There’s a dead pigeon in the gutter. It makes me sadder than it should. It’s not the death that’s most upsetting, or even the gutter of it all. It’s the mere fact of the pigeon, if you want to know the truth. “Watch your step,” I say to Marky, tugging his little forearm like I could swing his whole body up and over the curb. His sneaker grazes a smear of viscera, but he misses the bulk of the bird. “Oh,” Marky says. Squints. Shudders. They’re seemingly infinite, pigeons. One goes down, a swarm flocks in to fill the gap. Gray, blue-gray, purple-grayish-gray, evoking soot and ash, the remnants of things you clean out of a flue. My father used to forget to do that, every time he made a fire. “Goddamn flue!” he’d shout, pigeon-colored smoke choking the room. “It makes my elbows tingle,” says Marky. “What?” “Dead things.” We trot south, skirting slow walkers to make the light. My eyes keep dragging to Marky’s left shoe. The laces aren’t untied, not fully, it’s …