In 1973, Sean Myers was a sophomore at San Francisco State. He was taking calculus and courses in biology and chemistry, under the assumption that he next year he would declare his major as zoology and eventually go on to medical school. He really wanted to be a writer, but in his usual perverse way he was staying assiduously away from any courses in the English Department, especially creative writing courses, since he did not believe that writing can be taught, or at least not to him. Most of his time recently, though, was spent reading philosophy. He'd tried Sartre, but had found Sartre superficial. Then for a while he'd been reading Nietzsche, who he liked a lot.

But on this day in the fall of 1973, he was in a coffee house in the Mission District with a copy of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. He was alternating between reading Wittgenstein and writing a letter to his girlfriend Leslie. He already had four drafts of his letter sitting under his coffee cup and was working on a fifth. He would write about a paragraph of the letter, then become totally frustrated and read a page or two of Wittgenstein, and then would think of another paragraph which he urgently needed to include in the letter.

He was all keyed up because he had a crucial date with his girlfriend later that evening. He might give her the letter then, if he had finished it, or he might not. In any case, there were a number of very important things he needed to explain to her about himself, and he hoped that it would help if he wrote them all down first.

Mostly he was better at writing things down than talking, because if something he wrote down wasn't quite right, he could always go back and fix it.

His girlfriend Leslie was a student at Berkeley. Sean was going to try and get into Berkeley himself next year, but his grades weren't as good as Leslie's. He was smarter than she was, but she was more willing to put all her efforts into doing what her professors told her to whereas Sean always got bored with that, since his interests were much more advanced than his classes.

Two weeks ago, Sean and Leslie had got into a big argument about sex, specifically about the fact that Leslie didn't want to have sex with Sean. What made it worse was that Leslie had admitted that she had already had two lovers in her life. These lovers had treated her very badly and now she wasn't willing to be sexually involved with Sean.

It made Sean very angry that Leslie had been willing to sleep with other men, but now wasn't willing to sleep with him. And he thought it was very unfair that she was essentially blaming him for what other men had done to her.

In their argument, Sean had admitted to Leslie something that he didn't let many people know, namely that he had never had sex. He wanted her to understand that it was a fundamental source of unfairness in their relationship that he was a virgin and she was not. But instead of seeing the reasonable answer, namely that she should try sleeping with Sean and see how it worked out, Leslie just said that obviously she wasn't the right woman for him and that they should break up.

Tonight, Leslie had agreed to have one more date with him. This might be Sean's last chance to keep them from breaking up permanently. If that happened, Sean didn't know how long it might be until he found another girlfriend. It was a thing he wasn't very good at.

She was wearing a pullover blouse that Sean assumed was silk, although when he thought about it later he decided that it was probably really rayon. In any case, it was a very brightly colored flowered print on a black background and looked very Chinese, although there was nothing Chinese at all about the woman. Her pants were also black covered with brightly colored spots that were apparently supposed to be stars. On her feet she was wearing flat gold-colored sandals.

Her clothing certainly didn't belong to the Seventies, or the Sixties either. It certainly showed a very aesthetic taste, if somewhat eccentric, and Sean thought that probably she was an artist.

In the cab, she leaned forward over the front seat ahead of her and looking intently ahead, apparently on the look-out for trouble. She didn't pay any attention to Sean and her intensity intimidated him from trying to say anything.

When the cab stopped, Sean took his wallet out and leaned forward to see how much the fare was. Taxis were unfamiliar territory for him.

While he was thinking about how much of a tip would be right, Virginia took the wallet out of his hand, pulled out a $5 bill which she gave to the driver, and then gave Sean a shove to make him get out of the cab. As he stood on the sidewalk, Sean could remember that the meter had read three dollars and some amount of cents. He figured out that Virginia had left a tip of more than 20 per cent, which was obviously much too high.

