“Fuck it,” Ian said, as they hugged. “Who is this Sylvia to ruin what we have between us? Let’s light a fire and roast some corn and talk. Then later on we can go down to Battery and listen to Stereotone tonight.”

“It’s nice to know I can depend on you,” Fire said.

“It’s good to feel so useful,” Ian said, squeezing him tight.

Tented by a starry sky, Fire opened himself and told Ian about the love affair, from the meeting on Spring Street to the falling out in Brooklyn Heights, sparing only the details of sex, which he thought should still be private.

Ian was surprised to learn that Fire and Sylvia were like that. Now he understood the whole story … about how they met, about Fire’s visiting from London, about how the two of them became lovers, about how she made Fire feel small when Lewis unexpectedly appeared, about how Fire hurt for months after he left …

The flames pitched shadows on their faces. In the forest around them, the coos and shrieks of the lizards and bugs were locked in an ancient groove, a groove so old as to be modern, like Hendrix meeting Fela Kuti.

“So why you love her so?” Ian asked, his thinness and black T-shirt making him almost one with the darkness around them. “I am trying to understand that love thing. As a pussy man is not easy.”

Fire looked up at the stars to buy some time to order his thoughts, then answered. “It’s a weird thing,” he said. “I don’t really know why I love her … in the sense that people very often don’t know why it is they love someone.”

“Not a good answer.” Ian turned some cobs with a stick.

“It’s not the most eloquent thing I’ve ever said,” Fire defended. “But off the top of my head it’s the best I can do.”

“Well, think about it.”

“Ask me a more precise question.”

“Okay, do you love her … are you in love with her?” Ian asked.

“Yes on both counts.”

“How do you know that it’s love and not just infatuation?”

“Love is infatuation.”

“What you mean?” Ian asked as a challenge, thinking that Fire was trying to blow him off.

Fire asked Ian for a cigarette, his first in almost a decade. “I am infatuated,” he said as the smoke filled him up. “She inspires me to do fatuous things. I used to feel this way a lot when I was younger. The difference is she still makes me giddy when I’m old enough to know better. I like the dizziness that comes with it. It’s a very nice high.” He paused to smile with Ian, who was looking at him, beaming. He liked to hear Fire philosophize.

“I think infatuation has gotten a bad rap,” Fire continued. “That’s why a lot of relationships break down. Love without infatuation is not enough. Cause it’s infatuation that brings playfulness, indulgence, romance. Love, on the other hand, is about patience and loyalty and, very importantly, nurturing—that impulse to take care of someone and see to their needs. So when you hear people saying, ‘I love you but I’m not in love with you,’ what they’re really saying is that the infatuation is gone. So yeah, they’d die for you; but they wouldn’t go with you at two in the morning to find a pint of Häagen-Dazs anymore.”