That’s when I see him, Rogelio, through the open window. He’s walking down the sidewalk with his face in a book. God knows what it is: Calvino, maybe, or Pynchon, or Highsmith. He’s skinnier than I’ve ever seen him—which is very skinny—and his hair looks greasy and disheveled. People have actually stopped looking at their phones and are moving to get out of his way. He clears a path down the sidewalk—probably he has no idea where he is—and there’s something beautiful about him, something rare and slow and possessed: a man lost inside a book. I open my mouth to call to him, but I don’t. I
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