As soon as they were out of the cab, Virginia's intense anxiety vanished and she relaxed completely. Apparently she now felt safe. She smiled and Sean and said, ``Hi, I'm Virginia.'' Then she added, ``I give good head.''

Sean looked at her, not knowing how to answer. Finally he just said, ``I'm Sean.''

Virginia asked, ``Can you afford to buy me lunch?'' She was in fact still holding Sean's wallet, which had over $50 in it because of his date that evening. By his standards, that was a lot of money and he didn't know quite what he was going to do if Virginia refused to give it back.

But in a moment she realized what she was holding and handed it back with a nervous little laugh. ``This is yours, of course. I'm very sorry. It's just that you looked so confused in the taxi and I was trying to be helpful. You didn't think I was going to steal it from you did you? I'd never a thing like do that. That would be much too blatant!''

She gave another nervous laugh and snuggled against Sean's side. ``You do realize that I'm joking, don't you? I'm very honest, really. Men have trusted me with their life savings and I've never stolen a cent.''

Sean said, ``The thing is, I don't have a whole lot of time because I have a date this evening.''

``Oh, dear. You do think that I'm a dangerous person who might rob you. Oh, if only you knew!''

Sean felt very awkward about the situation. He hadn't meant to accuse her of being dishonest. ``But I really do have a date this evening and I have to go home and get ready in a while.''

``Oh, but surely you're not going to skip lunch. It's still early now. Oh, but I can see that there's no way to make you trust me now. I should have known better than to ever touch your wallet. Men and their money, they're always worrying about it! But I so wanted to get to know you! You seem like such an interesting person!''

``So what's this girlfriend of yours like? Is she pretty? Is she good in bed?''

Sean didn't know what to say to this.

After a moment, Virginia laughed and said, ``Oh, my! She's not willing to have sex with you, I see. No wonder you're so unhappy.''

``We just have to work things out.''

``Well, keep on working on it. Keep working really hard. You're such an innocent! You don't even see what she's doing to you.''

``She's had some bad experiences with sex in the past.''

``Haven't we all! If that were an excuse, nobody would ever have sex and the race would die out. Oh no, that's not what's happening. But I'm not sure I should tell you.''

``What do you think is happening?''

``I don't think. I know. She's sleeping with someone else.''

``I don't think so. You don't know her. She's not that type.''

``Oh, I do know her. I think that your loyalty to her is very sweet. But I know her better than you do, because I'm a woman and you're not. You think that women are all pure and virginal. When you get a little older you'll discover that we want sex just as much as you do. If your girlfriend's not getting it from you, she's getting it from somebody else, I guarantee it.''

After a pause, Virginia said, ``Oh, I see it now. You're a virgin yourself. You're twenty years old and you still haven't had sex.''

``I've had some experiences.''

``Oh, experiences! We've all had those! Experiences in frustration. Did you let her know that you're a virgin? .... Oh, you did! You're such an innocent. You should never let women know your weak points, because they'll always use them against you. She's going to go on not letting you have sex, because that way she can control you.''

Virginia said, ``I'll tell you what you need to do. It's the only way you can save the situation. You have to stop being so nice to her. Women never have any respect for men who are nice to them. Stand her up tonight. Don't show up for your date and don't even call her to let her know you're not coming. Then she'll get really mad, and that's your cue to let her know that the reason you stood her up is because you met an extremely attractive woman and went to bed with her. But be subtle, just give her a few clues, so she thinks that she's figured it out for herself and you don't want her to know. That way she'll believe it.''

``If I don't show up for our date tonight, she'll never see me again.''

``That what she wants you to think. But you'd find out the opposite if you had the courage to try. The way you'll lose her is to go on being nice to her. She's too young to appreciate boys who are nice. When she gets to be my age, then she'll know what she lost. Oh, there were so many nice boys I could have had! And I was such a fool for letting them go! All I had to do was to treat them decently. Men aren't used to that, you know? People say that it's women who don't get treated decently, but really it's men. But I was too big a fool. I didn't keep the nice boys I had. I thought there would always be another one. And then one morning I woke up and looked in the mirror and realized that I was over the hill. I'm past it now! Now, I'm the one who has to be nice.''

