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there is an endless order to this city, but you can only see it from
way up in the sky. And when yellow window squares begin to
light Manhattan anew, I suddenly feel like crying. I know I will
never see this view again.
“Are you Mister Fitzgerald” a voice says, and I turn
around.
It’s a woman. She is small. Her face is heavy with makeup,
her hair bleached and pulled back in a funny twist. She looks just
shy of fifty—something beautiful about her, but I can’t tell what it
is.
“I am Misses Swanson,” she says.
“I brought you this,” I take the ring out of my pocket and
wipe it on my shirt. “It’s yours, isn’t it”
“It was,” she says. “But I threw it away.”
I feel my eyes blinking, but the rest of me won’t move.
“You did what you say”
“I threw it away, Mister Fitzgerald,” she says and her chin
trembles. “I threw it away because my husband is cheating on me
with another woman.”
I look at her and suddenly the only filth I can smell is my
own. And it makes me sick. And for a moment I feel like running
out with the ring, away from this place, racing downtown, across
the Brooklyn Bridge, all the way back to Gravesend. Back to
Grace.
“Why Why would you do that, Misses Swanson Why
would you do a thing like that” My words grow louder, pouring
out of my mouth, but I can hardly hear myself. I can only feel it
burning me, this filthy treasure in my hand, tossed out by this
woman like a piss-stained mattress. “Do you know what I had to
do What this ring means to people like me How much it could
change things For my wife My pregnant wife”
“Then take it,” she says and her voice quivers. “Please.
Take it and give it to her.”
I look at her—stiff hair, tiny eyes with flakes of tears and
mascara—and I get her beauty. It’s her skin. Smooth and even,
with not one wrinkle or mark, it’s stretched over her face like a
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