Rudy goes home three times and comes back three times. He's troubled, but more sharply focused. He's had a nip. He has a fin. He intends to buy a sandwich of the chef's choice. He can't finish it. He stands outside in the cold sipping coffee. It's 40 degrees in northern Illinois on a mid-August black dawn, when it dawns on a deli clerk he's been locked out of the public housing high-rise for seniors just across the street. Rudy had been warned. There's no drinking at Silver Acres. He's got no place to go until his ride comes at 9:30. If there even is a ride.

On Rudy's third return the store's in full swing morning rush: coffee, donuts, cigarettes, newspapers fly past the counter as fast as change can be made. He takes his place at the front, a little off to the side, leans on the counter and smiles with the satisfaction of a man who's finally found what he's been looking for.

An audience. He's tossing out one-liners that are more like suggestions of syllables, to people who are going to work, the same people who come at the same time every day, in a hurry but reasonably on schedule, landscapers and laborers, limo drivers, union guys and fly-by-nights, the firemen and the chief, all the factory workers and all the bigwigs, the forklift demons, all the good smelling pretty ladies, every last one of these people has a kind word and a smile for him. When he says, "Za trouble! Nosense," they know exactly what he's talking about. It's uncanny.

Equally weird is the fact that this bloating man could yet still stand on two stubs filled up like bladders full of uric acid, and thinking back, his hands had thickened and his cheekbones too, but back to the stubs — he stood on them all night! Refused to sit. I'm fine he kept saying. I'm fine.

(I'm fine, it's just I can't bend my knees anymore to sit, and I'm frankly a little freaked out about it since I'm also locked out of my building, and I'm too proud to admit any of it: will you save me?)

Eventually Rudy disappears into the pink. Doris the muffin maker wants to know who that old man was that was hanging around. She gets the only known answer. Guy in trouble.