, I feel bad;
therefore, it's time to find person X who is worse off than I am and
help him out. Or her. He could picture eligible persons, but he
stumbled on the help part. What did he have to offer? Was a dollar bill
going to make a difference? He felt blocked from the part of himself
that might contain helpful things he could pass along.

"I like this chutney," he said, "good with this cheese. What was your
father like, Richard?"

"Great guy," Richard said. He sloshed the scotch and ice cubes around
in his glass. "I'll tell you a story about my father. He couldn't tell
time. Someone gave him a watch, but he didn't want to learn. He was
proud of the watch, wore it every day. He used to go to people and say,
'I'm having a little trouble reading this,' and then he'd hold his
wrist up." Richard raised his arm proudly out in front of him. "And
he'd squint, as if he had eye trouble. 'Oh, it's a quarter to nine,'
they'd say." Richard threw back his head and laughed. "My dad was a
great guy--could barely read, always singing. He worked on the docks."

"Hi, Richard." A thin woman approached. She had dark eyes and bleached
blonde hair pulled into a tight pony tail.

"Hi, Sally. How are you?"

"O.K."

"Do you know Oliver?"

"Seen you around," she said, appraising him. Oliver felt about a four
out of ten, maybe a three.

"Sally works at Mercy Hospital. That cigarette isn't doing you any
good, you know."

"Nag, nag, nag."

"You got one for me?" Richard lit up the room with his smile.

"Oh, Richard!" Sally felt in her purse with one hand.

"What are you drinking?" Richard asked.

"I'll see you guys," Oliver said, sliding to the end of the bench and
standing. Sally took his place. "Thanks for the eats, Richard."

"Stay warm," Richard said.

A plow rumbled by, as Oliver stepped out into the storm. He followed it
along the white empty street. He considered stopping at Giobbi's
Restaurant, but he turned up Danforth and walked to State Street where
he lived in a second floor apartment on the last block before the
Million Dollar bridge.

Verdi was waiting. He jumped from the window sill and made a fuss
bumping against Oliver's legs. "Hungry, are we?" Oliver bent over and
stroked him from head to tail. "Yes, very large and very fierce is
Verdi. Very fierce." Verdi was brown and black, heavyset, with a large
tomcat's head and yellow eyes. He padded deliberately over to the
lengths of walnut leaning upright in one cor