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About time you did, don't you think?" he said, heaving a full shovel over his shoulder. "Bill Bates. What might you be called?"

"Tag--sort for Taggart--Weaver."

"OK." He shifted his shovel and stared at me levelly. "You comin' over to play tag with me this evenin'?" And all of a sudden I froze. If I had had any silly idea this was a game it wasn't. The quiet hunger in his eyes told me. He jested about it and I gagged on an ache in my throat--as though he had taken me in his blunt hands and choked me. Then he stooped to his labor and somehow I got back to my room, fell on my bed and stared--at nothing. It was a painful, bewildering thing. Like--like being born full-grown into a world of possibilities I had never even considered. When my heart stopped slamming, I tried to equate--in my usual plodding, reasoning fashion--what had happened to me. But my mind wouldn't jell,

I finally got up, showered, shaved, dressed methodically and hit out for the library. I asked for Freud, Krafft-Ebbing and some other standard works on this here new bug I had and took them to a solitary table and tried to read case histories. They didn't mean a damn to me! I looked at them swimmy-eyed and thought--like the old woman in the fairytale: "Lawd Amighty! This is none of Il"

So I turned in the books and took a bus to the zoo. I usually find watching the behavior of animals soothing and settling when I am tizzying. But--after an hour--standing before Monkey Island, I thought suddenly: "Oh My God! Is anyone watching me?"

And I got out of there. I walked the hard beach just above the tide reach and gradually I was able to wipe the slate of my mind clean. I opened my heart and heaved all the trumpery of my confused young manhood into the ocean.

This thing that had been building up in me--ever since I first saw Bill Bates--was right for me. I might not be happy. Perhaps I had deliberately misunderstood him. But he had reached me--moved me in perhaps half an hour of conversation--as no one--nothing else had ever done.

The bus was forever getting me back downtown and my pulse was in my ears when I pressed Bill's buzzer and went up to his apartment. He smelled fresh and new hay-slippered, in shorts, a towel around his neck. "Just in time," he said, closing the door and scrubbing his short

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curly black hair. "Just got outa the shower. You drink?'' I started to say no but he didn't wait. "Time you did,” he said carelessly. "Time you did a lot of things. I got some Gibsons here." He flipped on the hi-fi.

"Hope you like Mozart. If you don't you're no friend of mine, not nohow. That stack should last the evening.” He poured and handed me a cocktail, then came up close, stood, toe to toe, eye to eye--and I started to drown in his blue gaze as though I was sinking in a bottomless pool. "You

"Later," he said and kissed the end of my nose. got a nice schnozz. I better get some pants on. Put your coat in the closet. Can you make salad?"

"I peel, a mean carrot," I said dizzily, gulping my drink and looking around for a place to park the glass. "Here," he said, taking the glass. "Gibsons are to be sipped not slurped. Put your coat away. And your shirt. It's hot tonight. Anyway I want to look at your architecture, I'll get my pants. Come out to the kitchen."

I shucked my coat and shirt and joined Bill in the kitchen; He looked at me with approval. “Glad you got muscles and hair on you," he grinned. "Can't abide skinny guys. Here's the greenery."

He removed a crisper from the refrigerator, brought out a huge wooden bowl, a garlic button, wine vinegar and olive oil, herbs, salt.

"Rub the bowl with garlic first..."

"You go teach your mother to suck eggs!" I said, leering. "Got any more of that there likker left?" It kind of popped out. I felt suddenly warm and easy with him. He looked at me for a moment--came toward me--and then shook his head. "No. Better not. Let's eat first. Baked potatoes are about done. Steaks are thawed. You like yours bloody? Good. Better put the coffee on. Hurry up with that salad! Oh yes--you said you wanted a drink. I'll get the pitcher and some more onions. And set the table. We'll eat here at the counter..."

Suddenly I chuckled. He looked at me. "What did I say?"" "Ain't what you said. It's how you were saying it. Bill-you were chattering!"

"Was I?" He looked at me, his eyes misted. Then he turned his back and busied himself with napkins, silver, china. “Tag--" he finally said softly. "You don't know how it can