drinking, late at night, in the bas.e.m.e.nt of Brian's flat. This time,

Johnno had pinched whiskey from his father. The stench of garbage had

been rank as they sat with a candle between them, pa.s.sing the bottle

back and forth. On the dented portable record player, Roy Orbison had

been soaring with "Only the Lonely." Johnno's confession had come out

with drunken weeping and wild threats of suicide.

"I'm nothing, and I'll never be nothing else. Living like a bleeding

pig." He'd guzzled whiskey. "My old man stinking up the room and Mum

whining and nagging and never doing nothing to make it change. My

sister's working the streets and my little brother's been arrested twice

this month."

"It's up to us to get out of it," Brian said with boozy philosophy. With

his eyes half closed he listened to Orbison. He wanted to sing like

that, with that otherworldly melancholy. "We've got to make a

difference for ourselves, Johnno. And we will."

"Difference. I can't make it any different. Not unless I kill myself.

Maybe I will. Maybe I'll just do it and be done with it."

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Brian searched in their

crumpled pack of Pall Malls and found one.

"I'm queer." Johnno dropped his head on his folded arms and wept.

"Queer?" Brian paused with the match an inch from the tip of the

cigarette. "Come on, Johnno. Don't be daft."

"I said I'm queer." His voice rose as he lifted his tear-stained,

desperate face to Brian. "I like boys. I'm a freaking, flaming f.a.g."

Though he was shaken, the drink was enough of a cushion to make him

open-minded. "You sure?"

"Why the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l would I say it if I wasn't sure? The only reason I

could make it with Alice Ridgeway was because I was thinking of her

brother."

Now that was disgusting, Brian thought, but kept his feelings to

himself. They'd been friends for more than six years, had stood up for

each other, lied for each other, had shared dreams and secrets. Brian

struck another match, lit the cigarette and pondered.

"Well, I suppose if you're made that way, then you're made that way.

Nothing to slit your wrists over."

"You're not queer."

"No." He fervently hoped not-and vowed to spend the next few weeks

proving it to himself with every girl he could charm into spreading her

legs. No, he wasn't queer, he a.s.sured himself The s.e.xual acrobatics

he'd experienced with Jane Palmer should have been a good indication of

his preferences. Thinking of her, he hardened and shifted his legs. It

wasn't the time to get h.o.r.n.y, but to think of Johnno's problem.

"Lots of people are queer," he said. "Like literary people and artists

and such. We're musicians, so you could think of it as part of your

creative soul."

"That's s.h.i.t," Johnno mumbled, but wiped his dripping nose.

"Maybe, but it's better than slitting your wrists. I'd have to find a

new partner."

With a ghost of a smile, Johnno picked up the bottle again. "Are we

still partners, then?"