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it happen?”
    â€œShe fell down her front steps. I’ve been telling her for years those steps weren’t safe. But you know Ginnie—lets things drift.” He uncapped the bottle and lifted it halfway to his mouth. “It’s your last one.”
    King shrugged. “Go ahead.” Russ drank. Ginnie was the woman with whom Russ had been having an off-and-on affair—they preferred the word relationship—for the past three or four years. King knew Russ liked it that way, sex and companionship when he wanted it without having to share his home or his life to get it. Ginnie, a natural-born follower, generally did things Russ’s way. She wasn’t a stupid woman; there had to be some other reason.
    Russ embarked on a long, detailed account of exactly how the accident had taken place; but, as usual, the story was more about himself than Ginnie. What he thought, what he said, what he did. He even put down the bottle of beer so his hands would be free to gesture. King didn’t know anybody who needed an audience as much as Russ Panuccio did.
    â€œAnyway, I told her I’d take her home tomorrow,” Russ finished up. “But I can’t stay with her then. There’s some stupid-ass function at Pitt I’ve got to go to. I don’t know who thinks these things up. But I have a theory that the administration is secretly convinced the faculty doesn’t have enough to do, so they sit around and amuse themselves by inventing useless functions that they then declare mandatory. They—”
    â€œGinnie’s staying in the hospital just the one night?” King interrupted, only half listening.
    â€œI thought they’d put a cast on her leg and let her go, but they don’t do it that way anymore. She had to stay overnight so they could check for fever or whatever. I’d forgotten how noisy hospitals can be. I’d hate to spend the night there.” Russ tossed the empty bottle into the trash can. “I want another drink. How about coming out to Benny’s with me? You don’t have anything planned, do you?”
    â€œWell, I’ve got a stack of journals I—”
    â€œRead them tomorrow. Come on, King, I need company tonight. I also need your bathroom.” He strode out of the kitchen.
    King sighed. Benny’s Bar was a meet-market; it was possible that some people really did go there on Saturday nights just to drink, but somehow King didn’t think that was what Russ had in mind. So much for fidelity to poor broken Ginnie. King didn’t like Benny’s, but he knew he’d end up going.
    The truth was, King was worried about turning into a stereotype, the man so in love with his machines that he shut himself away from all human contact. The mad-genius inventor, absorbed in his work, celibate, friendless, a bit of a geek. The cliché image of a near-sociopath, manufactured in Hollywood and never seriously questioned by the easy-answer crowd—which was to say, most of homo sap. Living for one’s work struck King as a pretty good way to live, after all. But he couldn’t stand the idea of being glibly categorized as an eccentric workaholic. He objected to being categorized at all; categorization was dismissal. As a result he was willing to play straight man to Russ Panuccio on occasion; Russ was not only his closest friend, he was his only friend.
    And what did Russ get out of it? Russ got his audience. At one time or another Russ Panuccio had worked as an on-the-air news reporter for every television station in town; but wherever he’d worked, things had a way of not panning out. He’d tried leaving Pittsburgh, anchoring the newscast at some station in Arizona or New Mexico; that didn’t last long. Then he was back in Pittsburgh, announcing to the world that his true calling was education. Russ had gone back to school long enough to get an advanced degree and was now teaching journalism at Pitt, a