Something a kid said or something Dirk saw or something too slippery to hold was driving Dirk crazy. He no longer cared about how he was supposed to be feeling. Yes, he had his notice in his pocket. Yes, he was celebrating with Patrick tonight. Yes, he should feel liberated. But now he was all twisted up again. Just like yesterday. Just like the day before yesterday and the day before that. If there was any difference at all it was that this time his thoughts were coming twice as fast. Twice as hard. Instead of the hailstorm he was used to, today’s problems were big rocks that could never get through the grates of the gutters at the House and would be difficult to carry to the dumpster at the zoo. Dirk fought the onslaught nobly. He tried. He imagined how he’d look in that suit at the City Slope. He imagined a woman on his arm. But there was no stopping the way he felt.

Now you sound like the Mixed-up Man.

He thought about that two weeks’ notice. He imagined days off. What he might do, where he might go. The GAG, Perish Park, the Domino. He’d relax on the lawns he once mowed. He’d walk the marble floors of every municipal building he once mopped.

It sounded nuts, Dirk guessed, but he missed the days when he picked up all the trash and threw it all away.

Dirk fingered the paper in the pocket of his brown pants and smiled.

This was his last tour, he realized. Last one for the day.

The children lolled absently, waiting for the big guide to tell them what to do next. Dirk wiped sweat and rain from his face and said, “That’s it. Thank you for touring. Thank you for coming to the—”

BOOM!

The Goblin sky erupted. The tour takers ran down the path covering their heads. Dirk stood still in the rain and watched them. He heard siblings racing. He heard parents chase after them. He heard cars start and wipers start and tires squash the fresh-fallen water. A parking lot of lights turned on at once, battling the gray-green of early evening and a rain they all knew wasn’t going to leave them alone.

Dirk watched it and thought,

This is what the end looks like.

And then his mind connected some loose dots.

That’s it, he thought. There was an end.

The rain slid from the brim of his brown hood.

And I saw it.

21

Soon there is a break in the steel. Dirk holds the light near. There is a space. Two inches where the steel ends and then continues.

Cautiously Dirk extends his fingers toward it and to his surprise they slip through. He feels air. Real air.

Outside, he says.