The day had turned hot and the street felt like steaming food. I ducked into the library where it was air-conditioned. It was a routine stop once a week to read newspapers and magazines. I was able at once to counteract my chosen isolation and justify that choice. I read about the gay killing in the Denver Post, the Washington Post, the St Louis Times Dispatch, and the New York Times. They all said about the same thing, with the Eastern papers offering the implication, if not outright accusation, that the crime was symptomatic of some rural or Western disease of intolerance. I thought, yes, it’s called America. I wondered why the reported rash of fifty rapes in Central Park was not considered a similar indicator of regional moral breakdown. I saw the dead boy’s name and it stuck with me for the first time and I felt a little ashamed by that. Jerry Tuttle. By all reports he was a small man, a gentle man, and like most murdered people, not deserving of what had happened to him.