Next door, there was a liquor store. People were going in and out, buying a lot of liquor. But then I saw that buying wasn’t exactly the right word. What they’d do, they’d walk in, shoot a quick, suspicious look at the owner, grab up a couple of bottles—and walk out. The owner was watching them do this with a big, beaming smile.
A guy came out with a couple of fifths, a stinking, dirty guy, strictly a Bowery type. He was all happy—you know, the millennium.
We both saw the other didn’t have the pop-eyed look. (This was the first time, but all that day I had a lot of those flashes of recognition. You immediately noticed someone without the pop-eyed look.)
“It’s great, hah?” he said. “All over town. Help yourself, fella, help yourself to the sauce. You know whatsa-matter with ’em, hah?”
I stared at his maybe three, maybe five teeth. “No. What?”
“They’ve been drinking water. It’s finally caught up with them. Poison, pure poison. I always said it. You know the last time I had a glass of water? You know, hah? Over twelve years ago.”
I just turned my back and took off and left him standing there.
Walking fast, uptown on Sixth, I said to myself, where the hell am I going? I decided to go to my office on 42nd Street. It’s like when there was a subway strike. I still belonged at the office.
For a while I looked out for a taxi, but you know, there were damn few cars going up the avenue, and most of them were traveling very, very slowly. Once in a while, there’d be one going fast, highway speed or beyond. Plenty of accidents.
The first accident I saw, I ran over to see if I could help. But the driver had already crawled out. He looked at the fire hydrant he’d knocked over, he looked at it spouting and shook himself and staggered away. After that I passed up the accidents. I just kept an eye out to see that no cars were coming up on the sidewalk after me.