“You could just be self-conscious and that’s all it is.”

“Don’t be such a hardheaded dope. She’s asking you to come and visit when she’s sick with cancer.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll come whenever she wants me to and you want me to. I’ll go tomorrow if you want. I can get a job later when I get back.”

“I’ll ask her. I need to get this trip with Jen out of the way but I’ll ask her. You’re right, why not just find out when she wants us to come.”

He said “us” and “we” so easily, even more so than Ronny, who could only do that in his private thoughts. A mother would hear that.

A boy like Ben was smart enough to have one voice for his mother and one voice for his buddies in the zoo.

A boy like Ben could put a voice in his body and say with it, silently, I need you while I’m afraid like this. Please don’t make me admit it.

“I’m hungry. You want to go somewhere?”

“Is there anywhere? You know.”

He shrugged, blew out his lips in a fart. “I don’t care if anybody sees me with you tonight. Everybody knows we’re friends now. Tate’s talking so much shit about you to his buddies you’d think you saved him from hellfire.”

“Well, tell Tate to be quiet about this, please. I don’t want to end up in front of the honors court. I’m not writing any more papers for people.”

Ben was already pulling on his jeans. “Suit yourself. You’re the one who started that shit. We’ll go out the window. I like doing that, it makes me feel like fucking Romeo.”

“Those guys in the frat house are going to see.”

“That old lady in the bedroom is going to hear if we go downstairs. Besides, there’s a tree between here and the frat, you can’t see anything up here. Look.”

“Now I’m a fucking gymnast,” Ronny said.

“That’s the spirit. Don’t be chickenshit or you’re going to fall again.” Ben was opening the window. He had paused to look at himself in the mirror, running fingers through his hair.

“I’m sober now, I’m not going to fall.”

“I guess we better not get drunk tonight, huh?”

“No. Not if we’re coming back here up the roof.”

“I’m not ready for that, anyway.”

“Why?”

“I’m a nasty drunk.”

It was like that, the talk too fast for pauses, for thought, so that each one ended up saying more than he planned, and the words tumbled faster. They were on the roof by then. For all his bulk Ben made very little noise, and Ronny was full of enough adrenaline that he managed all right, without help, all the way to the ground.

They drove to a place in Carrboro that was open all night, Breadmens, where the parking lot was full and a tow truck was hitching up a VW van to haul it away. Ben drove an old Impala, bottle green, the size of a small boat. It was already after five a.m. by the time they got to the diner. Siding of old metal, rusted, glass door grimy with use, in need of washing, like the worn-out mat on the tile floor inside, the feeling of grease in the air. Booths along the wall, bedraggled patrons, hippies with ripped jeans and flip-flops, staff in jeans and tee shirts, laminated menus on the Formica tabletops. Everyone looked surprised at the hour, at seeing so many people, a bubble of commotion in a sleeping town. They picked a booth at the front and sat facing the kitchen. “Where you going to look for a job?” Ben asked.