When Mac awakes dark night is all around. A pleasant feeling of ease and freedom from pain resides in his chest. Something grand has come to him and he cannot say if it was dreamed or not. The excitement of it makes him sit up straight and he cannot even go back to sleep.He has been in the Fury's back seat in the same clothes he has worn for four days now, behind the abandoned old Safeway on Oliver road. The niche is securely hidden, immune for a while. It is an old neighborhood, deeply shaded by sycamores.
Three and a half hours have passed since sunrise when he is able to enter the TG&Y (going out of business but it still opens before KMart) where he shoplifts a small steno-sized notepad of yellow paper and Pentel Superball black ink pen.
Taking the materials is easier than he would have ever imagined, a thing he has never attempted before. If he found himself caught, arrested, that would merely fall within his plan. But it doesn't happen.
In Forsythe Park he leans back behind the steering wheel until deep afternoon, writing, composing, drinking a canned coke purchased with the proceeds from a search of telephone coin-return slots by the tennis courts. There, in the park, he observes each cruiser passing through. Broun, Tom, then Pat. Each recognizes him, waves. Pat slows down, pulls over, takes an appraising look at the new foot-size dents all around the Fury.
"A little bad luck, huh?"
"Yeah. Would have hollered for you but there was nothing you could do, you know. Thanks, anyway." Pat nods, is soon driving away on rounds. Old Mac.
An hour or so later, the rookie cop Tim pulls up beside him. "You ain't got nowhere to go? You been here about four hours. Sitting." Mac nods, habitual politeness shows through. Tim takes his shades off, slowly recognizes the guy Pat knows. "Oh."
Deep annoyance as Mac hands over the folded papers. He asks Tim to read it later in the night when he stops somewhere for coffee.
"You'll find me," Mac says. "You don't know what I mean now, but you will. I won't be any trouble."
Whatever.
