By WILLEM TOMSSEN

12th Night

"You look worried, Tom. Are you?"

"Well, maybe a little bit. I was going to save it to tell you tonight.

But maybe you want to hear it now.......”

"Sure thing! Have a refill?"

"All right, if you are I will.”

The late morning sunlight filtered through the haze outside, and cast a soft light on the features of the young man called Tom. He lit up a cigarette while waiting for his cup to come back. His face might have been called moon-round, if it had not been for a certain occasional angularity. An aura of determination seemed to be around him too, contrasting with his casual manner of sitting in the booth. Perhaps it was this air of paradox that first captivated Kristian, and led to their acquaintance and later close friendship.

His friend returned with the two coffee cups, and set them down carefully, as they were overfull. Then as he was sitting down, he turned to Tom and asked, "Are you worried because you had to fight him off"

Tom looked up in surprise, and said, "No. Quite the opposite last night. That's what worries me. This job is getting odder all the time." "Let's see. This is case number thirteen, isn't it?”

"I think so. Three weeks ago was number eleven, and in between was the one that got scared." With this, Tom rubbed out his cigarette hastily.

"You're right. Now let's see... Where were you when you contacted him? I've got to get this all down for the record." Kristian handled American banter fluently after two years, with scarcely a trace of accent.

"Well, I was parked at the ice cream joint on the corner of Main and Fourth, when a guy walked out with a sundae in his hand. He was headed my way, and pretty soon he caught my eye. I smiled at him just a little bit, and he smiled and looked away. He went and sat down on a bench and looked back at me. Then he came over to ask me for a light."

"The old approach still works! Wonder what people did before they had tobac-

Co?"

"Maybe if they didn't need tobacco they also didn't need this sort of activity.” "Touche! You caught me off guard there. But you realize that people have always had a narcotic available. They're damned ingenious at it, in fact. Besides, mattachine REVIEW

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there is no reason to think that what you call 'this sort of activity' is a modern invention. Haven't you read Westermarck?"

"I'm sorry, Chris. Sometimes I get off the mark and make these value judgements. Forgive me?"

"Done! But don't misunderstand me. Value judgements have their place, after all the evidence is in. And that is what we are doing with these case studies." "You're right, of course. You ought to get a good thesis out of this before you have to go back. But consider my side of the case. You can just sit there and be coldly scientific about the whole thing, while I am the one who goes through these shenanigans. It affects me emotionally, don't forget that!"

"I won't. You know I appreciate deeply what you are doing for me, what I could never do for myself. If you are getting upset about it, maybe we had better not interview any more for a couple of months. What about it?”

There was no immediate answer from the boy opposite. He reached into his sweater pocket and produced a pack of English cigarettes. Without offering his older friend one, he squeezed his lighter and drew a long first lungful. Then he looked for a moment at Kristian through half-closed eyelids, as he slowly exhaled, the smoke curling from his nostrils like summer heat waves. At last he spoke. J

"Chris, before we go on, let me ask you a question. Okay?" "Shoot!"

"How do you know I'm not making all this up?"

Now it was his friend's turn for reflection. He put both hands around his coffee cup and warmed them, rotating back and forth. As he did so, he looked into the liquid as ifit were a crystal ball. At least, that was the momentary effect on Tom, who waited his answer impatiently

After a moment, Kristian raised his eyes and looked penetratingly and quite seriously at the boy opposite, and said, "Internal evidence!'{

"Just that?"

"Just that! No one could fake all the details you have told me. It's not easy to lie convincingly."

"Maybe so, but I'd say a lot of these guys are lying to themselves, at least." "That may be true. In fact, it's one of the reasons I'm doing this study, to see how much or to what degree they are out of contact with reality, or in other words, 'lying to themselves.' Most of them are, I think, but again I can't say definitely until we get enough cases to analyze, and follow up." "We're going to follow these up?”

"Why not? They'll still be in town, and it would make the study far more valuable if we could ask more questions. Don't you agree?"

"Yes, probably, but Christamighty! I'll be nuts by the time it's over!" "I'll reserve a suite at the State Hospital for you." "Thanks, doll!"