“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Protective coloration,” he said with a smile. “You learn to use it to get along in the world if you want. Only I got sick of living in the box the world prescribed; it was far too small to hold me. So I knocked down a few walls.”

“Yeah, and look what happened. You ended up dead.”

“They do like to keep us down,” he said, stirring his coffee. Suddenly he smiled and looked more like himself again. “Do you know the three great gay fantasies?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said nervously.

He looked at me. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Skip the first two. You’re too young. It was number three that I wanted to tell you about anyway. We used to imagine what it would be like if every gay person in the country turned blue for a day.”

My eyes went wide. “Why?”

“So all the straights would have to stop imagining that they didn’t know any gay people. They would find out that they had been surrounded by gays all the time, and survived the experience just fine, thank you. They’d have to face the fact that there are gay cops and gay farmers, gay teachers and gay politicians, gay parents and gay kids. The hiding would finally have to stop.”

He looked at me for a moment. “How would you like to have the sight?” he asked.

“What?”

“How would you like to have gaydar for a while? You might find it interesting.”

“Does this count as a wish?” I asked suspiciously.

“No, it’s education. Comes under a different category.”

“All right,” I said, feeling a little nervous.

“Close your eyes,” said Melvin.

After I did as he requested, I felt him touch each of my eyelids lightly. My cheeks began to burn as I wondered if anyone else had seen.

“Okay,” he said. “Open up, big boy, and see what the world is really like.”

I opened my eyes, and gasped.

About a third of the people in the café—including the guy that Melvin had winked at—were blue. Some were bright blue, some were deep blue, some just had a bluish tint to them.

“Are you telling me all those people are gay?” I whispered.

“To some degree or other.”

“But so many of them?”

“Well, this isn’t a typical place,” said Melvin. “You told me the theater crowd hangs around in here.” He waved his hand grandly. “Groups like that tend to have a higher percentage of gay people, because we’re so naturally artistic.” He frowned. “Of course, some bozos take a fact like that and decide that everyone doing theater is gay. Remember, two-thirds of the people you’re seeing aren’t blue.”

“What about all the different shades?” I asked.