``I'm very confused. If you want to be a writer, then why are you studying to be a doctor?''

``Technically, I'm not in the pre-med program yet. I'm only a sophomore.''

``Yes, but all these courses! Chemistry, and zoology, and calculus. They won't help you to become a writer. And this book you're carrying, what is this? Philosophical Investigations. This is not chemistry or zoology. Are you taking philosophy too?''

``This is just something I'm interested in right now.''

``But philosophy, how will that help you? You should be studying literature. You should be reading Hemingway. And Faulkner. And Virginia Wolfe. Do you read books like that?''

``Yes, some. I think it's more important to read more modern authors.''

``But of course. Anne Beatty. Raymond Carver, he's essential. And Larry McMurtry, I love Larry McMurtry. But this! This Wittgenstein! Let me have a look at that.''

Virginia leaved through the book, stopping a moment at a page here and there. Finally she pushed the book back towards Sean, open and with her finger pointing to a paragraph. ``There, where he says, `****.' Can you explain that to me? What is he talking about?''

``Wittgenstein is difficult to read,'' Sean said.

``But you're reading him! So it must make sense to you. So just explain it to me.''

``It's not easy to explain.''

``But if you understand it, then you can explain it. That's what my teachers always said to me. Or are you one of those people who just carries a book around and reads the words but doesn't know what they mean.''

``I don't understand it thoroughly. Very few people do. But I get the general idea and then I think about it a lot, until I start getting ideas of my own.''

``So what's the general idea in what I just read to you, where he says, `*****'?''

``Um, well, what he means is that when *******.''

``Okay, I can understand that. See, I'm not stupid. I can understand anything, if people will only take the time to explain it to me. That's what I always had to explain to my professors in college. They never wanted to explain what they meant, but how can anybody understand something unless it's explained to them?''
 

``So how will Wittgenstein help you become a writer? Is that the way you want to write? You won't get many readers that way.''

``Wittgenstein is all about language and what language really means and where meaning comes from.''

``But that's not the way to learn to write! You have to write all the time, not read theories about it. Do you write every day? Is that your writer's notebook?''

``No, this is just where I make my notes on Wittgenstein, and write down the ideas that come to me when I'm reading.''

``Let me see,'' she says, taking the notebook. Then seeing Sean's face, she closes it again and says, ``Oh, I'm sorry. That's very private, of course. I get carried away, I forget that I don't even really know you. We haven't even been to bed together yet!'' She gave her nervous laugh again.

``But this. This is a letter? Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't ask.''

``It's a letter to my girlfriend I've been trying to write,'' Sean said.

``To another girlfriend? You have several? Oh my, I underestimated you.''

``No, I just have one.''

``And you're writing a letter to give her on your date tonight?''

``I might not give it to her. I just thought I'd be more ready to discuss things with her if I wrote it all out in a letter first.''

``I think you are a very confused person,'' Virginia said. ``You have very confused ways of doing things. It's no wonder your life is so messed up.''

Etc. etc. etc. Writing by the yard.

``You belong in New York. You can never be happy here, because this world is too small for you. New York is the only place where you can be the person you were meant to be.''

The thing is, despite all her craziness, what Virginia said was basically true. I didn't belong in the world I was in. New York really would have been the best place for me, but it was another six years before I ever got there, and by then I didn't need it any more.

``Look, I'll give you some money,'' Sean says. ``I'll get you a cab and give you enough money for the fare. I just can't stay with you any longer. I have to leave.''

``What kind of man are you, anyway? What kind of man would just put a woman in a cab and have her delivered like sending her Federal Express? Can't you see that I need your protection now? Don't you care what happens to me?''