Smells. And whenever I went out, and returned, the contrast between the outdoor air—(even the polluted “outdoor air” of Trenton, New Jersey)—was so extreme, I felt faint stepping into my brother’s apartment. Something has died here. Mice, rats in the walls. . . It was always shocking to see, my brother who’d once been over six feet tall, now no taller than I was, and nearly as thin. I slid my arm around his waist to assist his walking and Harvey was resistant at first then unprotesting, ironic. His vertebrae felt loose like marbles caught inside his skin. Harvey hated the clinic. Hated rehab, and the clinic where he had to submit to “blood work”—two small vials of blood drawn from his veins that had become increasingly shrunken, difficult of access. These were veins in arms, legs, even feet. In case you thought these were veins merely in Harvey’s arms. In the days following Atlantic City I awaited the wrath of Mercedes’s pappy.
