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his homosexual son?
    â€œHell, but what can I do?” Bald Michael said. “It’s just a natural step. He has to go through it.”
    â€œAnd at least he’s got a lot of padding,” Steven said, slapping his backside.
    Wesley studied them. He realized that if this was what it meant to be accepting, then he was not accepting. Bald Michael pulled a photograph from his wallet, and passed it to the men.
    â€œCute little guy,” Nate said, passing the photo to Steven, who grunted his appreciation, and passed it to Wesley. The photo showed a toddler with a sweater vest and a chin rash. Wesley stared at the photo, and felt the sting of tears. He was so very tired.
    â€œWesley,” Bald Michael said, “don’t you have a boy, too?”
    Wesley’s boy was nineteen years old, and three inches taller than Wesley. He was a remarkable kid. He had not had a girlfriend since the eighth grade. Wesley felt that he and his son had not been close in many years.
    â€œHe’s in college,” Wesley said, though that fact sounded preposterous to him. “He’s a pre-dentistry major, but he likes philosophy. He plays Ultimate Frisbee, which apparently is a serious sport. And he’s probably gay. I think he probably is, though he hasn’t said anything to me or to Barbara.”
    The third arc grew quiet. Bald Michael and Nate made sounds and faces that were intended to be supportive of Wesley’s son’s sexuality.
    â€œIt just seems like more and more people are,” Nate offered. Bald Michael nodded. Steven’s face did not look supportive at all, but in fact Steven had stopped listening. He had overheard a conversation about Redskins receiver Gary Clark in the fourth arc, on the far outskirts of the fountain.
    â€œExcuse me, guys,” Steven said, jumping like an electron to an outer shell. The men in the third arc assumed the worst about Steven. He was from Arkansas. Some people weren’t quite ready for change.
    â€œHe wasn’t a Smurf,” Steven said to the men in the fourth arc—Trent, Peter, and Jeff.
    â€œWho?” Jeff said.
    â€œ Cahk ,” Peter said. “ Guhh Cahk .”
    â€œI clearly heard someone say that Gary Clark was a Smurf,” Steven said. “And he wasn’t.”
    â€œHe had to be,” Trent said. “He was tiny.”
    â€œ Fumbudge den ,” Peter said.
    â€œHe was small, but he wasn’t one of the Smurfs,” Steven said. “The Smurfs were Virgil Seay, Alvin Garrett, and Charlie Brown. And that was before Clark was drafted out of James Madison.”
    â€œ Cahk uz pot uv fumbudge ,” Peter said.
    â€œTake out your mouthguard,” Jeff said.
    Peter removed his mouthguard, which remained umbilically connected to his mouth by a thin strand of saliva. “Clark was part of the Fun Bunch,” he said.
    â€œWrong again,” Steven said with gleeful exasperation. “The Fun Bunch dissolved after the ’84 season. The league made the rule about excessive celebration, and that all but wiped out the Fun Bunch. Excessive celebration, you may recall, was pretty much the Fun Bunch’s reason for being.”
    â€œI think the key term here is orchestrated ,” Trent said.
    â€œReady?” Jeff said. He bent his knees and swung his arms, counting to three. It appeared that he wanted to reenact the Fun Bunch’s group high-five, but the other men ignored him, and Jeff did not leave the carpet.
    â€œWait,” said Gil, who had leaped two levels to join the conversation. “Did the Smurfs and the Fun Bunch exist at the same time?”
    â€œThe Smurfs were basically a subset of the Fun Bunch,” Steven said, drawing circles in the air. “Contained within the superset of the Fun Bunch was the Smurfs, who werethe Fun Bunch’s smallest receivers. Think of it like this: all Smurfs belonged to the Bunch, but not every member of the Bunch was a