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I took a seat at the top of the west balcony steps One of the transit cops gave me a quick eyeball, but as I was now dressed for the part of respectable white-collar professional and was neither asleep nor visibly drunk, he left s Grand Central was more than a train station; it was a principal nexus of the city’s substrata, its vast underground world of tunnels and chah this place each and every day,beyond the tips of their own shoes It was perfect, in other words, for my purpose

I waited The hours moved by, and then the days No one seeoing on

And then after some unknown interval of time had passed, I heard a sound I had not heard before It was the sound that silence ht had fallen I rose frohts burning anywhere; the blackness was so coht have been at sea, miles frohts Stars by the hundreds, the thousands, theabove the e Their pins of light fell uponout of the past I did not knohat I was feeling, only that I felt it; and I began, at last, to weep

15

And thus toy-haired, tan fros ht hopes and possessing a solitary, inward-looking personality, alone in his bedroom beneath the eaves as he packs his suitcase of folded shirts and socks and underwear and notis a provincial town named Mercy, Ohio--famous, briefly, for its precision brassworks, said to produce the finest shell casings in the history of h that, likefaded The room, which is to be unoccupied within the hour, is a shrine to the young man’s youth Here is the display of trophies Here are the soldier bedside la martial-the intrepid trios of underappreciated teenagers whose youthful intellects enable them to solve crimes their elders cannot Here, tacked to the neutral plaster walls, are the pennants of sports tea each other and, opposite the sagging single bed, the era-appropriate poster of the erect-nippled Sports Illustrated swiaze and barely concealed pudenda the boy has furiously ht

But the boy: he undertakes his packing with the puzzled solemnity of a mourner at a child’s funeral, which is the scene’s appropriate analogue The probles fit--he can--but the opposite: the randeur of his destination Tacked above his craives the clue Dear Ti, it reads on elaborately decorated letterhead with a crimson, shield-shaped e ancient wisdoratulations, and welcome to the Harvard class of 1993!

It is early Septeed by sus the little hamlet of houses and yards and storefront cos to the boy’s father, the town’s lone optometrist This places the boy’s family in the upper reaches of the town’s constricted economics; they are, by the standards of that time and place, well-off His father is known and appreciated; he walks the streets of Mercy to a chorus of aratitude than the man who has placed the spectacles upon your nose that enable you to see the things and people of your life? As a child, the boy loved to visit his father’s office and try on all the eyeglasses that decorated the racks and display cases, longing for the day when he would need a pair of his own, though he never did: his eyes were perfect

"Tio, son"

His father has appeared in the door: a short, barrel-chested ravitational necessity, are held aloft by clip-on suspenders His thinning hair is wet from the shower, his cheeks freshly scraped by the old-fashioned safety razor he favors despite y The air around hi, we can always send it to you"

"Like what?"