I'm coming back from Central Park where, near the children'szoo, close to the spot I murdered the McCaʃrey boy, I fedportions of Ursula's brain to passing dogs. Walking down FifthAvenue around four o'clock in the afternoon, everyone on thestreet looks sad, the air is full of decay, bodies lie on the coldpavement, miles of it, some are moving, most are not. History issinking and only a very few seem dimly aware that things aregetting bad. Airplanes ɻy low across the city, crossing in front ofthe sun. Winds shoot up Fifth, then funnel down Fifty-seventhStreet. Flocks of pigeons rise in slow motion and burst up againstthe sky. The smell of burning chestnuts mixes with carbonmonoxide fumes. I notice the skyline has changed only recently. Ilook up, admiringly, at Trump Tower, tall, proudly gleaming inthe late afternoon sunlight. In front of it two smartass niggerteenagers are ripping oʃ tourists at three-card monte and I haveto ɹght the impulse to blow them away.A bum I blinded one spring sits cross-legged on a ratty blanketnear the corner of Fifty-ɹfth Street. Moving closer I see thebeggar's scarred face and then the sign he's holding beneath it,which reads VIETNAM VET BLINDED IN VIETNAM. PLEASE HELP ME. WE ARE HUNGRYAND HOMELESS. We? Then I notice the dog, who is already eyeing mesuspiciously and, as I approach its master, gets up, growling, andwhen I'm standing over the bum, it ɹnally barks, wagging its tailfrantically. I kneel down, threateningly raise a hand at it. The dogbacks oʃ, its paws askew.I've pulled out my wallet, pretending to drop a dollar into hisempty coʃee can, but then realize: Why bother pretending? Noone's watching anyway, deɹnitely not him. I retract the dollar,leaning in. He senses my presence and stops shaking the can. Thesunglasses he wears don't even begin to cover the wounds Iinɻicted. His nose is so junked up I can't imagine a personbreathing through it."You never were in Vietnam," I whisper in his ear.After a silence, during which he pisses in his pants, the dogwhimpering, he croaks, "Please ... don't hurt me.""Why would I waste my time?" I mutter, disgusted.I move away from the bum, noticing, instead, a little girlsmoking a cigarette, begging for change outside Trump Tower."Shoo," I say. She says "Shoo" back. On The Patty Winters Showthis morning a Cheerio sat in a very small chair and wasinterviewed for close to an hour. Later this afternoon, a womanwearing a silver fox and mink coat has her face slashed in front ofthe Stanhope by an enraged fur activist. But now, still staring atthe sightless bum from across the street, I buy a Dove Bar, acoconut one, in which I and part of a bone.
