“Let me see your driver’s license,” one says.
“I wasn’t driving.”
“Don’t be wise,” the other says. “Let’s see some identification. You must have something that has your name on it.”
I shake my head.
“You know, your face is bleeding,” the first one, who has a softer face, says. “Were you in some kind of fight? Did you have a fight with someone?”
“I didn’t. No.”
“You got something with your name on it?” the other says.
“Get your wallet up.”
“Tell me why you want to see it.”
“Would you rather come down to the station or would you rather show it to me here?” There is a pleasure in his eyes, a secret rage, a kind of love.
“First tell me why you want to see it.”
“Because. Look, don’t give us a hard time. Why do you want to make things hard for yourself? All I’m asking is for you to take out your wallet and show me some identification.”
“I’ll show it to you,” I say. “I just want to know why you want to see it.”
“Just get it up.”
I am taking my wallet out of my pocket, careful not to reveal the scarf, when a police car pulls up to the curb, honks its horn at us. The policemen hurry over to it. The first one sticks his head inside the car. The second stands behind him, listening, glancing back at me. (I pull the pin of a grenade and roll it toward them. Heads, hair in flame, fly. Sightless birds.) No chance to run, I go through my wallet. I have no driver’s license. My name, misspelled, on an old dry-cleaning slip. There are some cards — discount tickets for plays which have already closed. My draft registration card (which I don’t like to think about) is in one of the pockets. I have two cards with Parks’s name on them, which is a tempting alternative — a fine joke. What would he do in my position? There is a bird cry from somewhere. A jet overhead, its whistle touching the brain like the point of a pin. When I look up, my head aching, the police car is gone. And the policemen nowhere. I look around, up and down both sides of the street. I have the sense that they’re hiding somewhere. Waiting for me to do something suspicious. I stay where I am a few minutes more, then walk to the subway. In no hurry. The soot in the air burns the lungs. Hard to breathe. I cover my nose with my hand. She, whatever she is, is on my fingers.
I don’t go home. After getting off the subway, I wander the streets. A guy not much older than me, supporting himself on a crutch, comes up, asks for a dime. I shake my head, try to go on, but he stands in my way. “I’m only asking for one thin dime, Scout,” he says, his face almost touching mine. His breath sour.
Ordinarily I would pass him. Now it seems less trouble to give him what he asks for. I come up with a few pennies — the only change I have. His face, frozen into a smile, mocks me. I show him that I have no change. The smile remains fixed as if it had been stamped by a machine. Pasted over some gaping hole of a mouth. His face flushed, feverish. He moves to go on. In trying to get out of his way, I move back into it. “You can’t get away from me, Scout,” he says, and laughs drunkenly. His eyes wet. I take out my wallet, the scarf falling to the ground (it is the mask), and offer him a dollar. He accepts it, head turned as if taking a bribe. The mouth in the fix of its smile bent down at one side. Our shoulders brush as he passes. His weight jolts me off balance. I stumble into the side of a building. He goes on, without apologizing, without thanking me for the dollar. I watch him jog away, using the crutch under his arm as a kind of catapult. A police car, lights flashing, turns the corner coming toward me. I keep my foot over the thing, whatever it is. Pretend to look for something in my wallet.
“Move along.” The voice like a blow. I nod, walk slowly ahead. I imagine the mask floating behind me, the wind blowing it against my legs. The cop car stays with me for two blocks before turning off.
Looking for the mask, I retrace my steps. Go back and forth. The cripple ahead of me. I follow him for a block. He stops at a bar, stands for a moment in front. (What is he waiting for?) I can’t stop. He turns. We face each other. It takes a moment for him to recognize me — his eyes tiny red fish which come to life. “It’s you,” he says, crossing himself, grinning. “Have you come for my blessing, Scout? For five dollars I have a charm which wards away beggars.”
I warn him to stay out of my way.
June 12
I stayed home from school today, which was dumb, waiting for the police, who didn’t come.
What’s happening? Nothing about it in the papers yesterday or today — not even in the News. She either didn’t tell anyone or it was not important enough to be reported. (Did she recognize me? Why haven’t they come for me?)
The draft to be higher next month, the Times says — thirty thousand to be called. A picture on the front page of one of our own troops napalmed by mistake. Their own fault, a spokesman said; they had not signaled to the planes, nor had they any business, according to plan, being where they were.
In protest of the war, a nineteen-year-old girl cut off the nipple of one of her breasts and mailed it to the President.
The News has a cover story, with pictures, of a father of six who stabbed his wife and kids, one at a time, after they had gone to bed. “I couldn’t watch pro football with them around all the time making noise,” he told the News in an exclusive interview. “But I loved them all and if it wasn’t my nerves on edge, it never would have happened. I wish them only the best.”
My father rages around the house. He threw a chair at my mother because she didn’t answer something he said.
June 14
Journal, do you hear me? No one else listens.
Still no one comes for Chris. No one comes.
Saw her in the hall when I came out of my calculus final. (I made no mistakes, though I didn’t do 40 points; got bored in the middle and walked out.) There’s a large bruise on her neck. Wearing a scarf which only partly covered it. She looked at me as if she knew me. Then as if she didn’t. I looked right through her, feeling nothing. Nothing. I didn’t follow.