neither the place nor himself; the sudden uprushing of emotion he grabbed by the neck, squeezed its jester head back into the box, and waited for memory to find him again, as it always had. Then he sat up into a high wet wind. Evil clouds collided and sparked. At the foot of the hill the same silly cars raced along in their tracks like toys without drivers. He wore no watch to tell him how long he had slept. There was no hurry. He got to his feet carefully, as if movement were a commodity to be parceled and judged by unsympathetic eyes. He reached down in the grass for the backpack, swung its weight easily onto his shoulder, and, tilting his head, bared an incomplete set of discolored teeth to the quickening rain. He let it come down.
He descended the field in a lively sideways trot, catching himself on the gravel just short of the road surface, where the thrashing vehicles stampeded past like spooked beasts and the rain in their lights boiled furiously on the dark pavement. Here he turned a spatulate thumb into the oncoming glare, pausing now and again to wipe the water from his eyes. Twisted strands of hair black as fissures pasted to a skull of skin lab-specimen white. The iron filings of his unshaven beard. Under the left eye a single, dramatic eruption of swelling color, origin indeterminate. Sodden clothes. Scarecrow body. Who was there to stop for this solitary figure drowned in night and set in dripping supplication at the borders of a nation's commerce? Backward he walked, unsteady on broken-down boots of cracked lizard skin, right sole bound in a thick wrapping of silver duct tape. Rainwater snakes slid down his ribs slick as refrigerated oil. He had been in rain before. He would be in rain again. It all dried out, everything dried out, eventually.
In the shelter of an overpass he stood shivering between loud curtains of cascading water, overworked cars passing through backstage here on their way to another show. Fresh puddles around him deepened and began to move. He clambered monkey-style up the steep concrete slope to a small ledge underneath the flaking girders. Traces of an old roost: a scattering of frayed butts, toppled beer cans, empty matchbooks, an accumulation of names, dates, maledictions scratched into the supporting steelwork. He made a pillow of hands against the backpack on which to rest his damp head and he slept, unburdened by dreams. Accustomed to the periodic intrusions of harsh light, he knew at once who they were, even before the loudspeaker began barking out its orders. He slipped the leather sheath from his boot, left the knife behind in the dark. He took his time coming off the incline, dragging the backpack behind him. The driver, who hadn't bothered to get out of the cruiser, kept the spot in his face all the way down. The other one was posed near the front fender, hand resting meaningfully on the grip of his holstered revolver. Uniform head on a uniform body. Groucho Marx mustache smudge under his nose. "You can hold it right about there."
He stopped with the light speckling in his eyes, lowered the pack delicately to his feet. He understood well the instability of the ground moments such as these were built upon. A gray cloud of cigarette smoke lifted up out of the cruiser's window, dispersed like frightened ectoplasm in the humid air. From the height of the leaking bridge a single drop of water broke against the crown of his head. He blinked, waited for another that did not come, the wind from each passing car hitting him at staggered intervals like the draft from the blades of a giant fan turning just out of reach.
"Got any ID?"
He glanced down at the bulging blue sack between his boots. He paused, one-two-three. He looked up. "Don't believe so," he said.
"Want to empty the contents of your pack on the ground in front of you, sir? Just pick it up and dump it out. Slowly. You got a name, sir?"
In the lengthening silence, one-two-three-four-five . . . the officer's eyes began to
He descended the field in a lively sideways trot, catching himself on the gravel just short of the road surface, where the thrashing vehicles stampeded past like spooked beasts and the rain in their lights boiled furiously on the dark pavement. Here he turned a spatulate thumb into the oncoming glare, pausing now and again to wipe the water from his eyes. Twisted strands of hair black as fissures pasted to a skull of skin lab-specimen white. The iron filings of his unshaven beard. Under the left eye a single, dramatic eruption of swelling color, origin indeterminate. Sodden clothes. Scarecrow body. Who was there to stop for this solitary figure drowned in night and set in dripping supplication at the borders of a nation's commerce? Backward he walked, unsteady on broken-down boots of cracked lizard skin, right sole bound in a thick wrapping of silver duct tape. Rainwater snakes slid down his ribs slick as refrigerated oil. He had been in rain before. He would be in rain again. It all dried out, everything dried out, eventually.
In the shelter of an overpass he stood shivering between loud curtains of cascading water, overworked cars passing through backstage here on their way to another show. Fresh puddles around him deepened and began to move. He clambered monkey-style up the steep concrete slope to a small ledge underneath the flaking girders. Traces of an old roost: a scattering of frayed butts, toppled beer cans, empty matchbooks, an accumulation of names, dates, maledictions scratched into the supporting steelwork. He made a pillow of hands against the backpack on which to rest his damp head and he slept, unburdened by dreams. Accustomed to the periodic intrusions of harsh light, he knew at once who they were, even before the loudspeaker began barking out its orders. He slipped the leather sheath from his boot, left the knife behind in the dark. He took his time coming off the incline, dragging the backpack behind him. The driver, who hadn't bothered to get out of the cruiser, kept the spot in his face all the way down. The other one was posed near the front fender, hand resting meaningfully on the grip of his holstered revolver. Uniform head on a uniform body. Groucho Marx mustache smudge under his nose. "You can hold it right about there."
He stopped with the light speckling in his eyes, lowered the pack delicately to his feet. He understood well the instability of the ground moments such as these were built upon. A gray cloud of cigarette smoke lifted up out of the cruiser's window, dispersed like frightened ectoplasm in the humid air. From the height of the leaking bridge a single drop of water broke against the crown of his head. He blinked, waited for another that did not come, the wind from each passing car hitting him at staggered intervals like the draft from the blades of a giant fan turning just out of reach.
"Got any ID?"
He glanced down at the bulging blue sack between his boots. He paused, one-two-three. He looked up. "Don't believe so," he said.
"Want to empty the contents of your pack on the ground in front of you, sir? Just pick it up and dump it out. Slowly. You got a name, sir?"
In the lengthening silence, one-two-three-four-five . . . the officer's eyes began to
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