He had been at the shelter on Currie Avenue and had left it and had reasons.

He asked me what I did and I told him, and he said, “God, that sounds boring,” and I said it largely is, and he laughed.

He did not ask me for anything.

I gave him nothing.

Not one thing.

No money, no coffee, no list of numbers, no card for anywhere.

I sat next to a man for twenty minutes on a Saturday morning and asked him one question and got told no, and it is, without any question, the most useful twenty minutes I have ever spent on that pavement.

Part Forty-Seven: Sweet Cream