Since Vinograd, he’d been weepy and easily irritated. He could trick himself into feeling good for little bursts, but most of his waking hours were a blur of despair.

He spent most of his leisure hours lying on his apartment floor. Waves of anxiety rolled in and broke on the shores of his skull in a froth, only to reconstitute again far out in a fresh gray heave. After each crash, he struggled for breath. The next rush always came in too fast. His apartment reflected his interior.

Alfonzo’s apartment was a long, narrow rectangle on the first floor of a four-story walk-up. Its thin taupe walls were filled with off-the-books mouse apartments. The landlord was dipping into two markets at once without maintaining the building for either the large or the small tenants. Sometimes Alfonzo toyed with filing a complaint with Mitchell’s office, but he was no snitch.

The studio apartment acted as amplifier both for outside street noise and for the mouse music and chatter inside. Exhaust from the auto body shop next door mixed with grease from the upstairs dogs’ cooking. Alfonzo avoided cooking any of his own foods because the smell clung to his belongings. He made coffee and ate cold grass at home. The only reason he had stayed so long was that the rent had never risen. The cheapness held him captive. This was his stall, his solitary cell, his space pod. When Alfonzo lay flat on the floor, which he often did, his woolly brown body filled the room like a nut in its shell.

He used to keep things tidy. He had tried to keep hay fresh and dishes washed. He’d once acquired a lemon candle to banish the musty air. But as soon as he stopped fighting, slum nature took over. His apartment’s set point was squalid and dank; if he shirked his duties, even for a moment, the apartment returned to its natural state.

Dust bunnies leapt with the draft that entered through the crack under the front door. Green mold covered the bathroom. The drain was clogged with wool, so every time he ran the taps, murky old water bubbled up from a mysterious below. He had to shower with shoes on.

Roaches came and went like the hooligans they were. His mouse neighbors tapped on the walls. They threw regular parties, and he didn’t have the strength to protest.

Alfonzo might have lain on the floor all day, but the phone rang. Alfonzo picked up. What else was he going to do?

“It’s your father,” said his father. “Will you come out for breakfast? It’s been a while.”

Alfonzo had been avoiding Luis because he would have to tell him of the dissertation debacle. But how long could he last without seeing his only living parent?