“Right.” Hanging his head, pausing at the stone canopy leading into the library. That burn rose inside him, visible, the sense that he was about to break something, or punch somebody. But it was in check at the moment. He said, “We don’t need to go in there.”

“Yes, we do.”

“No we don’t.” He showed his notebook, waved the pages at Ronny. “I already did the crap. Three sources, all that stuff.” Gritting his teeth, working his jaw, gripping his books like he wanted to hurl them into the shrubbery. Ronny looked Ben in the eye.

“Then what’s going on? You look like you want to choke somebody.”

Shrugged, rubbed the toe of his shoes on the bricks. “Just practice today. Sick of working like this knowing I’ll be on the sidelines.”

Nothing to say about that. “You’re getting your grades up. That’s something.”

“Yeah. My ma is loving it.”

“Is she?”

“You want to walk somewhere, sit for a while?”

They ambled away toward Carroll Hall, fewer people out that way. Near the old Playmaker’s Theater they headed onto the lawns, found a bench near there, and sat. “Kathy have anything to say?”

“Not much. She likes The Seven-Per-Cent Solution.”

“Maybe we could go see it. Maybe Sunday.”

“You’ll have a new girl by Sunday,” Ronny said.

“Shithead.”

“Well, you will. Probably.”

“Okay. Be a shit.”

“If you don’t get lucky by then I’ll be glad to go with you.”

The bench was near a streetlight, and wide enough that they kept apart. Ben spread his legs as if he meant to take up the maximum room possible, leaned back his head, closed his eyes. “You won’t believe what the guys did for the State game.” N.C. State was a rivalry that everybody talked about, Carolina played them on Saturday. “Shaved their heads. They look like idiots.”

“What? Why? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Getting psyched,” he said. “Guess they figure they need it.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t need that kind of shit. And I can’t play anyway.” Sullen again. “My ma is glad about it, that’s what gets me. She never wanted me to do football in college anyway. My dad is pouting because she won’t come to any games.”

“They getting along all right?”

“Sounds like it. Won’t be coming here this weekend, though. So we can see that movie.”

“Yeah, well. Did Tate shave his head?”

“Oh you know it. Looks like an egg. He kept that stupid little mustache, though.”

“You really did your research already, you’re not kidding.”

Ben passed Ronny the notebook, showed him the notes and the sources. “Somebody told you I don’t have a brain but she was wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.”

“Kathy never said anything like that.”

“Well, she thought it. Come on.” He stood, shook out his hair, chuckled as he ran his hands through it. Just like that his mood had brightened. “I still got my curls.”

“So you miss Kathy, do you?”