Pat walked west on Forty-Second Street, his limp returning. Left, right, shuffle, come on, left. He returned to thinking about the passersby ducking through traffic. All of them alone up here.

This time he muttered “up here” aloud and raised a spastic left hand to his temple. Everyone up here in their own heads, unaware of what’s going on around them. Pat looked to the chevron at the top of the Chrysler Building, an indifferent beacon, the office lights blazing below. And I’m the only one who notices this. It’s because I’m sick. I’m sick, but I can see it. He picked up his pace as best he could and continued on. He needed to eat but kept thinking he was on to something. Some truth about people, the city, and himself. He reached the northeast corner of the public library and looked up at the marble columns streaked with soot. Here’s something they built. Something built by men who saw past the rush and left their mark. They were here and they laid their temples out in stone.

Pat kept walking toward the lights of Times Square. Eat and go to bed. But he had other things in mind. One or two more drinks and the glow might return. Or maybe it would be better than the glow, it would be a clear nothing. He would see this dirty city for all it truly had become. He reached a corner and stood under the unnatural gleam of a giant Panasonic sign. There’s Lindy’s—go in quick and get a sandwich. Nah, not hungry. He continued west, unnerved by all the commuters, the swarm toward the Port Authority, that toilet bowl that flushed buses under the Hudson. Pat took a breath and kept moving. The old limestone buildings, the Times, the Paramount, entombed in neon billboards, the present soldered onto the molars of the past. It was stupid to go farther west—All peep shows and muggers—so he turned north and thought about HoJo or maybe Nedick’s. But those places, this whole area, were infested with crazies. The traffic coursed down Broadway, like blood cells feeding a tumor, and he cut back onto Forty-Fourth Street. It was still there. Tir na Nog. A ridiculous run-down dive, like a splinter stuck between office towers. Pat couldn’t remember whom he used to meet there, but what bar in midtown didn’t cast a dim recollection now?