Back outside his penis was stuck against his trousers. He turned back toward his room. The girl was not on the stoop. At his room he carried the pitcher to the pump and back upstairs where he stripped and washed himself. The room was hot and stank of urine, sweat, blood, rotting wallpaper, cheap plaster, decay. He forced up the window and the air over him was hot, fetid from the street. All around him in the building and out was the sound of movement. He lay naked on his back on the mattress and laid the wrung washing cloth over his eyes. He spread his arms and legs wide, spread-eagled against the heat. A contentment came over him. He was not happy but did not yet expect to be so. The contentment was that of an animate stone finally dislodged and rolling downhill. After a time he slept.

It was dark when he woke. He dressed and went out. Far uptown he could see the bright flare in the sky of electric streetlights. Along this street the only light was what came from the steamed murked storefronts but the sidewalks were clumped with people, some strolling, some moving with purpose. The stoops were also filled, families and single men and women motionless as the night threaded away at the last of the day’s heat. Up the hill above the town the great lights of the quarries bloomed and he felt the rumble of machinery through his feet and body as much as heard it. He was hungry again and went along the street toward the restaurant where he’d eaten earlier. Tomorrow, he figured, he’d branch out.

A woman approached and spoke quietly to him. He didn’t believe it was the same woman from earlier. It was not the girl from the stoop either. He told her thank you, no, but she’d already read that of him and moved away. He didn’t look after her.

The restaurant had thick paper shades rolled down inside the windows but was lit within and he saw figures move silhouetted behind the dirty yellow paper. A man sat on the one-step stoop, his knees drawn up near to his chin. He wore a small-brimmed derby hat and was smoking a thin cigar, the smoke a rancid twist in the air. He watched Jamie approach and then caught his arm and spoke to him in Italian.