Danny washed his hands and his head in the sink, where the water was one or two degrees warmer than ice, and that made him feel the best he'd felt so far that morning, meaning toward the upper spectrum of very very very bad, so he went ahead and splashed his whole naked body until he was shivering on top of the shaking.
When he came back out, limping on his damaged knee, Danny spotted his pants dangling over the side of an old Chinese screen. They looked like they'd been thrown there, which made Danny actually say out loud, Don't think about it, meaning the exact scene or moment that had sent his pants flying six or seven feet in the air. Don't think about it. Just get the pants on. Danny tugged them over his wet legs He found his shit and jacket and underwear and socks in different parts of the same general area -- all thrown, it seemed. Don't think about it.
Within minutes Danny was dressed except for his boots. He couldn't find them around the bed, and when he moved beyond it, looking under furniture, thinking maybe the boots had gotten shoved or rolled or thrown (don't think about it), he found nothing but dustballs the size of grapefruits. The more he looked, the more his heart clenched up. These were Danny's lucky boots, the only boots he owned, although he'd shelled out enough repairing and resoling them over the years to buy five or six new pairs, easy. He'd bought the boots right after he got to New York, when he'd just figured out who he was not (Danny King, suchagoodboy) and was burning up with excitement to find out who he was instead. The store had a big rubbery dance beat coming over the sound system, a beat Danny had been listening to ever since, for eighteen years, in stores, clubs, restaurants -- he barely noticed it now. But that day in the shoestore, Danny felt like he'd stumbled upon the world's secret pulse. Danny gritted his teeth from excitement. He thought: I'm a guy who wears boots like this. It was the first thing he knew about himself.