"Time is what I have."
Jones sighed. "It might turn out to be a problem, I think. Bothers me some. It would be a kindness if you would let me talk to you about it."
I stood up. Jones, making a gesture that clearly set him apart, put a quarter on the flat collection stone as he got up to join me. We strolled off through the dusk in the park, quietly. Jones, even in a state of some unease, was a comfortable presence. Over on the Broad Street side of the Yard, we sat down on a bench.
"Don't rightly know how to begin," Jones said, scratching his head with a fielder's-mitt-sized hand, "but—Ed, I expect you noticed something funny about Stanley? Or maybe about me?"
"I noticed that sometimes I see Stanley and sometimes I don't. And that sometimes you act as though you see him when he positively is not there."
"Um, yes. Makes you kind of unusual too, Ed. Because with Stanley it is mostly like this—when he is around, I mean. There are people who see him; a few. But most people, they can't see Stanley at all. With you, seems like it changes. Uptown you can't see him; down here you can."
"What?"
"Now me, I see him most all the time. All the time when he's around, that is; when he hasn't gone off someplace, like tonight. But most people, what you might call really normal people—no offense, Ed—they can't ever see Stanley."
It sounded silly. But Jones said it with a calm conviction that carried weight. If I couldn't believe it exactly, I didn't disbelieve him either. You hear plenty of queer stories on skid row—dreams, nightmares, nonsense. There used to be one crummy, rummy old bum around called Gov'nor who used to claim he really had been a governor. He drank down some office duplicator fluid and died. Police routine checked. He was an ex-governor. Probabilities eliminate no remote possibilities; if you flip a coin long enough, someday it will stand on edge.