After his release, he got a little job, went back to college part-time, and settled down for a while with a hairdresser named Patty. For the past three years he had devoted himself to rectitude and-I instantly saw now as he stooped out the door of the plane-growing a stomach. Katz was arrestingly larger than when I had last seen him. He had always been kind of fleshy, but now he brought to mind Orson Welles after a very bad night. He was limping a little and breathing harder than one ought to after a walk of twenty yards.

“Man, I’m hungry,” he said without preamble, and let me take his carry-on bag, which instantly jerked my arm to the floor.

“What have you got in here?” I gasped.

“Ah, just some tapes and shit for the trail. There a Dunkin Donuts anywhere around here? I haven’t had anything to eat since Boston.”

“Boston? You’ve just come from Boston.”

“Yeah, I gotta eat something every hour or so or I have, whad-dayacallit, seizures.”

“Seizures?” This wasn’t quite the reunion scenario I had envisioned. I imagined him bouncing around on the Appalachian Trail like some wind-up toy that had fallen on its back.

“Ever since I took some contaminated phenylthiamines about ten years ago. If I eat a couple of doughnuts or something I’m usually OK.”

“Stephen, we’re going to be in the wilderness in three days. There won’t be doughnut stores.”

He beamed proudly. “I thought of that.” He indicated his bag on the carousel-a green army surplus duffel-and let me pick it up. It weighed at least seventy-five pounds. He saw my look of wonder. “Snickers,” he explained. “Lots and lots of Snickers.”