looks at the calendar anymore and thinks they have enough time to take things slowly?

I ask Ken if he has been married. He has not. I do not ask him if he was ever close - I share an anecdote of having been three months away from marrying the wrong woman in hopes he will organically share his own trauma - or even anything about his romantic history prior to Holly, though he reportedly had more lovers than she has. I laugh that no one has a better ex-partner story than Holly so it isn't worth competing.

"Yeah," she replies, "I can just say, 'Oh, is your ex in federal prison? Didn't think so.'"

It is a powerful trump card.

Only I took this picture

We finish the circuit. I don't wish to be antisocial -- nor do I think that would be an accurate descriptor after nearly two hours of wandering -- but Amber is due home soon and I anticipate her wanting to be with just me and resting before work the following morning. A few hours of seeing other people and being outside has replenished my battery as much as I need, so I do not feel guilty shrugging and suggesting I head home. Our respective travel investments have been small, and it isn't utterly gauche to go in our separate directions. They suggest going back to my place and I offer my immediate and completely founded excuse that my apartment is messy. Amber and I have nearly just arrived back from vacation and Amber has placed three litter boxes around our apartment, since she has decided our cats will never again be safe at night because she saw a coyote once (also because I believe she always wanted to do this and just used a coyote as her excuse).

I text Amber when she lets me know she is on her way, mentioning that they wanted to come to our apartment and order Chinese. Amber replies that she is interested, thus skunking my ability to make a gracious exit.

When they arrive, Ken remarks how he likes the mess. Holly's home is quaint, but I could see it with the sterility of a dowager aunt's parlor, the sort with furniture one isn't supposed to use. (This is not how Holly's home is, but I can imagine it.) He then says it a couple of times more to the point where I want to remind him that I am aware there is kitty litter by the shoes and it is possible to smell a whiff of our rats at a distance. There are wonderful parts to my home, but it is not clean and orderly at present. Should they drop by unannounced - and they should not - it will likely not be clean and orderly, though in a completely different way (aside from the influence of the various pets Amber has acquired to lengthen the time between when she wants to go to bed and when she can).

The topic of my books comes up and he asks if I have any copies, which is probably the correct tack to take with me to get me to like you. Since I am generally nervous about mentioning my fatal flaw of being an author, I prefer others to break that ice well and often, ideally in ignorant company who will follow through in asking after my books. I note that I have boxes upon boxes of unsold merchandise, but I am not going to make him fork over cash for one of those, not on his first visit (nor are my profit margins such that I can give away copies to anyone who doesn't work for a literary agency). I look on the bookshelf, where there are copies of the first three, but only one of the copies isn't signed and dedicated to Amber. I am not letting one of those out of the house, but I do have a bent spine copy of We Shadows that is far from sellable condition and have no problem lending out with the proviso that I wrote it a long time ago and wouldn't want to be held to its freshman quality. When Amber arrives and I tell her Ken is borrowing We Shadows, she helpfully points out that she thinks it is good if one can get through the first half and that the editor did not do a satisfactory job.

He flips through it and says that it takes balls to write from a female perspective, though this confuses me. I am around far more women than body thieves, god ravens, and dryads, but I am not taxed writing them. My characters come naturally to me and it is of a secondary concern what fictional genitals they might have. Also, I'm not exactly fixated on my own gender representation, so why not write about imagined women I find noteworthy. I spend enough time in a more masculine headspace.

Early in the walk, Ken mentioned something about the paranormal and I decided to let it slide. My explaining the occult connections between Bigfoot and flying saucers is not first date conversation. Back home, I mention the paragraph about my personal beliefs on the Pine Bush phenomena that I had been resisting writing to sum up my FATE article, as I didn't care to be pinned down as more than an observer. Allow me my ironic detachment, as strangely learned as it might be in this niche world. Ken asks what I do believe, and I decide that there is no way of avoiding it further. Within fifteen minutes, I have explained tulpas with the seminal example of Alexandra David Neel, described the mythos and genesis of Black Eyed Kids, told the anecdote of what really happened then the term "flying saucer" was first coined involving the phrase "transdimensional manta rays," related a MUFON member's assertion that "Ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot are all in it together," and shrugged that Red Hook has a Bigfoot habitation site, boiling down to the fact that I know these things and I do not have a satisfying conclusion as to what I believe. I hand him a book I read, Abduction by John E. Mack, and tell him it is lunacy and I think he will enjoy the narrative the author constructs in the cases he chose. When I decide not to go further into Fortean phenomena, I sigh, "I give talks about all this, and write fantasy novels. It is the best way of laundering supernatural expertise."

Ken doesn't agree, saying that knowing this is an end in itself. He is more of a believer than I have been in years.

When Ken goes out to smoke, Holly tells me that Ken was, as a child, petrified of flying saucers and decided to learn everything he could about them to give him back some of the power he lost to terror. If one wants not to fear something, I may not be the ideal person to talk to.

As I said to her initially, Ken seems fine. It is faint praise, perhaps, but it is honest. Aside from the feeling that he is sometimes trying harder than he needs to, he is likable. Though he must surely have impressive stories of his own, he doesn't shout them out (as is my wont). Having spent a few hours with him, he has not detailed his jobs or former loves, as I would. I am slow to pace around other men and decide if they are endurable, but that is largely in sizing someone up for the potential of friendship. My priority to him is not his friendship -- though he brings Holly back into my life and arrives as such as part of the package deal -- but rather sniffing him for infection.

Internet research on him did not reveal angry exes. Once we became friends on social media, I didn't bother doing a deep dive, but his presence there was mostly sharing light posts, usually about Holly. Though this says nothing in itself, it does demonstrate that he isn't being shy with his devotion to her; she is not his dirty little secret.

If he were not entangled with Holly, I might talk to him about photography at a party - which is to say that I would pester him that might learn how to do something other than using the automatic mode on my DSLR. He seems a decent guy at first blush and I haven't seen Holly in the company of a worthier man (though she was once spending solid days having Lord of the Rings marathons with Daniel, which was a coupling I shipped hard). It must be a grace to bring Holly back into the world.

Soon in Xenology: The further interrogation of Ken. The Dutchess County Fair.

last watched: iZombie
reading: Vellum
listening: Panic! at the Disco