"Yes," said Stern, smiling at the man, feeling the air charge up and wanting to stop whatever was about to happen. The brocade of tenderness appeared suddenly to girdle his stomach. He was not sure he could take any trouble, and he imagined himself collapsing and having to be carried back to the Home by his two friends, the Puerto Rican girl walking contemptuously behind, aware now that Stern had the least romantic disease of all. "Brews all around," the blond boy said, his mood suddenly sweetening. When the proprietor returned to the bar, the blond boy squeezed the girl's breasts and said, "How they hangin', doll?" "Hey, George--motorboat," he said, waggling his head from side to side against her breasts and making a droning sound in his throat. "I don't go for that," said the Greek boy, eating deep down on his nails and leaning forward on his wheelchair, as though watching a tense horse race. "I like to do some real jazzing." The girl sat patiently through this, running her fingers through the blond boy's hair. "The physical side," she said to Stern, who nodded back at her, his heart in his throat, as though he too considered breast-nuzzling a bore. The proprietor brought the beers and said, "Pay now." The blond boy said, "Remember what I said when we came in? I said we're coming in here nice. Nobody pushes us around, we don't do any bumping either. Now you come over and you say pay now." "It's a house rule," said the proprietor, staring out the window. "Everybody pays now." Stern, the brocade tightening around his stomach and wanting to do something, put down two dollars and the proprietor took it. The Greek boy said, "You think you got such a hot place here. This place stinks." He spit on the floor and the proprietor went back to the bar. "That's what I was telling you," the blond boy said to Stern with a pleading compassion in his voice. "Nobody gives you freedom. You come into a place nice, you know, and you just want a few brews, and look what happens." "He thinks just because he's got a fancy place he can give you shit," said the Greek boy. "I spit on his ass." The blond boy's mood suddenly changed and he took hold of one of the girl's breasts again. "Good set, huh, Mr. Stern?" And Stern nodded sweetly in agreement, looking apologetically at the girl, as though he was only going along with this line of conversation to be polite and really never thought of such things. "What about the dancin'?" the girl asked, looking over at the jukebox. "Does my love feel a tango within him?" "Dancing, shit," said the blond boy. He looked over at the proprietor, who was rinsing glasses, and said, "He comes over here again, we get him. You can be nice up to a certain point." "He thinks he has a fancy place," said the boy in the wheelchair. "I'll cut his balls."