The air was thick with exhaust fumes; a siren was wailing. Strangers jostled him, and an adolescent boy tried to sell him something. In his flight to avoid facing people, King found himself surrounded by them. He didn’t know where he was going. DennisDennisDennis his head pounded, and once in a while Gregory. He paused a moment to watch an elderly man and woman arguing, on the verge of coming to blows. “I’ve killed two men,” he told them plaintively. Nobody paid any attention. King let himself be borne along by the forever-changing mob of pedestrians. When they crossed the street, he crossed the street; when they stopped, he stopped. He didn’t know whether he was headed uptown or down, and he didn’t care. The fireworks inside his head gradually began to die down and the traffic noise took over. In one part of his mind King marveled at the casual way the people on the sidewalk brushed against him; he was contaminated, and he felt surprised they couldn’t see it. All at once he began to feel suffocated.
