Garner working as a waiter at an upscale restaurant with a growing attraction to a man named Alonzo, who always asks to be put in his section for dinner. One night after work, the man is assaulted while trailing Garner. Garner goes to his aid, but is shot for his trouble.<br><br>Taking time off from work to recover, Garner is resting on a park bench when Alonzo suddenly appears at the other end of the bench. Garner never saw him approach. He asks why Alonzo is trailing him.<br><br>After some hesitation, Alonzo explains he wants to recruit Garner to help fight against others who systematically hunt people like himself. Garner isn’t inclined to get involved in anything dangerous, but he does finds Alonzo more and more attractive, so he agrees to consider the idea. As he learns more about Alonzo’s bizarre and dangerous subculture, what Garner really wants to know is whether Alonzo is romantically interested in him at all.

Call to Love

To fight this, he reminded himself of the reasonhe went to work—namely to pay his bills, which were mostly his rent, food and the books that filled his apartment. In books, adventure was just exciting; it didn’t hurt so much—although he had to admit that he wasn’t feeling much pain at the moment.


He was almost at Mario’s when he became aware that the sense of detachment from the pain was diminishing.


He had to stop himself from touching the injury, and then a picture flashed in his mind, of the scene of the shooting, the moment he had been shot. It seemed strange and unreal now. A moment later another thought burst upon him.


What hadthey done to that man, to Garner’s regular?


He stopped walking and closed his eyes, realizing with horrified self-reproach that he had completely forgotten about that. And now emotions flooded him, and more thoughts. Gnarly!Then: I’m all over the place!


Chapter 25