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said, “Could I look at your coins, sir?”
    It was hard to know what to do. The eyes—or rather the hollow sockets—continued to press in at him in a complete circle; he felt them encompass him and his asbestos bag. I am shrinking, he thought in surprise. Why? He felt weak and glum, but not guilty. It was his money. They knew it and he knew it. And yet the vacant eyes made him small. As if, he thought, it doesn’t matter what I do, whether I get to the Mr. Job booth or not; what I do, what becomes of me—it won’t change things for these people.
    And yet, on a conscious level, he didn’t care. They had their lives; he had his, and his included a sack of carefully saved-up metal coins. Can they contaminate me? he asked himself. Drag me down into their inertial storm? This is their problem, not mine, he thought. I’m not going to sink with the system; this is my first decision, to ignore the two special delivery letters and do this: take this journey with this sack of quarters. This is the start of my escape, and there will be no new bondage.
    “No,” he said.
    “I won’t take any,” the youth said.
    A strange impulse overcame Joe Fernwright. Opening the bag he rummaged, got out a quarter; he held it out toward the Mexican youth. As the boy accepted it other hands appeared, on all sides; the ring of hopeless eyes had become a ring of outstretched, open hands. But there was no greedconspiring against him; none of the hands tried to grab his sack of coins. The hands were simply there, merely waiting. Waiting in a silence made up of trust, as his own earlier waiting at the mail tube had been. Horrible, Joe thought. These people think I’m going to give them a present, as if they’ve been waiting for the universe to do this: the universe has given them nothing all their lives and they have accepted that as silently as now. They see me as a kind of supernatural deity. But no, he thought. I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t do anything for them.
    But even as he realized this he found himself digging into the cloth sack; he found himself putting a quarter into one palm after another.
    Overhead, a police cruiser whistled loudly as it lowered, like a great lid, its two occupants in their slick, bright uniforms, wearing riot helmets that sparkled, holding, each of them, a laser rifle. One of the two cops said, “Get out of this man’s way.”
    The pressing circle began to melt back. The extended hands disappeared, as if into a numbed, intolerable darkness.
    “Don’t stand there,” the other cop said to Joe in his thick cop’s voice. “Get moving. Get those coins out of here or I’ll write you out a citation after which you won’t have one goddam coin left.”
    Joe walked on.
    “What do you think you are?” the other cop said to him, as the cruiser followed after him, holding its position directly above his head. “Some sort of privately endowed philanthropic organization?”
    Saying nothing, Joe continued on.
    “You’re required by law to answer me,” the cop said.
    Reaching into his asbestos cloth sack, Joe got out a quarter. He handed it up toward the nearer of the two cops. And, at the same time, saw with amazement that only a few quarters remained.
    My coins, he realized, are gone! So there is only one dooropen to me—the mail tube and what it has brought in the last two days. Whether I like it or not—by what I’ve done just now it’s been decided.
    “Why did you hand me this coin?” the cop asked.
    “As a tip,” Joe said. And, at the same time, felt his head burst as the laser beam, on stun, hit him directly between his eyes.
    At the police station the swank young police official, blond-haired, blue-eyed, slim, in his swank clean uniform, said, “We’re not going to book you, Mr. Fernwright, although technically you’re guilty of a crime against the people.”
    “The state,” Joe said; he sat hunched over, rubbing his forehead, trying to make the pain stop. “Not the people,” he