“No girlfriend, huh?”

“Not right now,” Stephen explained carefully. “It’s not like I’m a homo or anything, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I don’t believe in that cult. Now, I don’t think my stepfather was right—that AIDS is God’s way of getting rid of homosexual people. Because if that’s what God wanted to do he’d be smart and just get rid of them, the faggots, I mean. Not make there be a risk that normal people might get sick too.”

“That makes sense,” Jodie said from his hazy plateau. “I don’t have one either, a girlfriend.” He laughed bitterly. “Well, how could I? Right? What’ve I got? I’m not good-looking like you, I don’t have any money . . . I’m just a fucking junkie is all.”

Stephen felt his face burn hot and he washed harder.

Scrub that skin, yes, yes, yes . . .

Worms, worms, go away . . .

Looking at his hands Stephen continued. “The fact is I’ve been in a situation lately where I haven’t really . . . where I haven’t been as interested in women as most men are. But it’s just a temporary condition.”

“Temporary,” Jodie repeated.

Eyes watching the bar of soap, as if it were a prisoner trying to escape.

“Temporary. Owing to my necessary vigilance. In my work, I mean.”

“Sure. Your vigilance.”

Scrub, scrub, the soap lathered like thunderheads.

“Have you ever killed a faggot?” Jodie asked, curious.

“I don’t know. I’ll tell you I’ve never killed anybody because he’s a homosexual. That would make no sense.” Stephen’s hands tingled and buzzed. He scrubbed harder, not looking at Jodie. He suddenly felt swollen with an odd feeling—of talking to someone who might just understand him. “See, I don’t kill people just to kill them.”

“Okay,” Jodie said. “But what if some drunk came up to you on the street and pushed you around and called you, I don’t know, a motherfucking faggot? You’d kill him, right? Say you could get away with it.”

“But . . . well, a faggot wouldn’t want to have sex with his mother now, would he?”

Jodie blinked then laughed. “That’s pretty good.”

Did I just make a joke? Stephen wondered. He smiled, pleased that Jodie’d been impressed.

Jodie continued, “Okay, let’s say he just called you a motherfucker.”

“Of course I wouldn’t kill him. And I’ll tell you this, if you’re talking about faggots let’s talk about Negroes and Jewish people too. I wouldn’t kill a Negro unless I’d been hired to kill somebody who happened to be a Negro. There are probably reasons why Negroes shouldn’t live, or at least shouldn’t live here in this country. My stepfather had a lot of reasons for that. I’m pretty much in accord with him. He felt the same about Jewish people but there I disagree. Jewish people make very good soldiers. I respect them.”

He continued. “See, killing’s a business, that’s all it is. Look at Kent State. I was just a kid then but my stepfather told me about it. You know Kent State? Those students got shot by the National Guard?”