He clutched at me, and I gripped his hands and squeezed them briefly before pushing them gently away. There was ink on his fingers, and I'd been feeling so good when I got up that I'd put on my new chalk worsted. Hot for summer, of course, but the whole city is airconditioned these days, and besides, I was feeling naturally cool. I didn't feel so cool now. Peoria was looking up at me, his thin and somehow perfect newsboy's face troubled. A little breeze – scented with oleander and exhaust – ruffled his cowlick, and I realized that I could see it because he wasn't wearing his tweed cap. He looked somehow naked without it, and why not? Every newsboy should wear a tweed cap, just like every shoeshine boy should wear a beanie cocked way back on his head.

“What's the matter, Mr. Umney? I thought you'd be happy. Jeepers, I didn't have to come out here to this lousy corner today, you know, but I did – I even got here early, because I kinda had an idea you'd get here early. I thought you'd be happy, my mom hittin the lottery and me gettin a chance at an operation, but you ain't.” Now his voice trembled with resentment. “You ain't!”

“Yes I am,” I said, and I wanted to be happy – part of me did, anyway – but the bitch of it was that he was mostly right. Because it meant things would change, you see, and things weren't supposed to change. Peoria Smith was supposed to be right here, year in and year out, with that perfect cap of his tilted back on hot days and pulled down low on rainy ones, so that the raindrops dripped off the bill. He was always supposed to be smiling, was never supposed to say “hell” or “frogging,” and most of all, he was supposed to be blind.

“You ain't!” he said, and then, shockingly, he pushed his cardtable over. It fell into the street, papers flapping everywhere. His white cane rolled into the gutter. Peoria heard it go and bent down to get it. I could see tears coming out from beneath his dark glasses and go rolling down his pale, thin cheeks. He started groping for the cane, but it had fallen near me and he was going the wrong way. I felt a sudden strong urge to haul off and kick him in his blind newsboy's ass.