He struggled to rise but felt the world tilt; he fell. Cold cobblestones slammed up against his hands and knees. After a shocked moment, he clambered back up to a seat on the park bench and sat rubbing his scraped palms against his trouser legs. He glanced once more at the globe light fixture at the top of the pole. Tree limbs did twine between it and him, and he would have sworn they were in the same pattern as the ones seen from Cassie’s chamber. But he was here, in the cold predawn of Occidental Square. He found that he had been using his bag for a pillow. He picked it up and stood yawning in the chill air. Such were the awakenings after an evening with Cassie. They always left him wondering where reality and sanity touched.

He walked slowly through me square, easing the softness of cold muscles, and groaned softly to himself as he realized just how awful this day was to be. He could not return to his den to get clean clothes and stash his bag. Daylight was too close. So here he was; no change, his overcoat wrinkled from a night on the bench (or wherever), his suit beneath it showing a day and a night of wear, and a crumpled paper sack for a companion. He tried to weigh his alternatives. Most places with public restrooms were not open yet. There was the train station, but he had been there only yesterday, and his present attire would not make him welcome. He considered trying it anyway, but sternly rejected his impulse. He had to live strictly by his rules now; Cassie had said as much. He could not cut any more comers.

In an alley between buildings, he stopped to run his comb through his hair. He took off his overcoat and shook it zealously to remove as many wrinkles as possible. He brushed at his jacket and slacks as best he could. He didn’t need a mirror to know how inadequate it was. He took a deep breath and tinned himself against the day. He was a scavenger and a survivor, he told himself firmly. He must either seize the day and accept what it offered him, or go join the other bench squatters.

He spent the first hour walking the alleys, inspecting the dumpsters the trucks had not emptied yet. They didn’t have what he was looking for. He needed a raincoat or an overcoat of some sort, in reasonably decent condition, to replace the crumpled one he wore. He found assorted small items of marginal usefulness, but took few of them, only what could fit in a pocket. He didn’t want to crowd anything else into his wizard bag. As the sky shifted from gray of dawn to gray of overcast, he found a plastic Pay N Save shopping bag. He dumped out its load of tissue paper and cellophane shirt wrapping. This was how it was to be today, he mused as he fit his brown paper sack inside it. A day of coping, of imperfect camouflage, of minimal surviving.

As soon as his bag was protected, he fell better. In the next dumpster, he found an unstained, unrumpled newspaper. He rolled it casually, and stuck it out the top of the bag. He strolled on, eating half an orange and throwing the moldy part into the next dumpster. He would make it, he cheered himself on. He just had to keep moving today, had to flow with the day as it presented itself to him. With a little faith, a little work and a touch of imagination, Seattle would take care of him.

He was at Pike Place Market at nine when it opened, having scavenged all the alleys between it and Occidental Square. He had precious little to show for his efforts, other than a bit of food in his belly and a plastic sack. His head was starting to ache; he needed a shot of coffee. But he wouldn’t get it looking as he did right now.

He had never liked the bathrooms at the market. For one thing, too many people passed through them; they were never truly clean or in the best repair. Although they were not dim, they were scarcely lit for shaving, even if they had boasted mirrors. He had to do a quick job by touch. He shook out his jacket, tucked his shirt in tightly, straightened his tie, and wiped his shoes over with a damp paper towel. Frantically, he tried to decide who he could be today. He looked, he decided, like a salesperson whose wife kicked him out of the house last night. No. The Pay N Save bag didn’t fit. Perhaps he worked in a slightly sleazy pawn shop, or adult book store. So what would he be doing in Pike Place Market in the middle of the day?

It didn’t work. He couldn’t get into it. The day had begun badly and would run badly. He ran over his mental list of sanctuaries and decided on the Klondike Gold Rush Memorial Park. That strange designation meant a storefront building on South Main where a bored man in a ranger suit presided over memorabilia of the Gold Rush. But Wizard could spend time there, sitting in a darkened room while the park ranger ran educational films about the Gold Rush era, or perhaps about the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. It didn’t matter which today, for he wouldn’t be watching. He’d only be marking time until evening when he could make a run for his den.

He boarded the bus and sat staring out the window. Depression stuck to him like old gum on a shoe. Hiding would not make him less vulnerable. One had to blend, to be unnoticed.

The bus paused to let two more people board- Both of them walked past the empty seat beside Wizard to stand in the aisle at the back of the bus. When he realized it, he tried to keep the anger and panic out of his eyes. So be wasn’t passing today.

So I’m a derelict, he thought savagely. Well, then I’ll damn well be one today. There’s camouflage, and there’s camouflage.

So today he’d be a bum on a park bench, looking just as defeated and incompetent as the rest of them. He could tough it out until nightfall. He discarded the shopping bag and paper on the bus, wedging them down between the seats. When he stepped off at his stop with his wadded paper bag and wrinkled suit, he scowled at the people boarding. No beggar asked him for money today.

Resentment seethed through him as he stumped back to Occidental Square, and he didn’t try to resist it. A sense of being wronged by everyone fit well with this new character.

He’d enjoy it. So why hadn’t Cassie put him out last night so he could have headed for his own den? Why hadn’t he thought of it himself? She warned him to conserve his strength and guard his weapons, then kept him at her place with small talk until he dozed off, and had to awaken and fade this day. If only he had dressed a little more casually yesterday, in jeans and a sweater, it wouldn’t have mattered today. But no, he had followed Cassie’s idea for him. “Always dress up, never down.

A little bit of class implies authority and intimidates. Besides, dressy clothes are discarded before they are worn out, and a truly classic style varies little from year to year. Take the blazer, for example, or a man’s black raincoat. How much have they changed in the last ten years? Now, if you went to the secondhand store and looked for jeans, you’d only find worn ones with the knees and crotch gone, and new ones in improbable sizes. But dress slacks are given away because hubby got a bit too chubby, or they don’t go with the new jacket. It’s the same for dress shoes. You ‘II never find decent sneakers in a dumpster, but one out of every ten dumpsters will yield a perfectly good pair of loafers or oxfords. Keep looking and you’ll find a size close to yours.“

He could almost hear her. She was right, usually, he grudgingly admitted. He had once spent an entire day in the Elliott Bay Bookstore, looking at the shelves, and no one had asked him to leave. He’d had a tie on.

His pigeons dipped and wheeled to meet him; his black mood lifted slightly. Then he noticed the heaviness of the clouds that made up their backdrop. It was going to rain today, rain as only Seattle knew how. “Like a cow pissing on a flat rock,” someone had hitched to him once. He tried to catch the fleeting memory and got a confusing image of a triple-canopy jungle and a sweating black man with rain dripping off his chin. He blinked away the non sequitur and sat on his bench to begin his methodical scattering of popcorn. Lost in thought, he watched the feathered backs before him as the birds pecked and scrabbled for the feed. Their tidy industriousness sank him further into bleakness. He was failing today, defeated by himself before he had even confronted the grayness of Mir. If only he had a cup of coffee.