Drowning Out the Noise

I don’t drink anymore, but a vestigial hangover clouds my recollection of the major events of recent history. On the morning of the Unite the Right rally, I lumbered down the staircase of a Catskills Airbnb rented for a bachelor party to learn that only hours before, a gang of white nationalists stormed the University of Virginia campus wielding Tiki torches and chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” My stomach wasn’t as queasy that morning as it had been on Election Day, nor did my head throb as sharply as it did after the inauguration, when I braved the crowded Washington Metro en route to the Women’s March. Like the protagonists of 1984 and The Berlin Stories, which I reread that winter with an earnestness I now find slightly embarrassing, mine was a gin-soaked existence, senses dulled against the baffling chaos closing in.