“Yeah. He said you was supposed to be up north too.”

“Naw. Didn’t work out. Lincoln hanging around with that little skinny fucker? Burt?”

“Yeah. Can’t say I like the looks of him. Kinda kid that’s dumb enough to huff gas and smoke at the same time.”

“His cousin.”

“Family, huh?”

“Sorta.”

Dougan rubs his beard. “You shacked up close by?”

“Close enough. I’m gonna keep the job at the rug store. Least I got that.”

“I got that rug for you. They really surprised the shit outta me when they said they were gonna tear down the Curtis. They ain’t even gonna build anything there.”

“The Bokhara.”

“Whatever. I rolled it up and put it with my stuff. Didn’t want nothin to happen to it.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Things go down, you can always lay low here.”

“I’m finished with all that. I like what I got now.”

Dougan turns to look at him, to search Simon’s face, to see if he believes his own words. “Yeah, you done with it. But it ain’t nearly done with you.”

Simon shifts uneasily.

“Can we get that rug? I wanna take it back to Irene’s.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Dougan wearily, “we can get it.”

Simon emerges onto Main Street. As he squeezes through the black steel door in the back he realizes that for the first time, the very first time, he has something of his own to carry. A thing not rented, borrowed, or stolen. Not like his tools that were leased out from the union, that had belonged to another steelworker who took a dive. Not like the food he cooked in Stillwater, food that was owned by the state and loaned to the prisoners in exchange for work and suffering. It is his and he has a place he shares with someone. It is their roof, their kitchen. He isn’t simply camped out or passing through. He doesn’t owe Irene as he felt he owed his mother.

The streets are full of noon people, suited and rushing to or from lunch, secretaries with tennis shoes sticking out conspicuously from under their navy-blue stockings and short skirts, their high heels clutched in their hands, a sandwich and a can of diet soda in the other. Simon feels that they are looking at him and his strange parcel. Nobody knows, no one can see that the rug is his, purchased with his labor. The rug, rolled in on itself, might be a remnant or industrial carpeting salvaged from a Dumpster, a Chinese manufacture thrown out by an indifferent college student. No one can tell. He feels like breaking the string and unfurling the rug like a flag, to declare that this was nothing cheap or easily come by.