tra years.’ ‘I’m too old to start into that,’ his mother says. ‘Where were you thirty years ago?’ They talk for around ten minutes in the middle of the sidewalk. People have to walk around them; one man passing him says to his companion ‘What’s with those two? Don’t they know they’re holding up traffic? People can be so unaware.’ He wants to say to him ‘Come on, give them a break; she’s an old lady.’ He crosses the sidewalk to a store window; men’s clothes, too fancy and expensive for him; but what would they say if they saw him? ‘You, the original cheap jeans and T-shirt guy, thinking of buying those clothes?’ ‘Oh my God — hi. I was just on my way to see my mother. Truth is, I saw you two there but was curious, long as I was in the neighborhood and you were still busy talking, as to what these stores think men wear these days? Obviously plenty of men do wear what’s in there, since half of them on the street have on a lot of the same stuff in the window along with some of the self-mutilating jewelry there on the sidewalk. But what a surprise. How are you both? I don’t know which of you I should kiss first.’ The women are kissing goodbye. His mother holds and pats the woman’s hand and says ‘You know I always had a special place in my heart for you the moment I first met you and was devastated for you when Barry died.’ ‘I know; thanks, Pauline; no one could have been kinder after.’ He forgot about Barry, doesn’t think he’s thought of him for years, even though he has two of his huge paintings hanging in his home, which the woman had given him, and had wheeled him in the park every day for an hour or so for a few weeks before he died. His mother continues up Columbus, stops, rests, looks in store windows — women’s shoes, women’s handbags and gloves — goes into a gourmet shop and has some things weighed; about a quarter-pound of sliced turkey breast, he sees through the window; salads scooped into half-pint and pint containers; a pickle and two onion rolls. She makes onion rolls better than he’s bought anywhere, even when they’re a couple of days old, but they’re usually to give away; she hardly eats what she bakes. She puts the grocery bag into her shopping bag, stops in front of the ice cream store — she’s not going to get another cone, is she? — sits on the bench. She tells the young man eating ice cream beside her that her heart suddenly started palpitating rapidly; she felt faint, that’s why she’s sitting without buying an ice cream. ‘Though I bought one from here just before.’ Should he go to her, say he overheard, is she all right, does she want him to hail a cab to get her home or to a doctor or hospital? The man says ‘Do you want me to do anything?’ ‘Excuse me, what? My hearing aid is going on and off again.’ ‘I said do you want me to do anything for you — your heart?’ ‘No, thank you, it’s just about passed. It always does after I sit or lie down for a few minutes. It wasn’t serious, so don’t worry. And my hearing aid’s working again.’ What would he say if she had died right in front of him? He wouldn’t say anything. He’d get down on his knees, hold her face to his till the police or ambulance came, cry and cry, and only if somebody thought he was crazy and wanted to get him away from her, say ‘I’m her son.’ She asks where the man’s bicycle is. He’s in bicycling gear — backwards cap, shirt, special pants and shoes, fingerless gloves. He points to a bike fastened to a parking sign pole. ‘When you were buying your ice cream, weren’t you afraid it would get stolen?’ ‘Even the best bike thief couldn’t break that lock in less than two minutes. It’s made of the highest-tension steel — you’d need the kind of clippers that not even police cars carry — and I never keep my eyes off it for more than a minute.’ He’s looking in the window of the children’s toy and clothing store of before, would give the same excuse to her he thought up then. ‘From what I’ve read,’ she says, ‘these city thieves are always one step ahead of the police in the latest gadgets in everything — guns, bulletproof vests, picks for locks, even knockout darts. And maybe they’ll just want to take the wheels and leave the lock and frame part behind. You always have to be more careful than you think.’ ‘If they’re that desperate,’ but he can’t hear the rest of what the man says because of a truck with a defective muffler and bouncing-around cargo driving past. She pretends to have heard, nodding while he talked, or maybe she’s become adept at reading lips. She says she’s completely better now, thanks him for his concern and walks to the corner and goes up her street. A landlord on the block stops her to talk. He turns around, opens his book and takes out a pen and uncaps it and holds it over a page. If either of them sees him he’ll say he saw them just now but suddenly got an idea about this book, which he’ll be teaching next term, and wanted to write it down before he forgot it. ‘Hi, how are you though? Nice to see you both. Funny, but I was just on my way to see you, Mom.’ The landlord says ‘You can’t walk along Columbus — but every nice day, not only weekends — without getting bumped into or pushed into the street or asked or even threatened for money by beggars, though most of them look as if they live better than you or me. The clothes they got. And why aren’t they working at a real job when they’re so strong looking and young? I’m not talking about the skinny women with the children, who are pitiful.’ ‘No one panhandled me this time,’ his mother says, ‘but I know what you mean. Maybe they’re just — the healthier looking ones — not in their right minds.’ ‘Oh they’re in their right minds, all right. To work like that for your money? Your hand out — sometimes two hands out for two people at once — and a few of the same words each time: “Money for food?” “Money to get back to Trenton?” One actually told me that, and next day he told me the same thing. “Money for my babies?”—but you don’t see the babies; it’s just a line. And no physical effort in it either, and I hear some of the better ones pull in four to five hundred a week tax free and probably with Monday-Tuesday off. I’d take the job if it was offered me.’ There must be more to it than that for most of them. Like I said: troubled heads; drugs. But I can never refuse anybody begging. It doesn’t happen that often, and what’s a dime?’ ‘A dime? You give them a dime and they’ll throw it back if not poke you. It’s a dollar for coffee. It’s two dollars for subway fare for him and his friend. It’s five dollars to help get him a hotel suite so he doesn’t die homeless in the street.’ ‘No they wouldn’t. Still, I like Columbus better now. It’s prettier, more exciting. You have a greater choice of places to eat.’ ‘But to shop? For the essentials?’ ‘There are still some stores for that, or you go to Seventy-second or Amsterdam. But because of all the people walking and hanging around on it, the neighborhood’s safer than it ever was.’ ‘This one’s getting robbed, that one’s being raped, and you say it’s safer. Not the sidestreets. And the worst elements are coming here for a day, while before because they lived here you at least knew their face.’ ‘So it’s the same. Or worse in ways. I forgot. I’d have to ask the police what they have to say.’ She then asks about a new form the city sent landlords regarding property taxes. ‘I don’t understand it,’ the woman says. ‘As usual it’s too complicated for the average nonlegal mind.’ ‘That’s why I brought it up. Neither did I or Mr. Benjamin up the block, but I thought maybe you or your husband might.’ ‘No, but we’re seeing our accountant early next week about lots of things and he’s very good at those. If we find how to fill it out, want me or Lloyd to drop by and help you?’ ‘Please or else I’ll have to travel downtown to the city rent office for it. And of course you’ll take home some fresh cookies I’m baking this weekend and a couple of frozen zucchini breads.’ She continues up the block, stops, deep breath, steps off the curb carefully, crosses the street and carefully steps onto the sidewalk in front of her building. She takes out her handbag, reaches into it, probably for keys, though he’s told her to have her keys ready for use in her pocket before she even starts up the street, and if outside her pocket, then concealed in her hand. She takes out the card she bought, slips it most of the way out of the envelope and looks at it and smiles. Puts the card back into her bag and pulls out her keys. She looks around. He’s told her to do this before she goes downstairs to her building, in case anyone’s around who looks as if he might follow her into the vestibule. Anyone is, she’s to walk to Columbus, where there are always more people than on her street, and if the person follows her, to go to a store marked Safe Haven on the window or door and tell someone there to call the police. She turns around, still looking for suspicious strangers, he supposes, and sees him across the street waving at her. She waves back and he crosses the street and says ‘Mom, how are you? I was in the neighborhood,’ and kisses her on the cheek.”