For Ronny the place had become a home, the first one he could claim on his own. Especially now, when he could walk anywhere he liked, he explored one building after another, wondering how each one came to be. North Campus with its old brick classroom buildings, nothing consistent about their style; South Campus with its high-rise dormitories standing over forest that had yet to be cleared, trees receding beyond them toward the neighborhoods of Chapel Hill. Immersed in the physical history of the place, Ronny found himself set within its machinery, a tiny piece of the whole, only another of the students who had started coming to this university a long time ago, who came here still to walk among the trees and find one another and grow into the branches.

He walked for hours on Saturday morning, barefoot, bell-bottomed jeans, hems ragged, an old Sears uniform shirt with the name Leander sewn onto a patch, left in his mom’s trailer in Goldsboro by a boyfriend (hers) a couple of years back. No reason for the walk except that he was restless, the feelings of the last days too big to contain. A copy of The Daily Tar Heel blew across the plaza between cube-shaped Greenlaw and the student bookstore; the windows of the upper level of Lenoir Hall were open and a couple of art students were painting there; in the gravel parking lot next to the student union a couple sat on the back of a pickup, the girl in the boy’s lap, their long, straight hair mingling, their faces lost in the mix. Both wore blue jean shorts that barely covered their butts. Today he knew how it felt to sit like that, close to someone, an ache of feeling all through the bodies, running from one to another. A radio in the truck played the Grateful Dead. An older fellow stood near the student union watching, holding a camera but taking no pictures. No one else in sight.

Ronny walked to the outdoor theater in Battle Park and sat on the highest of the stone seats while a wind played the branches overhead, a shrieking of birds in a quarrel, one squirrel falling out of a tree in front of him, stunned for a moment, then streaking back to the tree. Occasional sirens, car horns, snatches of music. Otherwise the quiet was eerie. He sat until he was gnawed at by hunger and had to give way, spend money, buy food. He was down again to his last few dollars.

In the afternoon, he did laundry in the coin-op place in the shopping center. Waiting for his clothes to dry, he stopped in the Little Professor Bookstore where he had seen Hoagie sitting at the cashier desk when he was out walking. They had been friendly at Governor’s School, the same place Ronny had met Sheria, in the summer after their junior year of high school. Hoagie was sitting with near perfect posture, long faced, big eyed, his hair a snowy blond color; he had been merry and cheerful at Governor’s School, a drama student, but now his face had a sad look about it, shadows about the eyes.