“What do you think? Where’s Ben?”

“You tutoring him tonight?” Tate sipped from a beer and ran a hand into the back of the girl’s jeans. He had long, strawberry hair that looked a little dirty and uncombed, and his forehead was decorated with pink pimples clustered in a small, tight constellation. The girl was no one Ronny recognized, pretty and dark haired, her rump plush and round. She gave him an idle look, smoothed back her hair, and rested her head against Tate again. She said hey.

“No, just looking for him. Hey.”

“He’s out somewhere, I don’t know where the fuck he went. You want to write me a paper?”

“What? No, Tate. I quit that stuff.”

“Why not? It’s about fucking Claudius something. One of those Roman guys.”

“It’s a little late for a paper to be due. Exams are about to start.”

Tate gave Ronny a wide grin. His neck was the size of a small tree. “Paper was due a long time ago. It’s for a fucking incomplete.”

“I don’t have time,” Ronny said.

“You sure? I bet you know all about that Claudius motherfucker.”

“No, sorry. I have my only exam tomorrow and the rest of the week I have to look for a job.”

That went right over Tate’s head. The girl had turned over and was looking at Ronny again and then at Tate; she was stoned, Ronny thought, and she wanted him to go. She had fingernails polished to perfection and painted a soft pink; the color was striking in the dull cinder-block room. She wore a peasant blouse, gathered along the neck and embroidered there with flowers, little ruffles on the short sleeves, the waist pulled up to leave her midriff bare. She was pudgy at the midsection, her navel rising softly over her belt. She said, “This room is a pure mess. That pack of Nabs been laying there three weeks. Don’t you ever clean up?”

Tate smacked her stomach, playful. “Shut up, Carla.”

“Tell Ben I came by,” Ronny said.

Tate rolled on top of the girl. “Take your faggot ass out of here then, if you won’t help a guy who needs it.”

The word “faggot” stung but Ronny ignored it. If he said anything out of line he could get his face knocked in pretty quick around Ben’s friends. Ben was a redshirt defensive player for the football team and this wing of Ehringhaus was all football players, a number of whom were insane, as far as Ronny could tell. This year they had already thrown a vending machine off the balcony of the sixth floor, destroyed several refrigerators, and fouled the elevator on the weekends with excretions of one kind or another. Best to leave them alone. A word was just a word, after all. He had heard it before.

There had been a moment when Ben had called him faggot, tentatively, as if testing his reaction, the day of a beer party on the lawn out front. At twilight with the party nearly over, Ronny had been lying under a tree God knows how long, buzzed from beer, one of the few times he had tried it, such a bitter taste. He’d stood, felt dizzy, steadied himself by putting a hand on the tree trunk. Most everyone had left the party by then. But there was one figure sitting in the dark nearby. He stood while Ronny watched. Strutted toward the light of the front doors, passing close enough that he became visible, and turned to Ronny, such a striking face. Ben. They had met when Ronny was studying with Otis, one of the other football players. “Good night, faggot,” Ben said, neither harshly nor angrily. He waited a beat too long to see what Ronny would do; Ronny, drunk and flippant, without thinking blew him a kiss, clearly visible under one of the lights along the brick path. Stopped Ben in his tracks. He might have responded in so many ways. But he started to laugh, walked away, shaking his head, and Ronny leaned against the tree and breathed until the bit of nausea went away and he could follow.