24. DAWN
I’m not sure how long I’ve been dreaming and dozing (or whether I’ve dreamed and dozed at all) when, just after dawn, the doorbell chimes. At first I don’t recognize it as a doorbell, so long has it been since I’ve lived with one (my Bronx apartment had a nasty-sounding buzzer that worked half the time). I’ve just begun to construe the sound when it changes to someone knocking on the front door — not “my” front door; at the moment, quite, but “the” front door: a front door belonging to the ghosts of my father and brother. Who can it be at this hour? All sorts of possibilities occur to me, none pleasant. The FBI, two opposite-sexed Charlies / eys knocking in tandem. But it can’t be. They’ve got nothing on me. The knocking grows more aggressive. Whoever it is knows I — or someone —
