I wasn’t there that cool March night in 1977, but it plays like a movie sometimes in my dreams.

A man is walking up the outside steps that lead to Apartments 2B and 2D, but the one he

wants is the first one: 2B. He wants in there. He wants in there so badly it burns him. It burns in

his ears and in his eyes and gutters against the outside cold in the darkest hollow of his chest.

One of the bulbs is burnt out on the landing, so anyone looking this direction from Austin

Avenue or from the open Intramural Field on campus sees a whole load of nothing. Nothing but

blackness in the inkwell shadows here. But this man, this man here is at home in the shadows.

The faint sound of his footfalls are close and loud in his pulsing ears. He feels every bump in…