Alligators in the Trees by Cynthia Hamilton Page B

conspicuous he became, the more at ease he became. There was no one around him who knew who he was, no one who wanted a piece of him or his time. He was absolutely anonymous.

    The pace of his evening energized him, washing away his fatigue. It was as if he drew strength from feeding off the conversations of those around him, like an undetectable human leach. He emptied his mind of his own thoughts so he could absorb his impressions of the strangers he encountered, sizing them up as he read the clues they displayed about themselves.
    Gradually, the bars and pubs closed, leaving him to wander after-hours clubs and extra-sleazy flesh joints. Those places quickly lost their appeal, and Tobias was left with cruising down the deserted streets, the blocks slipping by as he automatically plodded along. He walked all the way uptown and made a loop, by dawn arriving where he had started out.
    He laughed weakly as he discovered he was across the street from Frank’s Coffee Shop. This was where it had all started almost twenty-four hours earlier. It amazed him that one day had forever altered his life.
    It was only quarter to seven, and already there was a light but steady stream of customers coming and going. Tobias leaned against a lamppost and watched the activity for a while. He was so desperate for something to eat and a cup of coffee, even Frank’s coffee would be welcome. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to go inside.
    As he watched Priscilla and her coworker from a distance, he recognized in them the type of life he had gravitated to once he had sabotaged his father’s hopes for him becoming a Wall Street guru. His expulsion from Harvard Business School for smoking pot took care of that. Horrified as everyone was, they never learned of his real offenses—dealing, gambling, selling term papers—nor did they give him credit for his newly acquired principles of capitalism.
    His parents were certain he was trying to drive them into early graves when he took a job as a delivery truck driver for a meat distributor. Even though it had only lasted nine months, it had a profound effect on him. It had changed his whole outlook, giving him a taste of life on the lower rungs of the class structure, forever cementing his phobia of being one of the bourgeoisie.
    Of course, looking back, he appreciated how lowbrow and crass that episode of his life really was. Beer cans stuffed full of cigarette butts, gas-guzzling muscle cars and easy camaraderie flashed across his mind’s eye, but he could still recall how exciting and stimulating it seemed back then.
    Life on the top hadn’t been so bad either, on the surface, but it had a numbing effect on his soul. He had become so insulated, so protected, he had lost touch with his empathy, and with it his ability to tap into the raw truths about people and life. All he needed was to reacquaint himself with the nitty-gritty, and boom, his mind began to fire on all cylinders. Oh, it was good to feel alive again, half dead from exhaustion, but still more alive than he’d been in years.
    His hunger and fatigue finally reached the level that required action. He was on the verge of hallucinating. He was just about to lurch across the street for another unappetizing meal at Frank’s, when a fresh refrain floated through his head.
    “Don’t you remember how it feels…Don’t you remember how it feels…Don’t you remember how it feels?” Tobias stood there, frozen, as if experiencing a stroke. The rest of the lyrics came to him not as words, but as a fully formed idea that had been torn into fragments; it was all there, it just needed to be sorted through and assembled.
    He reached for his cell phone, forgetting for a moment he had disposed of it. No problem—Brody was an early riser. Without another thought to his physical needs, he headed off in that direction, the new song fairly splitting his head as he sprinted down the avenue.

Seven
    Philip sat next to his attorney as they faced off against