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We walk into a soda bar, and I slap down thirty cents and say, "Two cokes, please."

"Hey, hey! The last of the big spenders!" says Nick.

More laughter.

I'd just as soon sock him right now, but I pick up my money and say, "O.K., wise guy, treat's on you."

Nick shrugs and tosses down a buck as if he had hundreds of them.

The two girls drink their cokes and talk across Nick.

I finish mine in two or three gulps, and finally we can walk them to the subway.

Nick is gabbing away about how he'll come out to Coney one weekend, and I'm standing there with my hands in my pockets.

"Goo'bye, Bashful!" coos the redhead to me, and the two of them disappear, cackling, down the steps.

I start across Fourteenth Street as soon as the light changes, without bothering to look if Nick is coming.

He can go rot.

Along Union Square he's beside me, acting as if everything is peachy fine dandy.

"That was a great show. Pretty good fun, huh?"

I just keep walking.

"You sore or something?" he asks, as if he didn't know.

I keep on walking.

"O.K., be sore!" he snaps.

Then he breaks into a falsetto: "Goo'bye, Bashful!"

I let him have it before he's hardly got his mouth closed.

He hits me back in the stomach and hooks one of his ankles around mine so we both fall down.

It goes from bad to worse.

He gets me by the hair and bangs my head on the sidewalk, so I twist and bite his hand.

We're gouging and scratching and biting and kicking, because we're both so mad we can hardly see, and anyway no one ever taught us those Queensberry rules.

There's no point in going into all the gory details.

Finally two guys haul us apart.

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