I grabbed her hand and accelerated up MacDougal, elated to be away from them, but oppressed by the cloud of humiliation scudding along behind me, and angry at Glenna for her contribution to it.

I said, “Were you trying to get me killed?”

“He was an asshole. I probably cleaned out ten of his girlfriends.”

Washington Square Park was rocking and rolling like a psychedelic bar mitzvah. People stood on the walls, shouting, giggling, the lovers kissing, as wineskins and joints proceeded down the line. Beyond the stone arch a platform had been set up, and a band was playing, while hippies, hoods, burnouts, bums, druggies, and students gathered around the high, silvery mist of the fountain.

Still irritated at Glenna, I started to say something, but she was staring into the park at a couple of crispy critters, a girl and a boy, stick figures sketched in skin with the death stares of speed freaks. They were holding hands and gazing at an empty bench. Greasy strands of hair dripped from under the bandannas tied on their heads, and their dungaree bells were ragged, their feet caked with grit. I could identify the girl only because a hint of her breasts drooped under her grimy tank top.

“Gordo,” Glenna said, her gaze so cold and flat it scared me, “they wanna be like men. That’s why they ball for the hell of it. I feel like telling the girls that come in, ‘Keep your legs closed. Those fucking bastards don’t give a shit about you.’”

“And that women can’t be men?”

Studying the emaciated girl and boy who were standing as steadfast as a monument, Glenna snickered. “But they certainly can look alike.”

“Maybe they think if they look alike, they won’t hate each other so much.”

Her voice sharp as a scalpel, she said, “Don’t they seem happy?”

“Glenna—”

“Why don’t you interview them?” she said coldly.

I watched anger, confusion, and the bitter remnants of Glenna’s past assail her face. The vivid colors of her eyes and hair, and the beautiful lines of her features, faded and blurred. Her face became a charcoal sketch, and to see this happen was as disconcerting as seeing darkness come suddenly to a brilliant morning sky.

I said, “No one’s been at your clinic because of me.”

Nodding, her gaze still fixed on the boy and girl, she replied, “Sorry. You’re right. I’ll go over by the music. Catch up with me when you’re finished. And Robin says she’s making dinner for us tonight.”

“Ice cream for dinner?”

“Lasagna first.”

THANKS TO Loud Mouth and Glenna I had enough to write about, but I thought it would be interesting to ask a cop if any of the locals had ever beaten up on the freaks coming to the park. However, when I located one of New York’s finest, I couldn’t tell who looked more bored—him or the horse he was sitting on.

All the cop said was “I don’t talk to reporters,” to which I replied, “Mind if I ask Trigger?” And the cop said, “Okay, but her name’s Cocoa. Make sure you spell it right. She’s sensitive.”