“He drove. That was what he did. What he’d always do.”

“Why’d you call, boy? What did you want from me?""The company of a friend, I think.""Always a cheap treat.”

“Maybe he should turn around. Go back and tell them that’s what life was, a long series of things that didn’t go down the way you thought they would.Hell with it. Either they’d figure it out or they wouldn’t. Most people never did.”

“You're not very good at this, are you?''At what I do, I'm the best. This isn't what I do.”

“Time went by, which is what time does, what it is.”

“Mostly what you lose with time, in memory, is the specificity of things, their exact sequence. It all runs together, becomes a watery soup. Portmanteau days, imploded years. Like a bad actor, memory always goes for effect, abjuring motivation, consistency, good sense. ”

“He existed a step or two to one side of the common world, largely out of sight, a shadow, all but invisible. Whatever he owned, either he could hoist it on his back and lug it along or he could walk away from it. Anonymity was the thing he loved most about the city, being a part of it and apart from it at the same time.”