How It Ended: New and Collected Stories Read Free Page A

shoulder. Her eyes glaze in a way that reminds you precisely of the closing of a sandblasted glass shower door. You can see that the game is over, though you're not sure which rule you broke. Possibly she finds H words offensive and is now scanning the dance floor for a man with a compatible vocabulary. You have more: down and depressed, lost and lonely . It's not that you are really going to miss this girl who thinks that decadence and Dexedrine are the high points of the language of the Kings James and Lear, but the touch of flesh, the sound of another human voice … You know that there is a special purgatory waiting out there for you, a desperate half-sleep which is like a grease fire in the brainpan.
    The girl half waves as she disappears into the crowd. There is no sign of the other girl, the girl who would not be here. There is no sign of Tad Allagash. The Bolivians are mutinous. You can't stop the voices.
    Here you are again .
    All messed up and no place to go .
    It is worse even than you expected, stepping out into the morning. The light is like a mother's reproach. The sidewalk sparkles cruelly. Visibility unlimited. The downtown warehouses look serene and rested in this beveled light. A taxi passes uptown and you start to wave, then realize you have no money. The car stops. You jog over and lean in the window.
    “I guess I'll walk after all.”
    “Asshole.” The cabbie leaves rubber.
    You start north, holding your hand over your eyes. A bum is sleeping on the sidewalk, swathed in garbage bags, and he lifts his head as you pass. “God bless you and forgive your sins,” he says. You wait for the cadge, but that's all he says. You wish he hadn't said anything.
    As you turn away, what is left of your olfactory equipment sends a message to your brain. The smell of fresh bread. Somewhere they are baking bread. You see bakery trucks loading in front of a loft building on the next block. You watch as bags of rolls are carried out onto the loading dock by a man with a tattooed forearm. This man is already at work, so that regular people will have fresh bread for their morning tables. The righteous people who sleep at night and eat eggs for breakfast. It is Sunday morning and you have not eaten since … when? Friday night. As you approach, the smell of the bread washes over you like a gentle rain. You inhale deeply, filling your lungs with it. Tears come to your eyes, and you are filled with such a rush of tenderness and pity that you stop beside a lamppost and hang on for support.
    You remember another Sunday morning in your old apartment on Cornelia Street when you woke to the smell of bread from the bakery downstairs. There was the smell of bread every morning, but this is the one you remember. You turned to see your wife sleeping beside you. Her mouth was open and her hair fell down across the pillow to your shoulder. The tanned skin of her shoulder was the color of bread fresh from the oven. Slowly, and with a growing sense of exhilaration, you remembered who you were. You were the boy and she was the girl, your college sweetheart. You weren't famous yet, but you had the rent covered, you had your favorite restaurant where the waitresses knew your name and you could bring your own bottle of wine. It all seemed to be just as you had pictured it when you had discussed plans for marriage and New York. The apartment with the pressed tin ceiling, the claw-footed bath, the windows that didn't quite fit the frame. It seemed almost as if you had wished for that very place. You leaned against your wife's shoulder. Later you would get up quietly, taking care not to wake her, and go downstairs for croissants and the Sunday Times , but for a long time you lay there breathing in the mingled scents of bread, hair and skin. You were in no hurry to get up. You knew it was a moment you wanted to savor. You didn't know how soon it would be over, that within a year she would go back to Michigan to file for divorce.
    You approach the