Free Dead I Well May Be by Adrian McKinty Page A

gunshots.
    It’s around dawn. I’ve been in bed at most an hour.
    The clunk is the arrival of the
Times
.
    Jesus. Bad dreams. Not what you’d think, but bad dreams nonetheless. I throw back the cotton sheet and yawn and go to the front door and bring the paper in. I throw the paper at a roach in the hall. I take a bagel from the freezer and put it in the microwave. Something aboutmicrowaves, I remember. Oh yes, Scotchy, last night. Where did he come up with that? Wait a minute. Last night. Suddenly I feel the need to sit down in the middle of the kitchen floor.
    I sit.
    Exhausted and nauseated.
    Alone.
    Relax, be calm. Try to breathe. Breathe. I lean on the window and cough so hard my lungs hurt. It goes on for about a minute.
    I’m going to stop smoking, I say.
    The microwave dings. I get up and eat the bagel. You can get six for a dollar, so this one is sixteen cents. And the paper is free for some reason, like the cable. It just keeps getting delivered.
    I tie my dressing gown, make some coffee, and retire to the fire escape. There’s no news. I read the sports section. Things are not going well for the local baseball teams. The leader writer is explaining why the Yankees will never win another championship with George Steinbrenner as the owner.
    Sun is coming up. The day banishing the thoughts of yesterday. I stretch and go back inside and decide to shave and shower. I turn on the water for the pipes to get going and look in the mirror. I was in a fight, so it’s worth doing an inspection. Really, is this the face of a monster? My hair is sandier than it’s ever gotten in Ireland and my stubble is blond too. I study myself. No bruises. Ok-looking, green eyes, good jaw, a wee bit more filled out than I used to be, which is good, because I was always too thin, nice eyebrows, reasonably symmetrical face, bit of a broken nose, though, which fucks things up a bit, but still a decent, dependable-looking chap. Probably, but for the green card problem, I could get a real job, in a real company, for real money. I can do better. I’m not thick.
    I’m not thick, I say aloud.
    I sigh and take out a new safety razor.
    Shave. Stop. I cough and spit. I’m bloody famished. A bagel is just not going to cut it this morning. I take the headlines and quickly dress and turn off the water and open the door, go down the steps, and head for Broadway and the McDonald’s on 125th.…
    It’s definitely early. On the far side of the street there are still homeless men sleeping on filthy mattresses on the sidewalk. I wonder for amoment how they manage to get through a night without being stabbed or beaten. Shit, maybe they
have
been stabbed and beaten. The homeless camp from here all the way up to Riverside Park and some sleep in the Amtrak tunnel beneath the park. Generally, only the hardiest ones sleep east of here on Amsterdam, and there a few mad souls who make Morningside Park their home.
    If it were me and I was cut off from Darkey and the boys and I couldn’t get home and I had to be on the streets (a recurring fantasy/nightmare of mine, incidentally), my plan is to buy a hammock and attach it to a rope and throw it up over a tree limb, hoist myself up, and sleep up there in the canopy. In the summer you could probably get away with it. In the winter you’d freeze to death. North Central Park is where I’d go, big and anonymous and reasonably safe. For some reason, every time I think of this plan it gives me a great sense of comfort. If all else fails, I can live in the trees of Central Park. It’s a bit silly, but that’s the best I can come up with.
    Down to 125th.
    Past the bodega and the impressively armored Chinky with its steel walls and buzzer to get in and thicker-than-thick Plexiglas counter and vandalproof reinforced iron chairs. When Klaatu and the other aliens finally show up and nuke the world, Mr. Han’s Chinky will, I’m sure, be the only thing left standing amidst the rubble. His food is probably nukeproof