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Show 44 ran to the curb and waved their hands, trying to catch the attention of the police in the rear-view mirror. Lorin lined himself up closely behind a sweaty man in a T-shirt and inspected the dark purple acne scars on the back of his neck. Then he examined the warped toenails of a woman wearing sandals who was kneeling beside the wheel of the shopping cart. He noticed that somebody with red hands had picked up his sketchbook and was riffling pages, stopping once at the page of plump earthworms and then laying it back on the ground. Finally he looked up into the face of the man who had first stopped and was pressing his wrist with a thumb, and then he opened his eyes. Someone in the crowd exhaled. * * * He always kept the bedside lamp turned off because there was less visual interference in the dark. He could tune out traffic noises now and pretend the shadow of the acanthus was another window, this one looking out onto barns and rail fences and an iron pump in the kitchen yard and winding country lanes leading past furrowed pastures. He always knelt on the side of the bed that let him watch the door in case the crack of light from the hallway widened. That way he could settle into himself and change all the furniture in his room and be saying his prayers in the dark, the candle blown out to save tallow, and be ready when the room suddenly shuddered and he looked up. The angel standing there emitted an unsteady pulsating light that sent shadows of the bedpost and the ewer on the nightstand skittering across the walls like spiders. His white robe hung open to the navel, exposing bleached woolly hair on his white chest, and pale, iridescent nipples. Lorin stared at him for a long time, feeling a late summer breeze from the open window stiffen the hairs along the back of his neck, |