“Katie’s worried about you, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Everybody’s worried about you,” I said. “If you keep acting this way the word’ll get out that you are gay.”

“So what if I am?”

“So nothing,” I told him. “It makes no difference to me. I just want you to know how I feel about it.”

Now Jack began to smile, and his teeth and his beard and the shadows from the fire and the moose head made him look really wicked.

“How do you feel about it, Joe?”

“I’m not gay. That’s how I feel about it.”

Now Jack laughed aloud. And he looked directly at me in the firelight and scared me, he looked so wicked. “You’re not missing much,” he said.

I got up and went over to the cot against the wall. It was the only one in the cabin but it was big enough for two. Jack was still laying at the fireplace looking at me and smiling. It was really weird.

“You want to sleep by the fire or you want to take the cot?” I asked him.

“Is it big enough for both of us?”

“No. Take your choice.”

Jack smiled again in the firelight. He took a long time smiling and then he looked up at the moose head. “I’ll stay here,” he said.

And he slept there all night because I laid awake in the cot all night and watched him.

V

I DROVE STRAIGHT THROUGH all the way back to the city. Jack just sat on the seat most of the way back and said nothing. Once we stopped for gas at a station with a little restaurant on the side and I was really hungry but I didn’t get out because I was afraid that Jack might take the car and leave me there. You don’t know how to handle a queer all the time, especially if you’re not used to knowing he’s a queer. I have nothing against fags, mind you, some of the best men in the country are fags, but nobody wants to drive across country with one who, just the day before, was straight. At least in your mind he was. I didn’t want to be mean to Jack; I understood him now. I just wanted to get back to the place so we could decide which one of us was going to move out. I was scared to mention it in the car, and I figured that our loft was the best spot.

But when we got into the city, Jack wanted to get out downtown instead of going all the way in with me.

“I’ll come in after a while,” he told me when I let him out. “I want to do some things first.”

“Sure,” I said. “Come on in when you want.”

“And I’ll have a surprise for you tonight when I come in.”