Chapter 21The mechanical pencil digging into my chest awoke me slumped over the picnic table, with my suit jacket as a pillow. I was chilled. As I sat up and put on my coat, I noticed the trees: their orange, yellow, and red leaves glittered against a deep blue sky, which was the color of the calm lake.
I checked the backs of my hands: liver spots. I ran them over my face.
Well, good for me! I finally shaved off the damned mustache! Three cheers!
I also detected the faint odor of Old Spice, yet I remembered that when I had been wandering around the paths in that colorless fall weeks ago, I’d been filthy dirty with a week’s worth of stubble.
When I stood up, there was no pain in the rotator cuff, and no boiling oil in the stomach or behind the eyeballs, which I had felt after taking a
