I changed back to the downtown train and this time stood at the front-car window and watched the underground lights zoom in and flash by all through the dark and abandoned stations. I remembered Ruella’s voice and Metro’s voice clanging inside me. I sat alone in another car as the lights went off and on and off again. I changed trains at 34th Street, Penn Station, and stalked the platform, ready to jump onto the tracks, but there was garbage and water and the quick tarantella of rats. I got back on the train, a #2 smelling of electrical wires and rusty wheels. I could have traveled all night for just one fare going caroom-boom-clack, caroom nonstop until I was back at 14th Street. I left the subway and walked east. Three blocks later I found myself at the door to the Paradise Baths.

Metro had been there once and told me about it, all seven floors. Maybe being there would bring me closer to him, now that I was also a wanderer with no place to go. But would I have enough sense to stop myself from jumping from the roof of a thirty-story apartment building or kissing the blades of angry knives? I was running faster now, faster than a rat between subway tracks. Running away from Ruella who was a refuge no longer, not Rooms anymore, running from the Village to the Upper West Side and back again, running from downtown backroom bookstores where you can get a blowjob from other wanderers watching the same skin flick play out in private booths or private minds for twenty-five cents a reel. Or dingy and crowded baths where men wait in 4 x 8 cubicles, a single red bulb dimming on their supine bodies, ass up for fucking, balls up for sucking, and anonymous hands feeling you up or leading you into cellulite thighs. But this establishment, seven floors and only a subway ride away at the edge of Chelsea and the Village, is different. You have a choice of rooms.

Inside, there was a line at the reception desk and overhead signs offering discounts:

Locker Free to any Former P.O.W.

1/2 Price for Veterans.

Anyone in Uniform—Military or Police—A Free Room!

I couldn’t afford a room so I took a locker. I signed the register “Jess B. Kind,” checked my valuables, and went in.

One flight up, people were changing into towels or from towels to clothes. I looked for my locker, number 98, and kept bumping into mirrors.

“What number you got?” said a voice from somewhere. Then behind me. “What number?”

“Ninety-eight.”

“Well, can’t you see that the numbers go in order—”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ninety-eight’s over there. The sign says lockers 54 to 86, 87 to 112. See it to your right?”