Delany knew what he was, Paul realized—yes, married, but a man who loved men; light-skinned, yes, but a light-skinned Black man; writer; native New Yorker; intellectual. Delany was so certain, had always been certain. He’d busted through everything in his way, and on the other side he’d found morning orgies inside trucks by the docks. Delany at nineteen had seen hundreds of men fucking and had jumped in, had been pure body. Paul at nineteen had seen hundreds of people lying down in the streets, dying-in, and had run away.
