“Urea,” he said, “is a nitrogen compound. You’ve heard of chemical compounds, haven’t you? Urea is the chief product of protein breakdown. We excrete it in our urine.”

He went on like I cared about urea or uremia as long as I could drain my vein when I needed to, which is what I told Dr. Brooks Brothers Mouse.

“This isn’t difficult to understand,” he said, and resumed talking.

I walked over to the wing chair, wrapped the woolly ends of Biff’s scarf around my hands, then tightened it crosswise around his neck. This brought his soliloquy to a close. He tried to sustain a bemused gaze but failed. I had the advantage because I knew he wouldn’t swing at me, my confidence rooted in the fact that men, in some marshy inlet of our brains, remain twelve years old forever, and the playground pecking order prevails, and each of us knows who can whip whom and behaves accordingly. That’s why I was positive Biff wouldn’t fight. I wasn’t that tough. I just knew that I was tougher than him. And he knew it, too.

Scissoring the scarf tighter around Biff’s neck, I said, “You speak to me like that again, I will kick your ass.”

His mouth opened and nothing came out.

Robin said, “Hey, Palm, let’s go see Funny Girl.”

I said, “That’s a swell idea, isn’t it, Palm?”

Biff nodded, and I let go of the scarf and stepped back. He stood up, showing me his hard-guy stare. It would have been more effective if he hadn’t tossed his head to the side to remove a limp forelock from his eyes. He stayed well back from me—a smart move, since I was thinking about sucker punching him.

He said, “Let’s split, Robin,” and left the living room and went out the front door.

Robin said, “Way to go, Meyers. Now all you gotta do is threaten a guy into being my boyfriend.”

“Next week,” I said.

When Robin was gone, Glenna said, “That wasn’t very nice.”

“But it was fun.”

“Would you really have hit him?” she asked with a breathless hint of wonder, as though she might have relished the action while being repulsed by it.

I nodded.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then you don’t know much about men.”

“Oh?” Glenna said, and kissed me.

“You’re not mad?”

She shook her head. “Palmer sort of deserved it.”

“Good. Then can we turn off the polo show?”

“Never thought you’d ask.”

Chapter 12

“IT’S COOL,” I said to Glenna. “Your dad’ll be watching the game.”

On a frigid January afternoon, we were driving to the Risings’ house in Riverdale for Sunday dinner. The game was Super Bowl III, and the New York Jets were eighteen-point underdogs to the Baltimore Colts. The huge point spread, and that the upstart American Football League had never beaten the National Football League in a Super Bowl, hadn’t phased the Jets’ quarterback, Joe Namath, who guaranteed sportswriters that his team would win.