The afternoon raced down the paths ahead of them, and Thad had to remind him when it was time to return to the apartment. He would never leave the park with Ken, only walk him to the entrance where he would put his finger to his lips as a reminder that Ken had pledged not to reveal their friendship to anyone, not even his father. Thad had said, quite seriously, that if Ken even whispered of him to another, at that moment he would be invoking a curse condemning Thad to oblivion.

It was not until Thad suddenly froze beside him that he became aware of his father standing in the path before them.

"Ken, go back to the apartment. I have something to say to your friend."

The tone of his father's voice, one of icy control, had a quality which he had not heard since his parents' separation. As he looked at his father, too startled to comprehend his command, it was as if one of Thad's stories were being illustrated. His father was becoming older before his eyes; rage, hate, or some nameless viciousness making his face a cruel caricature.

"If you've laid so much as a hand on him, so help me, I'll kill you, I'll . . ."

To complete the nightmare, Thad had overcome his initial shock to assume an air of triumph that convinced Ken this must be a dream, surely he had fallen asleep on the hill.

"Don't worry. I haven't touched him. But don't pull that righteous bit with me. Did you think I was going to hibernate all summer while you played house, and then come out of hiding when you whistled the all-clear? I don't have any family to amuse myself with, remember? And I damn sure am good enough to meet yours after sharing your bed for six months."

But

"Stop it! Do you have to spell it out to the kid? Or have you done that already?" "I don't give a damn if . . . Wait, Ken, that's not true. I didn't mean the new note of pleading in Thad's voice made no impression on Ken. He knew that Thad was asking forgiveness for some nameless betrayal, but the situation was stifling him with its raw scent of unleased emotions.

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"You knew one another. You loved one another, and neither of you told me. Neither of you you... And then Ken knew. His mother's insistent questions about his father's friends, the ribald stories in the school washrooms, the curious epithets attached to certain upperclass boys, all fell into place. He had always had the pieces but only now did the puzzle have a meaning, one that he wishesd he could smash back into nothingness.

"You're queer. The two of you are nothing but a couple of queers, and . . . oh, God, I thought you were the two best . . . I loved you... loved, that's a laugh!" While his father's hand drew back as if it had been slapped, Thad's rage took a new impetus from this rejection, and his voice became strident as he lashed out at the older man. "What are you looking so tragic about? Does the word seem so strange on his lips? Can't you see he's a natural? The product of a broken home, the entire bit! Christ, it's classic!"

Immediately, he turned to Ken, who could not sense whether it was Thad's voice or his eyes that were pleading, "Look, kid, I didn't mean it. Forgive me. Forget this entire scene. Remembr what we had," for Ken was no longer listening. He was trying frantically to remember the train schedule home to his mother. Confronted with this horror, all he wanted to do was get away.

Running down the path, he was conscious of someone sobbing behind him, but as he turned an irrevocable corner, his tears prevented him from determining which of the two figures was kneeling before the other, clutching the hands of a figure still as death.