to rhyme but this is what she told me. I think I remember some of it, and I believe the rest.
I believe I do.
IT was still dark when I got back into town. I was last off the bus but still had to wait with the Mennonites while a porter emptied the luggage bin. The garage was a narrow cave with fluorescent tubes nine feet long. That diesel smell, Greyhound chug and hiss. Standing around in the black and brown, muted blues and purple, the men with wide brims and beards without mustaches and coats without lapels. The children like miniature adults. Their luggage was made of cardboard like mine, tied with jute or hemp, but the box I was looking for was small and had been used only once.
Inside the terminal a couple were making out next to a video game. The pilgrims steered clear and grabbed most of the seats in the waiting area so that anywhere you sat was near them. They drank their own coffee and ate their own sandwiches. An old woman peeled an orange. I saw that she was pregnant then and thought maybe she wasn’t so old. The children looked at the video game, at the couple next to it sharing their tongues.
Some of the seats had coin-operated television attached, looking up at you from your lap. Once in a while a loudspeaker issued bursts of articulated static in which only the names of cities were intelligible. People moved or didn’t move accordingly, as if somehow they’d heard what they needed.
A woman worked the crowd. For a grilled cheese sandwich, she said, and carried a dollar bill to invite further contributions. When she came to someone with a beard and a wide-brimmed hat, he stared right through her and spoke to his own. They spoke German right through her.
The static said, “Points east.”
A kid showed me an imitation Swiss Army knife. He was part of a group in which everyone carried backpacks, wore black trousers and white shirts. The uniform of some other ascetic order. It was a key chain. I told him I had nothing to put on it and he thought I was bargaining. I gave him two dollars. I couldn’t afford even that but it seemed like some kind of start.
I got up to get a drink of water. A blind man and a German shepherd squatted against the wall next to the fountain. Dark specks jumped from the dog to the man, and from the man to the dog. I went back to my seat not thirsty anymore, just sleepy. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Heard laughter, joking. I was surprised, did not associate this with the beards, the German, the black and the brown. Must have been the length of their journey, I figured. The lateness of the hour.
A security guard woke me up. I opened my eyes and he was tapping my shoulder. His features wide and flat like he had his face pressed against a window. “We don’t park it here,” he said.
I couldn’t speak. I looked around. It was dark and everyone was gone except the blind man and his dog.
“Don’t know how you slept through all that-to-do,” the guard said. I looked at him. “Cops came and arrested one of those Amish boys, whatever they are. Supposably muling dope for someone. Believe that?”
I tried to say I’d be looking for a place to live, that I couldn’t do anything till morning, but I hadn’t spoken to anyone in a day and it probably sounded longer than that.
“You can’t park it here,” he said. He nodded behind me, “Coffee shop’s open. Grab you a cup.”
The coffee shop sold plastic-wrapped sandwiches out of a display case. Hot dogs on a rotisserie, a popcorn machine. Souvenirs. I had a fake Swiss Army knife now, so all I could buy was coffee. The panhandler was at the register trying to buy a sandwich. The cashier told her she was eighteen cents short. She looked at me.
She had bulging wet eyes, an open unconditional face. Baggy shorts and a winter coat buttoned only at the neck. I dug into my pocket. The cashier offered a receipt lengthy out of all proportion to the transaction.
“I don’t need this,” the panhandler said. “You want this?” She waited for my answer.
“I just got into town.” I said it carefully. “You know of anywhere I could stay?”
“You got money?”
“I was thinking the Y.”
“The Y,” she said. “Real estate company took over the residential. Four hundred a month for an efficiency. Call em suites anymore. Security deposit, references, credit check. You want that?”
“What else is there?”
She mentioned a place called the Avenue. It had once had another name, been the kind of place where touring rock bands demolished rooms.
“High-classy days are over,” she said, “lucky for you.”
I asked where. She gave me a corner, the name of one street and the number of another. I pressed my luck and asked her where City Hall was.
“They don’t even have grilled cheese here.” She turned her back to me. The cashier had gone somewhere.
I sat in a booth by the windows and watched the dark turn gray, then blue, then transparent for the rest of the day. I liked the blue and wished it could have stayed that way. You could live in that light.
I knew being back was going to be strange, just not in what way. The streets were familiar but I no longer knew where they went. I heard people talking to themselves, then saw they all had phones. I had to ask someone where City Hall was, heard myself stutter. That was something new.
I was sure it was Monday. It was already warm and you could feel the air filling with sweat. Two new buildings stood over Public Square, sudden shadows across Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. One of them was a bank and was now the tallest building in town. I saw it pull lightning out of the sky, window washers washing windows where height became altitude. A big sign in the concourse at ground level said they were leasing space. The smaller building was a federal courthouse and would probably have less trouble finding tenants.
Crossing the street wasn’t as easy as it sounds. All the people, and everyone had a phone.
I got to City Hall just after it opened. I recognized the building but I’d never been inside. Huge, white stone, the entrance flanked by enormous fluted columns like an ancient temple. To the left was a wide grassy commons, and beyond that a familiar openness. I knew what was there and wanted it, but it would have to wait.
I went in, through the colonnade.
A vast hall, dim and cool. A woman in the middle of it, under the gold leaf dome of the ceiling, surrounded by frescoes of heroic service. She wore a blue blazer and held a walkie-talkie. I told her I needed a birth certificate and she gave me directions. Everything you said boomed and echoed, there were no small matters here. She was pleasant but the box would have to stay with her. That was a relief.
I went down a corridor to a narrow room with a long wooden counter. I gave someone my social security card and the letter I’d been given. My hands shook, my voice, even my thoughts. She consulted a supervisor. I was given a long form to fill out. The form was stamped and I was advised to take it to another part of the building, on another floor. I didn’t mind, I liked moving through the marble, the high vaulted spaces, the cracks polished and noble. There was an elevator but I didn’t bother with it. I wanted to hear the sound I made on the steps, rise with the curve of the balustrade.
I sat on a bench in the Records Department while they produced the document.
