“But you can do what you want to do and I have to put up with it.”

“Well, you don’t fucking technically have to.”

“Yeah. Right. But you know what I mean.”

“I’m just telling you what it would be. If I caught you with anybody I would have the same flash of jealous shit you do, but mine would have my fist behind it.”

Ronny thought about it. All in all he was not unpleased. “I suppose I have to concede the justice of that. You are whatever the fuck you are.”

“The cussing is getting almost excellent for a sissy such as yourself.”

“Fuck you.”

The moment had made Ben light, forgetting all about the trouble, and he ran a hand along Ronny’s side. “So, bitch, the answer is you don’t want to see me with anybody or hear about me with anybody and I have a similar hankering for myself where you are concerned. I would never say to you, I do not want you to screw anybody but me. Well, I would say that, but not with any expectation you would have to listen. But I would say to you, very honestly, that if I ever catch you with anybody, I will beat the shit out of whoever that poor unfortunate motherfucker may be. He will not be sleeping with anybody for a good long time after that.”

“Is it sick for me to say I find that oddly exciting?”

“No. As long as you don’t think for a second I’m joking.” Ben’s tone had become serious, but lightened now. “So when you are with anybody else you’re risking his good health. Not to put any pressure on you.”

“But, you know, I just don’t see it happening anyway. I’m the loyal type. And if that changes I’m not stupid enough to let you catch me.”

“Good move,” he said. “It’s always good to leave some room for doubt.”

“Why?”

He shrugged his shoulders, cocked his head. “You don’t want me to be too sure of you. And I kind of like the thought of totally beating piles of crap out of your back-door boyfriend, too. Makes me tingly.”

An Elegy

RONNY WOULD ALWAYS WONDER, HAD MRS. NICKELSEN lived, whether he and Ben would have managed to survive that summer with more knowledge of each other than they got. Whether, indeed, they might even have survived it intact. But she died very suddenly a few days later. The cancer had invaded too much of her body; she caught pneumonia in her weakened state and that was that.

By Sunday morning, her decline was beginning, fluid in her lungs, crackles in every breath. Ben still drove to Chapel Hill to pick up Ronny, as planned. In the boardinghouse he told Ronny to bring clothes for a funeral just in case, and Ronny’s heart sank. All the way to Turtletrack he could feel the tension in Ben, the curtain of an awful, undefeatable silence coming down, not simply between them both, but between Ben and the world.