"And birds and small children," he says.

 

With the beard, you couldn't see his dimples should he happen to smile, an event which doesn't seem likely to occur anytime soon.

 

I take another donut.

 

"You'll get fat," Danny says. I take a third, and put it in front of me on a napkin, in the on-deck position. I figure I can sit here for a while and wait for Danny to talk. If he doesn't talk tonight, I'll come back tomorrow, and then the next day, if I need to.

 

"So," I say, "what do you mean, it's over?" I stuff the rest of the second donut into my mouth to shut myself up.

 

"That's what I mean," he says. Then he leaves the table and returns to the kitchen. I sit there for a while, hoping some plan of action will come to me, some wisdom from above, or that Danny will come back out of the kitchen, smiling, throwing donuts around his head and tell me it's all a joke, have another donut, it's on the house, and he'll toss it to me and I'll catch it. But that doesn't happen, even though I give it plenty of time. While I'm waiting for deliverance I look through two different booklets listing real estate for sale in the area, and then I balance my checkbook. Then I walk behind the counter and into the kitchen, where I find Danny sitting on a gleaming metal counter, smoking.

 

"You'll stunt your growth," I say. "And it's bad for the donuts."

 

He takes a particularly deep drag. As he does I notice a dark, pink-red slash on the back of his right hand, a burn.

 

"Go away," he says.  I think about it.

 

I wouldn't mind being behind my desk in Chicago right now, where I have a job so full of paper that my hands are littered with papercuts, and I have a recurring dream in which nothing happens - it's just me standing still, looking at stacks of paper. But at least, there, I know what I am doing. In fact, I'm even good at my job, which is compensation of a type, although if I was able to choose my skills I'd have chosen otherwise.

 

And here I am, in this freezing cold city, why we both live in such cold places is a mystery, and I am not equal to this task of telling my brother why life is worth living, which seems to be why he has summoned me here.

 

"I'll leave," I say. "I'll leave on one condition. First you have to juggle for me."

 

"Too late," Danny says. "I quit. I'll never be great and so I quit."

 

"Too bad," I say. "Because I'm not leaving until you juggle."

 

"You've got a long wait in store, baby," Danny says, flicking ash onto the floor and I follow its path down to the grey linoleum and when I look up I notice the bum again.

 

"I'll wait," I say.

 

And I leave the kitchen. Too bad the door is a swinging one or I'd slam it. I go back out to the same booth, where I spend several more hours, during which I switch from coffee to tea and from chocolate glazed to Boston Cream to plain. I file my nails again. Then I polish them, bright pink. Then they dry.

 

I decide that I'm not one to deliver empty threats, and Danny's not the only one who can quit. If he's going to quit then I'll quit, too, I'll quit my job and sit here in this Dunkin' Donuts and drive him crazy until he changes his mind.

 

At midnight Danny comes out of the kitchen with a coat on, and tells me to come with him. We go next door, to Friendly's, and I'm introduced to Cindy, a tired-looking woman who waitresses there. Then Danny drives the three of us to Cindy's apartment, where I sleep on a sagging green couch in her living room and Danny and Cindy disappear into the bedroom.

 

The next day, in the open air of the apartment house's grassless back yard, under and over and around an empty clothesline, Danny juggles, and it is everything I ever dreamed.

 

When he finishes he drops a white plastic club striped with silver and blue to the ground and steps on it, hard, and it splits with a crack.

 

"You see," he says. "You see how it is."

 

And I don't see at all and I know that I never will. All I know is that this one time is not enough. And I could tell Danny how stupid he is to be quitting, which would be the truth but would do no good. So I tell him another truth. I say "Thank you," and Danny looks surprised and I have nothing left to say and all I can think of is all the balls and clubs that he has caught over the years, all of them crashing to the ground, and as each one crashes it hits me and each hit hurts.

 

"Well," Danny says.

 

"Well," I say, feeling like a retarded echo.

 

"I'll never be great."

 

"You liar," I say. "You coward." I am talking too much, but I can't seem to stop. "What made you so scared? You have the hands. You know it."

 

He chews his lower lip. I watch. Then I look down at the dirt, and then at our feet, mine in old white sneakers that look new, unscuffed, Danny's in once-white sneakers that are probably not very old. Then I see his hands, on the ground, collecting balls, six of them, six pink balls. And when I look up they are in the air, they are orbiting Danny's head.