He shifted slightly from foot to foot, and every few minutes he twisted his torso to the rear, to stretch his lower back, which hurt a little. Down the double staircase from the long open concrete barn in which he’d spent the night, the park was empty, more or less. The ragged shrubbery rattled in a slicing March wind; an empty beer can gave out a hollow clacking sound, turning with the wind over the uneven cobbles. A couple of men had fit themselves through the hoops of a couple of benches to sleep, or maybe they were women. From where he stood they were nothing but bundles of rags and hair; he couldn’t have recognized the difference. This notion reminded him exactly of what he had been trying not to think about. Behind him, the growl of early Canal Street traffic was just audible, gnawing back and forth between the Holland Tunnel and the Manhattan Bridge. He turned and set the small of his back against the concrete and looked over at the slick gray rise of the Tombs wall. The wind picked up, swirling trash around his ankles, and automatically he thumbed his denim collar up.
