As we leave the Golden Olympic, I resolve never to allow myself to be trapped into seeing Irwin Isaac Meiselman again. And I wouldn't have, but for his reminding me, once we were out on the street, that I had forgotten his seventy-eight page (single-spaced, of course) chapter on the Jews, which we both go back into the restaurant to recover. 

Two days later, 10.15 in the morning, my phone rings. I see from caller ID the name I.I. Meiselman. What does that nudnik want now, I wonder, but not enough to pick up the phone. After a brief interval, I check my voicemail. 

"Irwin Isaac Meiselman here. Just wanted to let you to know that I took the liberty of contacting your agent. I sent her an email. I told her we were friends and that you were nuts about my immigration book, at least of those parts that you've seen. I attached my chapter on the Italian immigration for her to read. Hope I didn't overstep the bounds here. Call once you've had a chance to read my Jewish chapter. Take care, Ed."

I made a mental note to call Letitia to explain that I scarcely knew this guy. But first to Irwin Isaac flamin' Meiselman. 

"Hi, Ed," Meiselman says when I telephone him. 

"Mr Meiselman," I say, not in the least having to feign anger, "you were out of bounds in using my name in writing to my agent about your manuscript. Way out of bounds. I never gave you permission to call my agent or to use my name. I never even said that I liked what you've written, goddamit." 

"Call me Irwin, please," he says, calmly. 

"I prefer to call you Mr Meiselman, and I distinctly prefer that you call me Mr Kastell."

"I didn't mean to give offence," he says, without any note of apology in his voice that I can discern.

"Give offence?" I say. "Mr Meiselman, if I weren't myself Jewish, I'd consider what you've done a one-man incitement to a pogrom."

"Calm down, Ed, please," he says. 

"Kastell, Mr Kastell," I say, scream actually. "When I get off the phone, I'm going to call my agent to let her know that I am not in any way your sponsor. We're quits, Meiselman, you got that?"

"Just one thing," he says. "My chapter on the Jews — you have my only copy. May I come by to pick it up?"

"I'll mail it to you," I say.

"I don't trust the mail. Lots of work went into that chapter. How about we meet for coffee, and I take it from you then?" 

"I'll FedEx it to you. It'll go out today." And I hang up.