LITMIR.BIZ

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attaches the wire to a metal hook in the concrete, so the eel slips back under the water.

      “It’ll keep that way,” he says, dusting himself off. “Fish won’t bother it much. Up here, it’s all birds and squirrels.”

      Scott just nods. He decides to let it go, not to comment on the eel. The old man has hold of the bicycle again, and begins pushing it down the path, toward the circular staircase. Scott follows. He notices the strip of grease marking the inside of Ray’s slacks, right at the cuff.

      The bicycle has a kind of rack built onto the back, a blue plastic milk crate atop it, bound by wire hangers. Pine tree-shaped air fresheners dangle all over the frame. It’s an old time three speed, its chain and sprocket free of rust; its tires are bald, but its spokes are straight. Plastic streamers hang from the grips, and one car stereo speaker, oval, is attached to the middle of the handlebars, cord dangling.

      At the stairway, Ray stops, then lifts the bicycle over his shoulder.

      “I could carry it for you,” Scott says.

      “No, you couldn’t.” Ray begins climbing, slowly, around and around. Scott hesitates, then follows.

      “In the museum,” he says, his neck bent back, his voice carrying upward. “Saw a picture of a bicycle with a bull’s horns for handlebars. Tail hanging down under the seat.”

      Ray does not reply. Breathing hard, he climbs without stopping to rest. Sometimes the bicycle rings out against the railing, and then he grunts and adjusts his grip. At the top, he sets it down and stands for a moment, wiping his face with the forearm of his shirt. With his open hand, he pounds the handlebars, to straighten them. The rearview mirrors quiver and settle.

      “Where you headed?” Scott says.

      “Got some things to take care of before nightfall.” Ray pulls a small radio from his pocket and plugs the speaker’s cord into it; he fiddles with the dial until music blares out. Violins and piano, working themselves up. He turns it louder, then throws a leg over, straddling the seat. He rests one foot on a pedal, then pushes. The speaker points back toward the seat so the music passes around him and is left behind in his wake.

      “Catch you again, sometime,” Scott says.

      Ray’s body sways side to side, pulling away. In a moment, the music is gone; the path curves, and he disappears from sight.

      Scott kicks his way through the tangled grass, toward the abandoned buildings. The gate is broken, forced open, and he steps onto the red brick. The windows of the biggest structure are solid plywood; the smaller ones still have glass—it would be too dangerous to sleep in here, where someone could see you from the outside. Scott smiles to himself, thinking how transparent Ray is to him, how obvious it is that the old man sleeps here, somewhere. He has ridden off as a diversion, so he can return later. Scott knows that trick well.

      Atop one of the small buildings, a stone woman reclines with a waterwheel; on top of another, a bearded river god is held down by chains. Scott keeps walking along the bricks, parallel to the river and above it. Past the buildings, the bricks beneath his feet turn to blacktop; here and there, thick glass squares, only four inches across, break the surface. Down on his knees, he squints through and can see nothing; he wonders if the swimming pool is under him, rats diving through the water, or if Ray had been having him on, trying to get him to believe a lie.

      The walkway leads out to a gazebo that overlooks the river. A low dam, bent at an obtuse angle, stretches to the other side, allowing a constant overflow, a thin white veil of water. On the lip, a metal keg is hung up, thrown into the river from some party upstream. Scott wills it to go over, but it does not. It stays there, spinning, rolling in place.

      Since he has been in Philadelphia, he has not covered the miles like he once had, but now he feels he is really traveling, getting somewhere, even more than in those times. All his circling is unwinding inside him. He leans against one of the gazebo’s rotten pillars, where someone has scrawled IN LOVING MEMORY OF TINO 1974–1993.

      Unzipping his pack, he takes out a jar of baby food, pureed peas and carrots, and eats it with a plastic spoon. He found a whole case of it, barely expired, out behind Pathmark, and took all he could carry. It doesn’t taste bad, now that he’s used to the texture, and it is healthy, full of vitamins.

      The wind ruffles the water. It pushes the sun farther across the horizon and finally off the edge. Dusk begins to spread. He leans against the railing, warm wind blowing hair from his face. Behind him, he knows, the museum looms. Lights are coming on in the tall buildings downtown. He imagines the figure he is cutting, standing alone against this backdrop; he wishes someone were watching him now, standing in front of the city. If they came within earshot, he would tell them that its possible for a person to change himself. It’s a matter of making that decision, then putting it into action.

       FOUR

       ADVICE

      Terrell shivers. He wants to untuck his shirt, to whip off his belt, to shout. It is dark in the museum, with hardly any windows, and all those are full of sun; the sun is everywhere outside, where he wants to be. Here, inside, there is no one else his age. The only other black people are the security guards, who either sit on benches, looking bored, or sleepwalk past, radios squawking from their hips.

      The rooms go on and on. Underground and up in the air. It is the biggest building Terrell knows, and being inside it is almost as bad as church—church is over, at least for today.

      He likes the room of armor, all the swords and spears and the round shields. He likes the black and white photographs of naked women. Nudes, Ruth said, and had not made him stop looking. Now he passes paintings that are only orange squares, and then endless pictures of flowers. None of this interests him. Boats in the ocean, snow in the mountains, white women in long dresses. Terrell wants to scratch the paint away with his fingernails.

      In a corner, though, stands a wooden box, two feet high with a small window on one side. He bends down to see inside, where three metal points have marked lines—red, blue, and black—on a small piece of paper. If anything is moving, it is too slow to tell. Terrell waits, staring inside, trying to figure it out. He jumps a little at the sound of the voice.

      “You’re probably wondering what that is.”

      Two cowboy boots point at Terrell, the man standing close. Terrell looks up, into the skinny white face.

      “What it is, is you got the red, there, measuring the temperature and humidity, to protect the art. The blue keeps track of seismical activity—earthquakes, even little ones. Tremors.”

      The man stands too close, his voice just above a whisper. Terrell tries to step back, away, and kicks the wall behind him. The man’s blue jacket looks like some sort of costume; he is no taller than Terrell; he smiles as he speaks, and the air between them smells like peppermint.

      “Scott,” he says. “That’s my name. How about you?”

      “Eric,” Terrell says. “Eric Swan.”

      “And how old are you, Eric?”

      “Thirteen.”

      “Thirteen,” Scott says, rubbing his hands together.

      “I didn’t ask to talk to you,” Terrell says.

      “Exactly,” Scott says, not even slowing. “If I’m scaring you, you don’t have to. You’re not frightened of me, are you?”

      “What about the black line, then?” Terrell says.

      “Now we’re having a conversation,” Scott says. “You have to like that.”

      “The black line,” Terrell says, standing his ground.

      “The black line,” Scott says. “That one can detect when a person’s lying, like I’m doing right now. See that jump there,

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