He wouldn’t let Katie use the pill. He made a big thing about wanting everything to be natural and uncomplicated. He said he wanted her to be original. Of course Katie didn’t go for it, and neither did Ellen, and neither did any of us. But Jack said it was his show because she was his piece and he was going to run it his way. The natural way. Then Katie took to staying away at her time every month. And that really pissed Jack off. It was like he wanted her to get pregnant, just to see if he could do it. He must have thought he was a real cool head, really hip, because all of us knew that he wouldn’t marry her if she did get pregnant. Katie knew it too, and even though she really dug Jack, she told him that she was going to put him down if he didn’t come off the God bit. But Jack wouldn’t cool it, and pretty soon we got the word that Katie was sleeping around with some spade cat she had picked up. That really got to Jack. And that was when he took to laying around and thinking, and that was when he finally put school down.

Now, looking at him spread out by the fire and looking up at the big, dusty moose head over the fireplace, it kind of came to me just what it was that was eating him and why he wanted to get me way out in the sticks, alone with him.

“Hey, Jack?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me something honestly.”

“What?”

“You turning queer?”

“What?”

I had to swallow hard and brace myself before I could say it again. I expected him to jump on me. “Do you think you’re going into a gay period?”

He didn’t answer.

“I want you to know, it’s nothing to me if you are. Everybody’s gotta live.”

“Suppose I am?” he said. He was still eyeing that moose head.

“I just wanted to know, that’s all.”

“Well, maybe,” he said.

I propped my head up on my arm and looked into the fire. “What’s it like?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t feel anything. I don’t want anything. I just feel like nothing all the time.”

“That’s normal,” I said. “When was the last time you tripped?”

“Acid?”

“Yeah.”

“Last spring, I guess.”

“Why don’t you get some from Solly when we get back and go again? That’s probably all you need.”

“That’s not it,” said Jack. “It won’t be any good. I just feel useless.” He stopped talking and thought for a while. I could tell he was thinking because his eyes were moving from the fire up the moose head and the firelight was flashing in them. “Maybe you’re right,” he finally went on. “Maybe that’s the start of a gay period.”