Through the window he heard Fire singing as he came along the walkway. So you doan have nutten over me, Ian thought as he replaced the letter quickly. Fuck wha’ever you make of yourself. When it come down to it, you worse than me because you get fraid and apologize, and me still a-stand firm.

When Fire returned from the shower he found a new mood in the room, as if old grudges has been scrubbed away—loofahed off like dead skin. Ian was extraordinarily talkative and the light had returned to his eyes, which for days had been in shadow.

Looking around the loft, which was lined with books to the twenty-foot ceiling, Ian said, “How many books you have up here?”

Fire was sitting on the edge of the bed, massaging his skin with almond oil. Ian was leaning against the record changer, an old Grundig which resembled a casket on legs with its wooden cabinet and lidded top.

“About one thousand,” Fire replied, pausing to consider if by books Ian meant just novels.

“And downstairs?”

“Another thousand.”

“And you read off alla dem?”

“Most. As Oscar Wilde said, ‘There is no such thing as a bad book … only bad writers.’ ”

Shaking his head and laughing, Ian tapped the Grundig and asked if it worked.

“Yeah, man,” Fire replied. “Them old tube ting-deh doan break down. I swap a guy in Port Antonio for a boom box. When I throw it in the back and bring it up here I couldn’t believe it, man. Only the speaker did need a little work and ah get that fix for little and nutten.”

“Good. So let’s lick some music, then.”

On the front of the Grundig, on the left-hand side, was a corrugated sliding door. Ian opened it and found a trove of old LPs. As he stacked the record changer with his favorite Charlie Parkers, Fire made some lemonade. Soon it began to rain, and for the next three hours they leaned against a windowsill drinking out of jelly jars, talking about music and history and writing and art, voices swooping and swerving like kites.

When the sun came out they went to get the fish from Teego. The trails were wet and slippery, and in some places covered with mud. As they talked and laughed in this landscape of fragrant earth and lustrous leaves and burbling streams, each began to feel the presence of the woman he loved. The knot on a branch was her navel, a bunch of bananas her toes. Papayas and cacao pods were her breasts, and an overripe mango, split from falling, brought to mind the sweetness of the fruit between her legs. And their conversation, which had been about cricket, turned suddenly to reflection on their lives and loves.

“You know what the big difference is between me and you?” Ian asked as they stopped to descend into the fording. “I am a pussy man and you are a woman man. See … a pussy man wi fuck any kinda pussy … ugly pussy, pretty pussy, lean pussy, straight pussy … cause him jus love pussy. Him nuh business bout nutten else. Him doan care how the woman look. Or her personality. Or wha she want outta life. Cause is about pussy and pussy doan laugh, pussy doan cry, pussy barely even crack a smile. And pussy doan have no great ambition. Pussy just waah get fuck. So my life simpler. A woman man like you now have too much distraction. Yeah, you love pussy to an extent, but you really into women first. You waah understand them and get to like them and get emotional with them. Y’see like how you can stop fuck a woman and be her friend—me cyaah do that. But I see you do it with Claire, and I see you do it with Nan. Me couldn’t do that. I doan have the time fe be a woman friend after we done fuck.”