Vag surveyed his full dresser drawers and then his suitcase. He wondered where he was going to put all this stuff. How did he ever get it up three flights? The amount of junk a guy can accumulate . . .

There was this load of general supplies he'd gotten on the swindle sheet. And a pile of score cards from Braves Field and Fenway Park. And the slick program from the Longwood Cricket Club. There was the radio with a crack through its plastic side suffered the night he'd been a little athletic with an empty beer bottle. That would have to go. All this and only one small suitcase. There was a pile of magazines and newspapers Vag had hoped to take with him, the clippings from the Sporting News and the columns from the Stock Market page. He'd have to give them the deep six. Maybe it would be better just to leave it all here and go to Graduate School. . . .

Before throwing his suits into the bag, Vag rifled the pockets for papers. Nothing but a crumpled cigarette. He turned the pocket inside out and let the tobacco fall to the floor. He got down and blew it into the fireplace.

It was something of a job getting the bag closed, even after taking some of the stuff out and hiding it beneath a note to his roommate to send it home for him. Vag kicked the valise over to the door and looked around the room. He would have liked to take those liquor bottles on the mantle. They really weren't empty. He looked at the banners on the wall. Kind of moth-eaten, but still good to see. What the hell, he thought, opening the door. He'd done this before. Going out the door was like walking into a blast of air that might have been the "cold, cruel world" they talked about, only it was August and hot and humid.

On the way to the subway, Vag took a last look at all the shops, the shoe-shine boys, and the Yard buildings. He pictured himself coming back here, in a few years perhaps. Growing old while this place never changed. He pictured himself slightly paunchy, standing around the punchbowl at a reunion in fifteen years. Finally, Vag broke into Harvard Square and darted across to the kiosk. He noticed the new sign, "Subway to All Points." Well, that's where he was going.