When the guy downstairs died, I was just coming out of high school, not aware of much except the blank year that lay ahead of me where I would have to “get it together” and “turn things around” so colleges would take me seriously as a prospect. My parents had different ways of communicating the importance of what I was about to undertake. My mother scowled. My father shouted and then wept quiet, guilty tears. I don’t mean to suggest that I cared about what they did, only that I noticed. I thought about myself only, but narrowly, not what would become of that self or how I might be able to affect that process. The day the ambulance pulled up to take away Mr. Elson was just a Saturday, and not a particularly eventful one at that.
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