“You know me? Your friends know me? Murderer! Why did you have to kill him? Why? You greasy little punk, you shit-faced motherfucker!” And Jesse was lunging at him like a lizard after a roach, trying to climb the glass wall of the booth. A guard came from behind. Phillip saw him first.

“Cool it, man.” Phillip said. “Cool it.”

“You’ll get us screwed too,” said Abdul.

But it was too late. The guard was on Jesse and hustling him out of the door. Jesse kept lunging back before the door closed. Then it did, with the clang of a lock.

“You better go, Lady,” Phillip said. But before I could get my things together another guard was upon me. “And you, Miss?”

“I’m visiting my brother here. I’ll only be a minute more.”

“Visitors who can’t behave don’t come back,” he said in a gruff voice.

“I’m sorry, sir. I won’t be long.” He left and I settled back down. I thought of Jesse waiting outside. I hoped he was waiting outside and not locked up somewhere for disorderly conduct. “Can they lock you up for that?” I wondered aloud.

“No,” said Phillip. “But what’s eating your friend?”

Then I told them the whole story. As much as I knew, anyway. I told them why Jesse said that boys named after their mothers are different, how I met Jesse and he started calling me Rooms, how Metro was Jesse’s lover, how Lonny and the others stabbed Metro late one night. Phillip said nothing at first. And when I finished talking I was sure he’d hate Jesse for being gay, or me for being a part of the mess. But he didn’t say that. He just looked at me, then looked at Abdul for a long moment.

“You know, Lady, a man sometimes will do anything for love. A woman too, I guess. And who’s to say who you can love and who you can’t.” Then Phillip looked straight into my eyes, and I tried to say with my eyes that I loved him, and that I loved Jesse too for what he was. “Sometimes a man just wants to lie there and be loved, Lady. And it don’t much matter if it’s a man or a woman doing the loving.”

“And that boy,” said Abdul. “Lonny. He killed Metro?”

“Yes. Well, he confessed. He was part of a gang,” I said.

“And they were all arrested?”