Odd what people remember about me. It is apparent I was known as a talker and not much else. Was that the reality? I can’t remember, or maybe I don’t want to. I glance at Angela, but she has no intent of rescuing me.

“You’ve got a nice place here,” I flounder. This old guy has me off balance. Maybe he felt sorry for me in junior high, but now that I’m an adult I’m supposed to be able to take it.

“It’s a junk heap,” Mr. Carpenter says calmly, inspecting a knife on the table as if he were running a four-star restaurant. He adds, “I heard last night you’re here representing one of the Bledsoe boys in Willie Ting’s murder case. Now, those Ting kids were students. Connie knew more physics when she was a junior in high school than the rest of Bear Creek put together. Tommy was good in math, but when she came along, Connie liked the experiments.”

I sip at my coffee, curious about what it was like to have lived as a gay man in a small town.

He must have felt like an animal in a cage. Always vague about his itinerary, he traveled during the summers. I know he lived with his mother at least until I went away to college. To keep his job, Mr.

Carpenter had to repress his sexual urges nine months a year. Even at my age I have trouble going twenty-four hours. Why did he stay in this fish-bowl, especially after his mother died? I can’t imagine.

Fortunately, we are saved by Mckenzie.

Mr. Carpenter raises an eyebrow at my meager order.

“I would have cooked you a decent breakfast,” he sniffs.

“Come see me, Gideon. I’m closed Mondays, home during the middle of the afternoon and by nine every night. I still live where I always did.”