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Breathing as if a hand were clasped across his mouth and nose, Brosius staggered into his room and fumbled with the lock on the door then secured the rusted chain above the lock. Exhausted, he braced his shoulders against the yellow door, still breathing hard, sweat trickling down his chin. It was so loud in the dingy little room that, for an instant, he thought he must have left the television set on when he went out this afternoon, but then he realized it was his heart that was making all the commotion, banging against his ribs as if trying to break loose. Immediately he stepped over and switched on the television, hoping to silence his heart, but still he could hear it above the murmur of angry voices blaring from the set.
You're getting slow, Jamie boy, he cautioned himself. Slow and old, the quick step you once had little more than a memory.
He didn't even bother to examine the billfold he had jammed into a pocket of his jacket. Instead, he took the jacket off and threw it over a chair and shambled into the bathroom. Sighing, he turned on the faucet at full blast and bent down and splashed his neck and face with cold water. He felt as if he might collapse any second, his light bones dissolving in a pool on the floor, and braced his thighs against the edge of the wash basin. In the mirror above the basin, his dripping face appeared flushed from all the running he had done. His hair was scattered over his forehead and ears, his mouth was loose, his eyes almost invisible in their dark shadows. Awkwardly he leaned forward, as if finding it a little hard to recognize himself in the tarnished mirror, reminded of an old girlfriend of his telling him once that his face looked like a vase that had been dropped and the pieces not put back together in the right sequence. Puzzled, he pinched his eyes almost shut, making sure they were his as he watched the wrinkles deepen around his sockets.
You fool, you barely made it this time, he thought nervously. Your luck is running out.
The scream of the woman almost did him in, it was so piercing that it attracted the attention of scores of people along the street. She sounded as if she were in terrible physical pain, and rather than taper off her screaming grew louder until it seemed to fill the narrow alley he fled down after he swiped the purse out of her hand. He had not run so hard in years, not since he was a youngster had his sides ached so much or had he tasted such a sourness in the back of his throat. Pumping his arms frantically, dodging past boxes and crates, he was more afraid than ever that he was going to be caught. And was surprised when he reached his rooming house and got through the door without someone clamping a hand on his shoulder.
Still seething, he soaked his wrists in the wash basin then splashed more water across his face.
It had been a long time since he had taken a purse, thought that was in the distant past when he used to hang out on the corner with friends from school preying on elderly women as they waited to board the crosstown bus. But he needed some money fast to pay off a gambling debt and had asked for help from the people he knew best too many times already. The guy he owed said he would be coming by sometime this evening to collect and made it clear if the debt wasn't satisfied completely he would regret it. He believed him too. Only a couple of months ago, he had neglected to pay the guy on time and was warned never to let that happen again and said he wouldn't and the guy nodded then seized his middle finger and bent it back until it snapped.
You damn fool, he fumed. You damn stupid fool.
Increasingly he repulsed himself, aware of all the times he had broken his promise to get his priorities in order. In another hour and a half it would be dark out, he realized, and all the windows in the room would turn into mirrors. Then it would be more difficult than ever to avoid looking at himself, this person he still thought of as a foreigner, representing, in so many ways, the opposite of what he hoped to become some day.
Reluctantly he raised up and stared at his reflection again, leaning forward on his soaked hands, peering into the dark recesses of his eyes until his head banged against the mirror. Startled, he drew back then banged it again, harder, as if trying to crack the mirror.
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