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cackled, glancing nervously at the door.
    “Where’s Tradd?” I asked.
    “He was practicing his goddam piano a minute ago. Don’t call him down yet, Will,” Commerce pleaded. “He doesn’t approve of mantalk like this. At least, not from me.” Then, leaning over toward the chair where I was sitting, his small, pale, ferret-like eyes still religiously affixed on the TV, he whispered, “Did you get any this summer, boy?”
    “In the thousands, Commerce. The tens of thousands.”
    “You ought to ship out with me next time. The women in Brazil will do anything you want. Anything. At least, that’s what the crew tell me. But don’t tell Tradd,” he said, putting a thin finger over his lips.
    “You don’t look like you’re feeling very well, Commerce,” I said. Commerce always seemed enshrouded in a nimbus of unhealthiness. He was a short, wiry, rodent-faced man who even in repose had a motor running somewhere, as though his heart was working for no particular reason. Though twenty years older than Abigail, he didn’t have a single gray hair on his thin, nervously vigilant head.
    “Boy, I can never feel good when I’m entombed in this city. You know that. I can never wait to get out of here, away from all of this. Charleston sickens me because I belong to it so entirely.”
    After a pause, “I ship out again next week,” he said to the television.
    “Where to, Captain?”
    “South America again.”
    “When will you be back?” I asked.
    “I hope for the Ring Hop.”
    “I hope so too, Father,” Tradd said, entering the room. “It would be so common if you weren’t there when I went through the ring.”
    “Roommate,” I cried, leaping to my feet.
    “Hello, William,” Tradd answered with stiff, innate formality. The St. Croix family had mastered the art of placing distance between themselves and others, eschewing physicality as an activity practiced by the lower classes.
    “You should have come to Europe with me, Will. We could have made the grand tour together.”
    “I’ve told you before, Tradd, but you seem to have a hard time grasping this concept: I’m a McLean, not a St, Croix. My family didn’t inherit a billion dollars to spend on the entertainment of their eldest son.”
    “Excuses, excuses,” he replied. “Did you improve your slovenly habits this summer, or do I still room with the biggest slob in the Carolinas?”
    “Oh, yes, I became neurotically compulsive about cleanliness. You can eat dinner on my fat behind now.”
    Tradd winced. “Father, Will is a fine boy but he has a tongue that even soap couldn’t clean.”
    “He’s one of the guys, son. That’s something you’ll never be. Just one of the guys. That’s what I love about being on a ship.”
    “Since I got back three days ago, Father has been lamenting nonstop that I’m not a weightlifter or something else he could be proud of. I brought you a present, Will.”
    “I hope it’s outrageously expensive,” I said.
    Tradd handed me a small package wrapped in brown paper. I tore it quickly, opened a thin rectangular box, and lifted out a stubby, finger-worn fountain pen.
    “It’s thirty years old. I found an eccentric store in London run by an even more eccentric old man who repairs old fountain pens. I thought you could use it to write your senior essay.”
    I hugged Tradd before he could pull back. I kissed him on the cheek, and he blushed a deep scarlet and turned away from his father and me. His father, watching the television again, missed the gesture.
    “Keep away from the sacred bod,” Tradd stammered, but I knew he was pleased.
    “This is beautiful, Tradd. Absolutely beautiful. And I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.”
    “You don’t deserve anything nice until you learn to clean up your act. His corner of the room always looks as though it’s part of the city dump, Father.”
    “And I bet your side of the room looks like the place little girls play dolls,” Commerce said. “I thought