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EIGHTEEN

E ddie is sitting on the subway, heading uptown to the Algonquin. On the seat next to him is a white paper bag with twisted-paper handles and the word GASTON printed on the side, and in his lap is the book of Dorothy Parker poems. He opens it at random, to this couplet:

I think that I shall never know

Why I am thus, and I am so.

He reads it twice. He likes the way it sounds, the way it feels in his mind. He wonders if she was being serious or silly when she wrote it. Maybe both.

He daydreams. A quiet vision takes shape, of the boy, the one from the picture in Eddie’s bedroom. He’s sitting next to Eddie on the subway and reciting the poem as they ride. He smiles as he speaks, eyes shining. The train stops at Thirty-Fourth Street, and the boy is gone. Some passengers exit, others enter, and the train starts again. A new vision now. It’s Theo, his hand upturned on his lap, exposing his wrist. Eddie reaches over to touch the songbird there, but before he makes contact, the train stops again. They are at Forty-Second Street, jolting him out of the vision.

He gets up and steps into the station, then up the stairs and onto the street.