Chapter 8: ResonanceWorn out from his day, McGauran stops at the street pump to splash his gritty face with water. Taking a moment to look around, he slicks his hair back and puts his cap back on. At the end of the street, the sun is setting, and in this golden pink light, the neighborhood almost looks washed anew. But when he looks up at all those factory chimneys spitting black smoke into the dusky sky, he’s quickly reminded of why he needs to escape these streets. This goddamn canal. He won’t be another man’s cheap labor. Won’t end up coughing blood in some drinking hole. Or dying alone in a shabby house on Sebastopol Row.
Alone.
Yes, he’d thought himself doomed to a life of loneliness. He’d held on to the idea of escaping to the west, of living an almost savage existence, estranged f
