The Super Bowl had just taken place and there was that Monday-after-it feeling around town. People were talking about how the winning quarterback—I think it was Tom Brady—had done or said something regarding Nike. The events of the game had perhaps become mixed up with the ads somehow.

I was running to catch an MTA bus, except that it wasn’t New York City, it was more like Paris. The bus came at the top of a hill and went down toward a river, like the Left Bank goes down toward the Seine. As I rode it I realized I was hungry, and could eat anywhere I liked; I wondered where I could find great food; probably not along the big boulevards, I thought, but more likely in the side streets somewhere.

My bags were in the aisle. Three waiters who worked for the bus in some capacity got up and walked to the front, stepping over or around the obstacles. They leaned out the bus door and picked up glasses and bottles from tables on the street outside, and did so with acrobatic flair, like those showoff bartenders. Then I was sitting at a table with the waiters, and Jake and Kevin were there, and we talked to them about having gone to school in London back when there were riots in the streets.