He left the bar and found his car on State Street. He drove around the block, back toward the Expressway, but the sun blinded him and he forgot to turn and all at once he was in a little street he couldn’t remember and the sun was so bright he couldn’t see the signs. He kept going and made another turn that he was sure would get him back to Joralemon or Fulton, but instead he was under the Expressway, in the shadow of the bridge. The blocks were very short and he could see the bay to his left. He turned again and there was a stone church on the corner, with people just leaving mass, and across the street was a playground with kids in it, and nuns standing at the gates. Another turn and the bay was to his right. He didn’t know these streets at all. The houses were strange, much poorer than in the Heights, and some looked empty. There was a vacant lot, and through it he could see a grape arbor in the backyard of one house. They made wine in the fall, and fruit brandy, and kept it all in the basement for Easter and for next Christmas. There’d be crucifixes on the walls, and pictures of Jesus with His heart neatly exposed, dripping blood. Hawkins turned and turned again, he drove faster around the corners, up and down the strange streets. He wanted to stop and ask someone to help him but the only people he saw were women wearing black dresses and scarves on their heads. They would be scared of a black man, and they wouldn’t speak English. He tried to find some building or street that looked familiar, but all he found was the church with the steps, and the playground, empty this time.

He turned left doing fifty, the tires screeched, and an old woman jumped out of his way. He pulled over then and made himself breathe evenly until he calmed down. He was in Red Hook somewhere and if he turned left, then left again, and kept going, he’d get back to the Expressway. But he drove straight ahead to the river at the end of the street, left the car in an empty asphalt square, and got out on shaky legs.

He walked out on a sort of dock that was covered with abandoned clay conduits, broken cinder blocks, and steel drums rusting in the sun. The asphalt heaved up from the weather and years of neglect, and he had to walk carefully. There was scree further out on the dock and his feet scraped and slid, but he kept going until he was at the edge of the river where it widened to the bay, and lower Manhattan and all the bridges were to his right.