I was fourteen years old but tall for my age, and I’d spent a lot of time outdoors, so I lied and I got away with it. My father and I passed through that barbed wire gate and presto, I was eighteen. It was his idea, and if I hadn’t followed through on it they’d have been done with me in an hour, not a year. Maybe less than that. I was just a boy, after all. I was too young to be of any use.That little white lie makes me eighty-eight years old now. I don’t mind. My Social Security card lies and so does my driver’s license, not that I drive anymore. You don’t drive in New York unless you’re some kind of a nut.The last time one of the art magazines came around and asked me what I thought about some young Turk—it doesn’t matter who; I don’t even remember myself—what showed up in print sounded a whole lot like you ought to forgive old Rosen, since he’ll be turning ninety in a couple of years after all. Maybe he’s going blind.Old Max Rosen.Sympathetic, cantankerous, worn-out old Max.King of the old-school representationalists.The last believer in looking at things the way they are, and reporting back. One The clock built high into the station wall is painted on, a clumsy and heartless trompe-l’oeil that under ordinary circumstances wouldn’t fool a soul, but those who pass beneath it have too much on their minds to look closely.
