“He knew everything about big Mike Ainsel in this moment, and he liked Mike Ainsel. Mike Ainsel had none of the problems that Shadow had. Ainsel had never been married. Mike Ainsel had never been interrogated on a freight train by Mr. Wood an Mr. Stone. Televisions did not speak to Mike Ainsel (You want to see Lucy's tits? asked a voice in his head).”

“Jill... had explained homosexuality, after Mike had read about it and failed to grok--and had given him rules for avoiding passes; she knew that Mike, pretty as he was, would attract such. He had followed her advice and had made his face more masculine, instead of the androgynous beauty he had had. But Jill was not sure that Mike would refuse a pass, say, from Duke--fortunately Mike's male water brothers were decidedly masculine, just as his others were very female women. Jill suspected that Mike would grok a 'wrongness' in the poor in-betweeners anyhow--they would never be offered water.”

“My money's on the big Indian,' someone was saying. I peeked up to see that Tyler, Mike, Austin and Ben had there heads bent together, deep in conversation. 'Yeah,' Mike whispered. 'Did you see the size of that Jacob kid? I think he could take Cullen down.' Mike seemed pleased by the idea.”

“The One.” Mike declared and Merry’s brows shot up.“The One?” Merry asked.“The One.” Mike confirmed. “In a weekend?” Merry asked.“In a weekend,” Mike confirmed.“No shit?” Merry whispered.“Absolutely no fuckin’ shit,” Mike answered.Merry whistled. Then he smiled. Then he repeated, “Good for you, man.”“Oh yeah,” Mike muttered.”

“I never hear about dear Mike. I wrote Ellen Greene and asked about him and she replyed and never mentioned Mike but told me all about her roomatism. As if I cared about her roomatism.”

“Holy fuck,” Sully muttered, his eyes on Mike. “Funeral hook up. Didn’t know you had that in you. Impressed.”