In order to keep his mind busy, he took a sensory inventory of his belongings: without moving, he could feel the money belt strapped to his stomach, the notebook tucked under his belt, the duffel bag on top of it, his own hands. And above them, the night itself and the sky, the stars. But he felt no sense of ownership about the night: it was part of Berry-berry’s leavings. When Berry-berry swept through a place, he seemed always to leave in his wake the garbage of a vampire: everything and everyone empty, meaningless, dead. Clinton saw the entire peninsula of Florida as a giant penis dangling into the sea, worthless, used up, spent; and the town, Key Bonita, nothing but an absurd tattoo on its crown. In his mind, weary, half-dreaming, the town was not a network of streets, but of branches; one did not walk here, one climbed; and the tree itself, in his half-dream, was a poor, withered Christmas tree, decorated by Annabel. She herself, perched in some high branch next to the moon, presided over her collection of shabby ornaments; like a puppet painted to impersonate a crazy woman, half angel, half whore, she gazed down with puzzled, indecisive eyes. “Are you still looking for Berry-berry?” he heard her ask, in a tiny, scarcely audible voice. “You are lookin’ for your brother, aren’t you?” But Clinton could not answer because he himself was part of Berry-berry’s garbage, an apparatus of nerves, exhausted, bloodless. He lay on the wall like some pitiful lizard, unable to shed his old skin: duffel bag, notebook, money belt . . . .

“Little boy,” said the voice, “I’m talkin’ to you. Are you the one is lookin’ for Berry-berry Williams? Now, listen, what’s wrong with you? I’d like to be your friend, and I just know you can hear me. Are you runnin’ a temp’ature?”

The angel-whore lowered her hand, touched his brow. Suddenly, in one motion, Clinton sat bolt upright on the wall. The woman standing on the sidewalk before him was like an enormous nine-year-old. She was no taller than himself, and she was not fat; but her tininess of manner made her body seem outsized, like a child whose glands had gone haywire.

“You sleep with your eyes open, little boy? Say, listen, you’re not turned on, or anything like that, are you?” she said.

Clinton turned away from the woman. He blinked his eyes several times, then looked at her more closely. Her innocence of face, even under the mask of paint, was flawless: her eyes were moist blue flowers, her skin clear, her lips full and soft, slightly petulant. The toes of her pink high-heeled slippers pointed inward, her stomach thrust forward, her chestnut-colored hair fell in long curls to her shoulders. Even her pocketbook, pink and large, held upside down, took on the aspect of an abused rag doll.

“It was a dream,” Clinton said aloud, but to himself.

“Oh! What kind?”

“I don’t remember. —Miss, did I hear you say something about my brother?”