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There were nized and another half-dozen or so who looked fa jawline and a lot of red hair took off from the fact that I’d been a cop

"You coulda come to my house," she said "We had the cops there once a week My husband and I would drink and fight, and sohbor’d call the cops, and they’d co, and the next thing you kneas having an affair with hiht, and so the cops on me, even when I ith a cop to start with"

At nine-thirty we said the Lord’s Prayer and closed theA few people ca Most of the others hurried out of the building so they could light their cigarettes

Outside, the night was crisp with early autuhts noere a relief I walked half a block west, and a man stepped out of a doorway and askedmismatched pants and suit jacket and he had wornout tennis sneakers on his feet, and no socks He looked thirty-five but he was probably younger than that The street ages you

He needed a bath and a shave and a haircut He needed a whole lot ive hile out ofit into his pal, and I was almost at the corner of Broadhen I heard sonized a fellow na, and I’d seen hi to catch up with et so I think I’ll just head for ho uptown? I’ll walk you"

We took Broadway to Forty-seventh, walked over to Eighth Avenue, turned right and continued uptown Of the five people who asked us for ave the others a dollar each and was thanked and blessed in return After the third one took her dollar and extended her blessing, Eddie said, "Jesus, you gotta be the softest touch on the whole West Side What are you, Matt, just a boy who can’t say no?"

"Sometimes I turn them down"

"But mostly you don’t"

"Mostly I don’t"

"I saw the ive money to people on the street He says half the tionna spend the ht, and the other half’ll squander it on food and shelter"

"He says there’s beds and hot e to anybody in the city who needs it"

"I know It makes you wonder why so e cans"

"He wants to crack down on the ashers, too You know, guys wipe your windshield whether it needs it or not, then hit you for a handout? He says he doesn’t like the way it looks, guys working the street like that"

"He’s right," I said "They’re able-bodied guys, too They ought to be outthat’s out of the public eye"

"I guess you’re not a big fan of the ht," I said "I think he’s got a heart the size of a raisin, but maybe that’s a requirement, part of the job description I try not to pay too ive away a few bucks every day, that’s all It doesn’t hurt me and it doesn’t help anybody very much It’s just what I do these days"

"There’s enough of the for it"

And indeed there were You saw the in the parks, in the subway tunnels, in the bus- and train-station lobbies Some of them were mental cases and some were crack addicts, and soreat race and had no place to live It’s hard to get a job when you don’t have a residence, hard to keep yourself presentable enough to get hired But some of them had jobs Apartments are hard to find in New York, and harder to afford; with rent and security and broker’s coht need upwards of two thousand dollars to get in the door of an apartment Even if you could hold a job, how could you save up that kind of ot a place," Eddie said "It’s the apartrew up in, if you can believe it A block up and two blocks over, near Tenth Not the first place I lived in That’s gone now, the building cah school We moved out of there when I was, I don’t know, nine years old? Musta been, because I was in the third grade You know I done time?"