“Okay.”

“Then do it.”

“Okay, Mule Man.”

“I like it. Say it again.”

“Mule Man.”

A deep chuckle, followed by a sound like he was hawking and spitting. “There. We’re better buddies already.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“So?”

“What do you need?”

“I actually have a handout which I personally picked up from the class by attending it. You know about this Claudius motherfucker?”

“Claudius Nero Germanicus, the fourth emperor of Rome, one of the Julio-Claudians.”

“Down, boy. Don’t get yourself all excited. We had to read this dull-ass book about him by some writer man. Some novel shit, I mean.”

“Probably I, Claudius by Robert Graves.”

“That may indeed be the very book itself, Brainhead. So what do you need?”

Ronny sighed, watching the newspaper’s business manager unlock the side door, dragging her heavy purse and a stack of folders. He had promised himself he wouldn’t do this again, no matter how much he needed money, but here he was. “I have the book. I need the handout.”

“When are you coming back to the dorm?”

“I’m not. I will not enter that stinking cesspit from hell again until the fall.”

Tate snorted. “Unless Ben sends for you, and then you’ll come.”

“Not even for Ben.”

“You’re my pet faggot, too, you could suck my dick once in a while.”

“Not on your life. Not even if Coach Dooley paid me. You don’t wash it.”

“My girls like me funky.”

“You want to meet me halfway? I’m at the student union.”

“Fuck, since you’re writing the fucking paper, I’ll come all the way up there. All you need is this shit-ass handout?”

“Why don’t you bring your course syllabus if you still have it. And your copy of the book.”

“Yeah, right. My course syllabus. It’s so sweet you think I have one.” He gave a booming laugh, and Ben said something in the background, and Ronny gripped the phone a little tighter.

Ronny said, “Okay. Well, just the handout will be all right. The library’s open if I need any more books.”

“You charging me for this?”

“You don’t think I do it because I’m a Tar Heel born and a Tar Heel bred, do you?”

“When I bust you in the face you’ll be a Tar Heel dead. You’re so far piled up with shit you’re going to fall off it one day. You’re pretty sassy on the phone.”

“That’s because you’re not looming over me threatening to break my face. Mule Man.”

They agreed to twenty bucks, payable up front. Ronny waited for him on the steps in front of the union. Soon enough the giant came lumbering through the pine trees, swatting at something flying about his head, hair wild, catching the bright sunlight and blazing. Upright, Tate was about six four, so far past two hundred pounds you might have fashioned most of another person out of the overage. He had been a redshirt, too, a linebacker. Like Ben, he’d been frustrated to learn that he’d be held out of play this year in order to extend his eligibility. Ben had explained all this; Ronny knew less than nothing about football six months ago. None of the redshirts liked it, but the extra year made them want to play all the more. But Ben and Tate had lived through the year now and it was over. Tate crossed the street near Woollen Gym and sauntered up to Ronny with a piece of paper crumpled in one hand and a paperback book in the other. Grabbing Ronny by the back of the neck, he shoved him around the sidewalk a couple of times, like a playful bear, then let him go. “Here it is. You really think you can do this?”