The push in his chest felt like a rock had hit him and he sat down on the sidewalk. Looking up he saw the three men going into the hall. An arm, firm but seemingly inoffensive, lifted him to his feet and he looked up and saw a cop.

‘I’m not,’ he said hoarsely, and stopped talking.

‘You better go home, mister,’ the cop said.

‘But I …’

‘How do you feel? You hurt?’

‘No, ‘I’m’ not hurt. But they’re crazy, they’re out of their minds. Can’t they see I …?’

‘You better go home now,’ the cop said. ‘Don’t bother with them nuts.’ His voice was very deep and its cajoling tone told Mr Newman that he was not being believed. A weeping, a sobbing started in his chest and he walked past the cop. Down the street he walked, his mouth open, his hands unmoving at his sides. The sidewalk kept tilting him off his straight course, and when he felt the knowledge of his body again he was sitting amid tall grass. He got up and saw that he was in the middle of a lot and a mosquito was biting into his neck. He slapped it and kept staring around. For a long time he could not concentrate on the neighborhood, and then he saw the El and got his direction. He had walked half the way home.

It was only after he had gone on a few yards that he understood why it had taken so long to find out where he was. His glasses were hanging from one ear. When had he put them on? Or had someone stuck them on his face as a jibe? He stopped and examined them. The lenses were intact but the right bow was bent. He stood there trying to bend it back to shape and finally gave up because the mosquitoes were at his face again. And he put the glasses on and continued walking through the lot. His nose felt uncomfortable because the glasses were twisted a little and were edging into his nose bone and he had to walk, after a few moments, holding them so that they would stop cutting in that way. And all at once he could not bring his feet forward and his sobbing caught him. He stood in the dark with the wild grass around him, crying into one hand while with the other he held the glasses in place. He heard himself wheezing and coughing little coughs, sounding just like a child with a cold, and something insane was laughing in screeches inside him at the same time and all he could do was shake his head and keep crying.

When it was over he found his handkerchief and blew his nose and wiped his face. He threw the handkerchief away because it was soaked, and then he walked on toward his corner and toward his house. Reaching the sidewalk he was relieved a little, for he was still minutely concerned with the cinder dust on the lot, and he walked a little faster. As he took his first speedier step he heard another pair of steps behind him; they were leaving the cinders and coming onto the sidewalk. If they are coming after me, he said to himself, I will smash them. He stopped and turned. A man his height was walking toward him in the darkness. The man, in shirtsleeves, stopped before him and hoisted his pants over his belly.