34. Last Train Out of Brighton
Tony and I bolted out of the subway terminal onto Surf Avenue and from there we turned into a side street.
We stopped just past the street corner, calculating where to go and catching our breaths. I turned to look back at Surf Avenue. No one was there.
On the side street, the lights were on — lots of old Las Vegas show bulbs — but everyone had gone home. With the sound of the wind blowing in from the ocean, it felt like a biblical sort of end, like this had once been a street teaming with life, and then like in one of the magic shows they performed there, everyone was gone without a trace. I was startled by the sound of a large rat coming up for air in a rubbish bin full of half-eaten cotton candy and hot dogs. A billboard just above Tony advertised a bear
