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That sad look on his face just od" like I do soart’s hat, I swear to god Really Just don’t tell my mom about this because I had to spend sorand I debited frooes to cancer research, all of it--and I had to get the hat just so that we ht at least have that forever Right?"

I feel so awful, because the truth is that I bought the hat at the thrift store for four dollars and fifty cents

Walt’s eyes look all glazey and distant, like I shot him with the P-38

"So do you like it?" I ask "Do you like owning Bogie’s hat? Does wearing itthe day?"

Walt sie face, and says, "What have you ever given iven me any of your confidence, any of the truth? Haven’t you tried to buy nize the quote It’s fro, "What else is there I can buy you with?"

We look at each other in our Bogart hats and it’s like we’re co to let hi he can save ray with a black band and really looks like Sam Spade’s It was a lucky thrift store find It really was Like Walt was destined to have this very hat

I remember this other weirdly appropriate quote froood life I’ve been bad Worse than you could know"

But Walt doesn’t play along this ti ave him the hat at this particular juncture--"Why today?"--and--"Why do you look so sad all of a sudden?"--and--"What’s wrong?"

Then he starts askingif I cut my hair, and when I don’t answer he asks me if I’ve talked to my mother today--if she’s been around lately

I say, "I really have to go to school now You’re a fantastic neighbor, Walt Really Al the big-tih the smoky hallway, under the crystal chandelier, out of Walt’s life forever

The whole time he yells, "Leonard Leonard, wait! Let’s talk I’ on? Why don’t you stay awhile? Please Take a day off We can watch a Bogie art always--"

I open the front door and pause long enough to hear hi his sad drugstore tennis-ball walker

He could die today, I think, he really could

And then I just stride out of his house knowing that it was the perfect way to say good-bye to Walt My storht at that very art filed instru to a dramatic crescendo

"Good-bye, Walt," I say as I stride toward h school

SIX

LETTER FROM THE FUTURE NUMBER 1

Dear First Lieutenant Leonard,

Billy Penn is doing his best Jesus iet here and report for duty

That’ll be in about twenty years and one hour frohly thirteen reat, open, no-longer-civilized void

Like me, you’ll decide that life on crowded, premium dry land--where you have to elbow everyone out of the way just for a breath of fresh air--is not for you

And you would never live like a rodent in tube city, noould you?

Inevitably, you’ll cohthouse 1--what you currently know as Philadelphia, the Comcast Center skyscraper

These days, tides rise and fall by hundreds of feet due to the increased speeds of weather patterns and the daily earthquakes that open and close gigantic underwater crevasses Our planet is re-for

Today the water is so loe can see Billy Penn’s feet and just a few inches of the old City Hall building atop of which he is still perched City Hall is under the sea so it looks like Billy Penn’s walking on water, hence your Jesus reference

Greetings from the future

The year is 2032

There’s been a nuclear holocaust, just like everyone feared there would be, and we’ve ed toa third of all known land with sea Remember that ht

The nukes wiped out a fourth of the world’s population, and a food shortage from lack of land and fresh water took care of another fourth, or so they say

Here in the North Aed with Canada and Mexico several years ago--our overall losses weren’t as dramatic as in other parts of the world, but our land loss was just as great This resulted in what has been coratory heart attack Everyone was forced into the middle of our country, which caused chaos, of course, and required overnment

They’ve started to build vertically Sky is the new frontier, the hot real estate It’s all elevators and skyscrapers and enclosed tubeways in the clouds People mostly live their lives indoors, somewhere between the earth and outer space, hardly ever breathing unfiltered air or feeling direct sunlight on their bare skin They’re like gerbils in plastic-tubing cage cities

But not us

We have volunteered to hthouse 1 and we spendaround the tops of as once the Philadelphia skyline Including you, there are only four of us here