The sidewalk on 103rd, usually rat-infested, was frozen over glassy.

This morning I awoke at B.'s in Brooklyn to the shriek of newsradio: "… THE SENATOR REPEATED THAT PEOPLE SHOULD AVOID NEW YORK CITY SUBWAYS…" I slammed it off and got back in bed, faintly nauseous from the wine the night before, and pulled a blanket out of a tangled pile over me, and thought about devastation, bombings, poison gas, and whatever fate awaits us all.