Jack just stayed there on his knees. I was beginning to feel bad again, about the whole thing. Ellen was sitting on the chair, still crying.

“Look at the place,” I told him. “Look around. See how clean it is. It looks better than it’s looked in months. Is that something to bitch about?”

“I wanted to do it,” Jack said. “I wanted to clean up the loft.”

“Whatever the hell for?”

Jack did not answer.

“You’ve never wanted to do it before.”

“I wanted to do it,” Jack said again.

“You always kept it pretty filthy before,” said Ellen from the chair. “You never even bothered to pick up your underwear before.”

“I wanted to do it,” he said.

Then I knew that I had had it with Jack. We had reached the final point and it was really clear in my mind now that he was hopelessly gay and would be dangerous to have around the place any longer.

“Jack,” I said. “This is it, man. Either you walk out with your stuff now or I’ll throw you out and shovel your stuff out the window.”

“Like the plant,” Ellen said from the chair.

“Shut up!” I told her.

I turned back to Jack, still on his knees, on the floor. “This is it, man. We can talk about the lease later. You won’t have to pay anything, just get out now!”

I was really testing him then, because any straight fellow would raise hell about being put out of his own apartment, especially when his old man had already paid for it a whole year in advance. Only a real fairy wouldn’t put up a fight. This was Jack’s last test. And what did he do? He just looked at me, not wicked like he did in front of the fireplace the night before, but sad and like he was about to cry, just like one of those pet dogs. Then he got to his feet and walked to the door. Ellen and I watched him. Just before he went out the door he looked at me with that same hurt-dog look and said: “I’m not gay, Joe.”

I didn’t say anything.

He didn’t come back for his stuff until that next week. I don’t know where he went when he left. He didn’t get any calls while he was away, either; he had lost all his friends in our crowd a long time before that. And when the word got around about the scene he had made he didn’t have anything left. Even Katie, when she heard, put down the little feeling she still had for him. So there wasn’t much I could say to him when he did come back for his stuff.