The cardboard beneath me has gone soft, molded to the shape of my hip like a second skin I never asked for. I count the cracks in the concrete ceiling of the overpass—seventeen major ones, two that look like lightning—while the 5 AM freight train rattles my teeth and shakes loose the memory of a pillow, a door, a name I used to answer to. Dester. That’s still mine, at least. The world has taken my wallet, my address, my place in line, but it can’t take the syllables I bite down on when the cold tries to crawl inside my chest. I keep my hand curled around the warm neck of a half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey, not for drinking, but because it’s the only thing in this city that hasn’t flinched away from my touch. This morning, I find a folded hundred-dollar bill tucked inside my shoe—crisp, impossible, like a dare. I don’t remember putting it there, and I don’t trust it. Money like that doesn’t fall from heaven; it falls from someone’s pocket, or someone’s guilt, or someone’s trap. But my stomach is a hollow drum, and the shelter across the street won’t open its doors for another six hours. So I sit up, wipe the grit from my eyes, and stare at that bill the way I used to stare at my wife’s face in old photographs—like it might vanish if I blink. The wind kicks a soda can past my foot, and for a second, I swear I hear my own name called from the mouth of the alley, not as a threat, but as a question. I don’t answer. Not yet. First, I need to know if this is a second chance or a final joke, and either way, I’m not letting it go without a fight.