35

The sewers were running full today meaning it's raining up there. I get good stuff when the sewers are fast. My net always comes back with something interesting. Already today I've gotten a chair, two books, four decent magazines, a Styrofoam head and, my lucky luck, a wallet with $54, some credit cards, driver's license and a family picture.

I'm drying them all out in my quarters. I have a great section of the tunnel--all to myself, too. Nobody goes out this far, only me. Just in case, though, I've set booby traps and signals to let me know if someone's coming and I managed to rig a door with a lock. I even figured out how to tap into the nearby subway's electricity. You can't believe the luxury you can make for yourself in the sewers.

I sit with the wallet under my red lamp. Though the money really will come in handy once it's dry, it's the family picture that draws me. Frederick M. Spalding stands with his family. Frederick requires corrective lenses to drive. His family is dressed for the 1980s and his wife grins gummily for the camera. His two children gaze slightly off to one side and are frozen mid-giggle at something the photographer is probably doing with a stuffed animal. Frederick is looking straight at the camera lens. He is not smiling. His face is smooth behind the oversize glasses. Frederick is staring from the Sears studio in 1988 through to me, still damp from my fishing expedition, in my sewer home, over twenty years later. Frederick M. Spalding. Can you feel me staring back through time at you?