He says Peter's on his way over for dinner, why don't I come, but I'm tired and I beg off.

Then I call Invierno.

It takes awhile for him to answer.

"Hi," I say, "It's Rafael."

"Hi," he says, disdainful.

"I got your messages, I've been meaning to call you back but I've been caught up with something."

"That's all right," he says. "I'm kind of in a hurry."

"Look, I'm sorry I haven't called you for awhile, I've been trying to get a business started."

He's contemptuous. "Well, good luck." He reaches for the cutoff.

"Hey," I say, "wait. Are you busy tonight?"

"Yeah," he says, "as a matter of fact, I am."

"Yeah," I say. "I guess you're not sitting around waiting for the phone to ring."

He purses his lips. "I, ah, I'm not busy tomorrow night," he says finally.

"Great. What do you want to do? I'm broke."

He is incredulous. "You call me for the first time in two weeks and ask me what I'm doing and have the nerve to tell me you're broke?"

"That's right," I say. "But I'm real fun to be with. Why don't you take me to the kite races?"

He laughs. And then we talk some, he asks me about my business and I tell him a little.

"So you won't have to go to Arizona," he says. "What's that noise?"

"It's a train. I'm calling from the subway. I've been working on something for two weeks and I just finished it, so I called you right away."

"Oh yeah?" The idea tickles him, that I called him right away.

"Yeah, I just submitted the damn thing, not fifteen minutes ago. I haven't eaten dinner yet."

"Rafael," he says, "did you eat lunch?" I must be attracted to motherly types. I pretend to consider. "I probably did," I say. Of course I ate lunch, I had a sandwich.

"Listen," he says, "I was going to go to this party, but it's no big deal. How about if I pick up some noodles or something and come by your place."

"Okay," I say, "I'd like that."

I catch the train and go home. The old D train all the way out to Coney Island, underground (except for the bridge) to Prospect Park and then up into the evening light. It's the second of November. In Baffin Island the days are almost gone. In Nanjing it's six in the morning. I don't have a dime, but I feel curiously light.

If this project sells, the fee will allow us to put a down payment on a system. A small system, but that will be better than going to the library. And I can talk to someone at Brooklyn College, maybe my ABC or my girl from Brooklyn could get credit as a student intern and I'll have someone to do some of the donkey work; the checking up on materials and all that. Eventually we're going to need a clerk. And Cinnabar said we'll have to file papers and get permits for the new company. We're going to call it Daoist Engineering.

I wonder if I could hire someone from the building? Maybe somebody like Vanni.

"Una luz brillara en tu camina." Used to be subway advertisements for the church that said that. During the Great Cleansing Winds religion was dangerous, but about five years ago they lifted the restrictions on religion. For awhile every time I got on the train I'd see one of those ads. "Una luz brillara en tu camina. Descubre lo que te has perdido." A brilliant light in your path. Discover what you have lost.

The light angles across Brooklyn, red now. It comes through the train windows. Sunset used to depress me. But I learned in Baffin Island, you've just got to remember the light, keep it inside you, and wait. The sun comes back every morning.