He turned right at the corner and onto Silberman Street. The road was a cold, narrow line pulled straight and curving somewhere in the distance, like the tail of a cat, if cats’ tails were cold. There were street lamps every 20 or so yards, small radii of light, but that was all. Bushes that were probably greener in the light.

He put one foot in front of the other, one, two, one, two. Then two quick steps, just for fun. One two. Ha ha. 

He’d worked late today, which he did every night if he could. Store owners don’t like it when you work overtime. They get suspicious. What did you want, handling all that money, so late at night? But it wasn’t that. They knew by now, he liked to work. He liked a pen in his hand and bills shifting between his fingers and no one making him do anything he couldn’t. 

Like Mrs. Dabrowski and Mr. Fields and Mrs. O’Hara and Mrs. Stinson. He had hated class. The information came so fast, in layers, waves, word on top of sentence on top of paragraph. He watched his classmates nod. Sometimes his hands would start shaking and he couldn’t write. He went to the bathroom or read comic books or petted the little finger puppets his mother sewed into his pants pockets to get through. Often Mrs. Dabrowski would call on him randomly, and she would stare at him while he stared at his shoes. Or the teachers would try to help him after class, sometimes two or three at once, crowding around him. “Why are you upset? Here, look at the question again.” They wanted him to answer and he couldn’t. He wasn’t like the others, and he was sorry, he was sorry, he was sorry. If their gaze went on too long he would cry.

Except for math. Math was safe. He liked how his teacher would tell him, “That’s exactly correct, Mr. Wright.” He didn’t like how his classmates would call him simple, even the times when he got the question right, which was every time. Other than that, the boys wouldn’t bother with him. The girls called him Fidge or Skit or played with his hair, which made him jump, so they stopped. None of them made any sense.

And even now, years after he graduated, people still asked for things he couldn’t do. Like his neighbor Mrs. O’Brian, who had seven children and was always very busy. Once she had handed him her baby so she could attend to one of her other children. She had said: “Could you do me a favor and hold him for just a second?” but without the question mark. He tried but the baby started screaming, which scared him. He dropped it and ran to the corner where the sound wasn’t so loud, and then he and the baby cried together. After that Mrs. O’Brian began to hold her baby closer to her chest when he came near. 

Just now it was so quiet that each footstep seemed giant. Quiet did that. Let him make his mark. Made him feel big, like Superman. It was that hour of the night when everything stopped, as if no one had ever even existed. At 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, his body warmed the air. He imagined the cold rushing in to fill his place when he took a step. Some days he liked to feel like Superman. But tonight, he wanted to disappear. That way he wouldn’t have to stir up the quiet. He could leave it perfect and cool and uncomplicated. Like before people or dinosaurs, when everything was still. 

He wondered if his mother had made dinner. She had been sleeping a lot recently. At first he had liked the sleeping because it meant he got to play with the light switches and wear his shoes inside. But now he just felt alone. And bored. Sometimes he’d creep into her room. There would be gray light washing over her face from the window. It would make her pretty red hair look colorless. She would be stiff under her sheets, even if he reached out to touch her. This was a different kind of stillness.

If she had made dinner, it would be cold by now. He’d eat it in the living room, staring at the TV with the volume off, unless it was Popeye. Or Tom and Jerry. He liked Tom. He liked cats. What could it be? Poached fish? Broccoli casserole? Lamb meatballs? He hoped it wasn’t salmon. Salmon tasted like dog fart.

Thinking about it allowed him not to worry. Thinking this thought allowed him not to worry. And this one. And this one. 

When he had finally walked the length of the road, he turned left. Here was a different part of the walk. Up, up over a bridge, cold ribbons of wind cutting him. The bridge was stone and had a similar sound to the road, but not quite so loud, muted almost. He knew if he looked down into the water he’d see the stars reflected there. It would look like the stars had melted. Like when he was a boy and he’d looked down into the lake near their house at night and said, Mommy, the stars all melted in the water! And she told him look up, Ozzie, look up. 

Up ahead of him was a woman. She stood tall and very still. But she was on the ledge, not the walkway, and she was looking at the water, not the stars. 

He stood still, too.

“Miss!” he called out. “Miss!”

She turned to look at him. He imagined her eyes were a frosty green with mere snips of black set into them for pupils, the way he would have drawn Catwoman’s eyes if he had been Bob Kane, but he was not Bob Kane, and in fact he could not see her eyes or any of her face at all. 

“Come down! Please!”

She stared at him. 

“Please, Miss! You are in danger!”

She turned away. Slowly, she inclined her head, until her gaze was pointed directly up.

Maybe she wasn’t jumping, he thought. Maybe she had some important mission with this water, something awesome that he couldn’t imagine because he was only a civilian. 

He heard her body hit the water. It was terrible. He didn’t know if there was splashing, because after that he ran home. 

When he got home he saw the lights on, which he usually liked. He didn’t need his key. He curled up next to the door and cried. Then he lay still for a long time, waiting for his mother to come find him.