“How you mean, Fire? Fuck!”

“Fuck who? Zachy donkey?”

Ian rolled his eyes as if Fire had just questioned the earth’s roundness. “Fire,” he began, “me meet women already dat woulda love twelve inches.”

“A twelve-inch tongue maybe,” Fire quipped.

“No! Twelve-inch wood.”

“Ian, which woman you know coulda take a twelve-inch wood?”

“Plenty.”

“Ian, trust me, size matters to men more than to women. I’ve talked to enough women to know that size is overrated … is how you work with what you have.”

“Hey, Fire, watch it, y’know … is only a small-wood man say things like ‘size don’t matter,’ y’know. Well, let’s just say I prefer to err on de side of excess.”

“You know who look like she coulda take on Shabba … come to think of it?” Fire replied as he thought of a way to introduce the topic of the sketch pad. “What she name again? From New York?”

“Who?” Ian responded jauntily.

“Pretty girl, man,” Fire replied, pretending to forget Margaret’s name. “Yeah, man, you know. Big breasts, look kinda soft and milk-fed, healthy body—”

“Who de fuck is dat?” Ian said, hoping that Fire would drop the subject.

“Phil say you introduce him to her … aah … aah … Phil girl, man … Margaret! Right, Margaret! When she told me that Phil was her boyfriend I almost flipped. She look like too much for Phil to handle. That’s one sexy woman, Ian. She coulda take on The Ranks. Speaking of Phil, I haven’t heard from him. Having a girlfriend has really changed him. Did he make it with the New York Philharmonic?”

“No,” Ian replied quietly.

“He’s still in New York?” Fire asked quickly.

“Yeah.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Fucking Margaret, probably. That’s all they do.”

It took a great deal of strength for Ian to answer Fire’s questions without betraying his true emotions. His head was a sphere of warring jealousies. Competing for his attention was his anger about Margaret and Phil and his envy of Sylvia, for she had come out of nowhere, it seemed, to claim Fire’s heart. Fire came to New York in June to see me, Ian thought, met Sylvia and avoided me. Then he came back to see Sylvia again in August and did not call. What did this mean? What did it mean that Phil was a part of Fire’s love affair and he himself was not? How could he talk to Fire about his troubles with Margaret now, when Phil, it seemed, had displaced him.

“Y’awright?” Fire asked. “You cool?”

“Of course I’m awright,” Ian answered, running his fingers through his thinning hair. “It’s just that this whole thing, y’know”—he gestured with his hands and head to the world at large—“is just a nice thing, y’know … to siddown and talk with you. I feel like ah know you better.”

Fire knew Ian long enough to know that he was lying. It was the sketch pad, he said to himself. It had to be the pad. “What’s really going on?” he said, trying to draw him out. “I think this is a good time to put some things out on the table.” The flames were dying now. Fire couldn’t see his face very well. The voice will tell it all, he thought. The voice will tell it all.