the dark shadow sprawled on the cobblestones, away from the litter of tea roses by the garbage cans.
He turned and left the narrow lane. It was full dark now. The stickball players had gone in. If there
were bloodstains on his suit, they wouldn’t show, not in the dark, not in the soft late spring dark, and
her name had not been Norma but he knew what his name was. It was. . . was
Love.
His name was love, and he walked these dark streets because Norma was waiting for him. And he
would find her. Some day soon.
He began to smile. A bounce came into his step as he walked on down Seventy-third Street. A middle-
aged married couple sitting on the steps of their building watched him go by, head cocked, eyes afar
away, a half-smile on his lips. when he had passed by the woman said, ‘How come you never look that
way any more?’
‘Huh?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, but she watched the young man in the grey suit disappear into the gloom of the
encroaching night and thought that if there was anything more beautiful than springtime, it was young
love.