His eyes adjusted to the light. He started roaming and looking for Raymond. He tried not to mind the stares he drew. In the back room, there was a mechanical bull. He’d seen that in a movie, too. By the stairs, he saw a life-size poster of a scraggly white boy wearing a rumpled hat, a bandana, and dusty old boots. In his left hand the boy held a beat-up rifle as if the gun were a cane. If Starrell weren’t in a gay bar, he might have laughed at the picture. This white boy had a smooth face, half-closed eyes, and a crooked nose. Looks like a retard dressed up for Halloween, he thought. He read the panel next to the photograph: “William Bonney, 1878, a.k.a. Billy the Kid.” Shit, he knew who that was. And Starrell had grown up with a guy who had joined a crew at Bennington. By the time the guy was fourteen, he had popped six suckers. Everyone started calling him Billy the Kid. Then he was popped walking his momma to the clinic.

Starrell took the stairs to the second and third floors, each had a bar and a balcony. There were only a few people on the third floor. No Raymond. He went back down to the second. The bar was mostly empty. But the balcony was packed with leather boys, cowboy boys, and bare-chested muscle-boys milling about. As they passed one another, bodies brushed. No one said “Excuse me.” At the doorway to the balcony, a group of tall, brawny men in T-shirts and buzz-cuts were drinking Buds.

Shit, Starrell thought, no fuckin’ way to check this out without …

He considered taking a pass on the balcony. But what if that fuckin’ Raymond was out there? he asked himself. So fuckin’ what? Mister Man won’t know. I ain’t being paid enough to be meat. But …

“Fuck this shit,” he said under his breath.

He clenched his fist and stepped out to the balcony.

“Hey, private,” one of the Bud-drinking men said to him. “Hello.”

He placed a hand on Starrell’s shoulder.

Starrell’s reflexes kicked in. He knocked the hand away and faced the man head-on.

“Fuck you,” he said.

“The balcony is for friendlies, little big man. You ought to know the rules. Or leave.”

The man’s friends formed a half-circle around Starrell.

“I think you owe my friend here an apology,” one said.

“Just don’t be touching me,” Starrell snapped.

“Doesn’t sound like an apology to me,” another said.

Shit, cool it down, Starrell told himself.

“I’m just lookin’ for somebody,” he muttered.

“Still not an apology,” one of the men said.

“And you know,” said the man who had touched Starrell, “we’re all just looking for somebody. That’s why we’re here.”

He turned to his friends: “This young man does not understand the rules. I think it would be a public service if we—”