How I ended up with James Frey's elk meat bleeding on my back seat is a long story. But it is also an instructive one. As a minor figure at best on the literary scene, I got a rare chance to see how my betters live when, on a cold Tribeca evening some weeks ago, I found myself talking meat with the disgraced A Million Little Pieces author in the latter's posh kitchen.

Frey, fresh off his show trial on Oprah, was in no mood to talk about his troubles.  Nor would I have been in any hurry to do so. A man's sorrows are his own. God Forbid I should have to answer for all the baldfaced lies I've come up with over the years -- and with far less motivation than Frey had. But meat is a subject anyone can talk about, and Frey asked me point blank if I had ever eaten elk. I lied and said that I eat it all the time.

See what I mean about lying? Cast no stones at Frey! He is kind of an odd guy, though. You can see why he might want to exaggerate his brushes with the law. There's no mistaking him as a literary man -- he is sterotypically bright, brittle, and droll. There is no way you would think he was a hard-drinking ne'er do well if you met him. But he is very smart, and highly opinionated and garrulous in the way of literary people. Guys like him would no more not have an opinion about something than not wear pants.

On the subject of elk, though, he clearly needed no social talking points. Frey comes from Cleveland, which I never thought of as hunting territory, but apparently grew up in an atmosphere of blood sports and outdoorsmanship. I don't think he was kidding about that. His sleek, stainless steel refrigerator held a lot of frozen elk, and I could tell that it was privately butchered in the way of most wild game. Frey says that elk is tender, and requires little in the way of marinades to make it palateable; he sears it at high temperature and serves it rare.

That sounded pretty good to me, and as I had never really had any elk to speak of, I prevailed upon him to give me a pound of frozen ground elk meat for academic purposes. The only thing I had to put it in, though, was a glossy, semi-transparent gift bag, of the kind expensive cosmetics usually go in. It contained an advance copy of I Am Not Myself These Days, a memoir written by his friend Josh Kilmer-Purcell, another gifted writer.

How, you may wonder, am I moving among such rarefied circles these days? Usually, my time is spent around kebab vendors, barbecuers, and competitive eaters. But new friends bring you into new circles, and the Manhattan glitterati is now only once removed from me. You can see, though, that I wasn't cut out to be a member: I left Frey's elk meat in the gift bag in the backseat of my cadillac, and forgot to bring it in with me when I returned to Ozerskistan, the distant region of Brooklyn in which I live. When I came back the next day, Kilmer-Purcell's moving story of gay love and madness was basically soaked through with elk blood. The meat hadn't gone bad yet, though. It was delicious, if a little lean for my taste. I think it would have been better served as meatballs. The bright gamey taste needs to be itself, and not seared hamburger-style in the pan.

When it was all gone I threw the heavy, thick blue bag away. But the blood remained, a mark of distinction. Perhaps now the spirit of obscurity will pass by me, and I too can ascend to prominence.