Where did I go in the darkness of the night? I wandered down one alleyway, out into an opening of grime and soot, through the black streets, to another; trash-cans and alleycats, the smell of dirty laundry and waste, feces.

Hoodlums on the walks, traveling in sometimes small groups, chains clanging and reflecting lamp-light like steel sparks on a grindstone. At one point I emerged into a clearing of glittering lights. An old man, black, was playing a guitar, stubbly faced, head half covered by a dirty, tight-knit cap. He was jammed up against a brick wall, legs arching to meet the cement, feet protruding from it like a natural edifice of
stone. I walked over, listened to him sing for awhile, a few bars of a song even the streets had forgotten, or it was so raspy that no one could have recognized it. The air was getting cold, wind roving through the clogged up skies -- the grey clouds had disappeared with the last choking embers of twilight, but their dull residue suffocated whatever star-light might have gauzed the purple sky. I reached into my pocket, pulled out a dirty nickel, threw it in his cap.

"Thanks," he called. A rich baritone voice, like in an Arby's commercial. He seemed entirely carved out of the wall, out of the walk, out of the rock, strumming his guitar, like some small monument to a lonely past. I walked on. A theater opened its doors. A crowd of hats, suits, blue, navy-blue, dark-blue, purple, black, grey, dark-grey, mahogony streamed past me with the sound of their voices; a high buzzing, the low conspiracy of whispered tones, the drone of matrons, the chitter of young ladies, laughter, the occasional twitter of a yawn, a sigh, a loud voice arguing yes, a dull trombone dissenting. I couldn't make any of it out.

The theater-lobby was a bright long space of polished gold, marble, carpet in a light tan, red banisters, curving and circling stair-cases, and sleepy attendants tasseled, polished, but sagging and frumpy, sweeping and collapsing into a darkened ante-chamber; beyond it a sarcophagus, a tomb. I imagined the stage and the long rows of empty seats, spreading diagonally, vertically, and across like a vision of the empty sweep; the wood, the hidden canisters of paint, the tables in storage, the shop, the props and the propped up scenery -- long, vibrant valleys, trees shivering in the wind, turned out of fashion to face the walls: far climbing brick. Only the ghosts of shadows shiver across the stage, only the occasional belch of a radiator or a fan or the hum of an emergency light; the stage is a thing of darkness, like the world before God.

The lights in the lobby switch-off, and the shadows invade the ante-chamber like soft streaks of blue paint. The last of the attendants leaves, props the door open with his left foot, cranes his neck, looking backwards, searching for some final sign. Then he fumbles in his right pocket, extracts a pack of cigarettes, stamps it with his left hand against the palm of his right; three, four, six times, like the stamping of hooves, an impatient gelding, a night-carriage; he flips the top, extracts it so small I can't make it out, puckers it in his lips, cradles it against the wind and cold with his left hand, flicks the lighter with his right. The clapping sound of metal, sparks. It infuses hot, dark-burning, a little signal light. I turn away from him, afraid he might notice me, staring; large buildings towering like monsters, the sky is clearing just a bit and through the dull conglomeration of clouds, I can make out an occasional star like a lamp shining through fog. There are beggars sleeping in the alleyways. I'll stay with Max tonight. Sleepiness is settling on me like a mist.