Hall nodded. “That’s unusual for someone that age, to even know of Beowulf.”

Dale had to smile. “The unusual part was that Duane told it to us in Old English.”

The psychiatrist blinked. “Then how did you understand. . .”

“He’d rattle on in Old English for a while and then translate,” said Dale. “That autumn, he gave us a bunch of Chaucer. We thought Duane was weird, but we loved it.”

Dr. Hall made a note.

“Once we were hanging around and Duane was reading a new book. . . I think it was something by Truman Capote, obviously a writer I’d never heard of at the time. . . and one of the guys, I think it was Kevin, asked him how the book was, and Duane said that it was okay but that the author hadn’t gotten his characters out of immigration yet.”

Dr. Hall hesitated and then made another note. Maybe you don’t understand that, thought Dale, but I’m a writer—sometimes I’m a writer—and I’ve never had a goddamned editor make a remark that insightful.

“Any other manifestations of this. . . genius?” asked the psychiatrist.

Dale rubbed his eyes. “That summer Duane died, 1960, a bunch of us were lying in a hammock out at Uncle Henry and Aunt Lena’s farm, just down the road from The Jolly Corner, it was night, we were looking at the stars, and Mike O’Rourke—he was an altar boy—said that he thought that the world all existed in the mind of God and he wondered what it would be like to meet God, to shake hands with Him. Without hesitating a second, Duane said that he’d worry about that because he suspected that God spent too much time picking His mental nose with His mental fingers. . .”