Somebody was sucking the tip of his nose. He opened his eyes. It was a girl, one of the street kids who hung out around the Turtle Fountain. She was wearing a filthy T-shirt with a jockey and the number 21 on it.

"Do you want sex?" she said. "Five dollars."

He was thinking, Is this the new scene? He sat up on the curb of the fountain and looked her up and down. She was short and had a flat face with somewhat oriental eyes and obviously had Down’s syndrome. Her hair looked like it had been cut with a garden shears.

"A little Downy, huh?" he said. "Been workin’ the street?"

She nodded.

"Do you want a shower?" he said.

They walked back through the park to 92nd and crossed Riverside Drive. Her name was Sky. It was like picking up a child.

He was glad for the company. She had just come from the shower and stood nude and knock-kneed looking at herself in the full-length mirror on the closet door.

"Not the kind of looks guys can make money off," she said ruefully and made a raspberry. Her smile gave her a gamin sweetness.

"Do you want some clothes?"

She shook her head. He had laundered her T-shirt and underpants and socks in the kitchen sink. Now he went to the bathroom and hung them out on the fire escape. When he came back she was looking at one of the books from the pile on the desk. Surely she was dyslexic. He was curious.

"What’s the title?" he asked her.

"The Structure of Behavior by … Maurice Merleau-Ponty…" she said, stumbling slightly. He gave a whistle.

"Where was it published?"

"Boston."

"Do you know where Boston is?"

She was quick with an answer and he wondered if she was on speed.

"Hey, why don’t you brush your teeth while you’re at it? Use the paste and any of the toothbrushes. I have no idea when these guys are coming back."

"Maybe they’re in the slammer," she said when she came back from brushing her teeth.

"Naw that’s too obvious. I think they must be spelunking someplace."

"Spelunking?"

"Exploring a cave. There’s a nail clippers…" He rummaged in a desk drawer, tossed Tim’s big nail clipper on the bed. "It’d be a good idea if you used it. Do you want some clothes?"

He watched as she immediately sat down on Tim’s bed and began clipping her toenails. That was when he realized she didn’t have a futz. Instead there was a ragged stubble of shaved pubic hair. When laundering her underpants, he noticed some blood in the crotch and thought it was from her period. Now he saw that her cunt was wide open and raw from open friction sores.

"Hey. There’s a tube of zinc salve in the medicine cabinet, heal those sores right away."

"What makes you think they’re exploring a cave?" she asked. "Because they didn’t take their zinc salve with them?"

"Naw, it’s something I saw in a dream. Do you dream, Sky?"

"I was in a program … but after a while I was no good because I couldn’t introspect."

"But you’re right, Sky. I don’t know how you do it. One of the guys does happen to be in the slammer, or he was. Art Zimmer was in the slammer, I know that for a fact, or at least he was until he escaped from Manhattan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. That was where he was sentenced for attempted homicide."

"What did he do?" she said.

"He went down on the street with a pistol and shot two policemen."

She made a raspberry, then said slowly, "They’re all in the slammer and the cops have got this place staked out."

"It wouldn’t surprise me, Sky."