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pantyhose, and a pair of rubber dishwashing gloves with dried blood on their yellow surface. That same day he heard that the Student Commander of the Pershing Rifles had been jumped from behind, then kicked as he lay semi-conscious. He was in the hospital, unable to identify his assailant, who he said was masked. Despite the gloves and the pantyhose, despite Keith's ruthless words, Woody refuses to believe it could be Keith.
    "Nobody has to get hurt," Tracy says. "You do it at night. Nobody's there at night."
    "Great," Woody says. "Now you're in on this."
    "What, you think I couldn't?"
    "I think you could—I hope you won't." He says it with a smile, not wanting her to take a dare.
    "Shit," says Frank, "you'd probably both blow yourselves up."
    Woody knows it is the worst thing he could say. A look passes between Tracy and Keith. He sees the look, but does not realize the bond is formed, the challenge is accepted. And in that moment, in that look, both his friend and his lover are condemned. They die three weeks later.
    ~*~
    Woody looked at the clean lines of the criminology building and still saw the rubble where, twenty-four years before, investigators had found the remains of two bodies. Only pieces of jewelry—Tracy's crushed earrings and Keith's twisted and melted class ring—had made identification possible.
    ~*~
    The explosion occurs early on a Monday morning, and the blast, eight blocks away, wakes up Woody and Frank. Keith is not in his bed, and when they go into the living room and he is not there, they know that he has done what he said he would. Woody calls Tracy's floor in Harre Hall, to find that her name is on the sign-in sheet, but she is not in her room. When he hangs up the phone and the sirens start to howl, he knows she is dead.
    They dress and go to the east end of the campus. But where the back end of the ROTC building once was is now a crater. The remaining part of the building smolders where the firemen's hoses have soaked it. Woody and Frank say nothing to anyone, and decide to wait until Keith and Tracy reappear. They do not.
    The next morning some body fragments have been found, and Frank insists that he and Woody tell the police what they know. The local police are more sympathetic than Woody and Frank have imagined, and believe them when Frank tells the truth—that Keith mentioned blowing up the building, but they never took him seriously, and that he had never brought explosives into the apartment.
    The police search the apartment and find nothing. At the same time, Keith's car is found parked near the ROTC building. The trunk contains wire, blasting caps, and a box in which dynamite has been stored. Under the front seat is Tracy's purse.
    When the FBI agents arrive that afternoon, they are tougher in their questioning, but bring no charges against Woody and Frank.
    And the years pass.
    ~*~
    "Stupid," Woody whispered to the night. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." Why didn't she tell him? Why did she go? She was always so damned headstrong, taking acid when he had been afraid to, then having the gall to have a fantastic trip, while every moment Woody was tense with fear that she would think she was a bird and jump out the window.
    The connection made sense. She was so much like a bird, flighty, mercurial, with a soul that could soar, a spirit that captured his own and took it with her to wonderful places, so that he had noticed things when he was with her, all those dopey clichés that came to mind when people got nostalgic about the sixties, the things of Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins songs. The sky seemed bluer, clouds seemed like pillows. Her face was a never ending source of fascination to him, and he felt as if he could have traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertips for hours on end. She had been exciting and alive and impetuous. And that impetuosity had been her fatal flaw.
    "Stupid," he said again, and felt a chill on his cheek, and realized that his eyes were dropping tears. He wiped