Sunday fell as gray and flat as the translator's introduction in a high school world-lit anthology. Lying on the couch all night, I stared out the window at the ricocheting reflections of life below. At 7 a.m. I gave up on sleep altogether and began walking to the office.

I took Broadway down to Canal and headed west. The open-air Oriental markets with their iced soy milk and buckets of tiny grass-green turtles relinquished the street to an industrial sameness indistinguishable from the periphery of any American city. Gravel trucks and barricades made a maze of the sidewalk all the way to the Hudson, which stood like stale porridge in the cloudlight.

South of Canal the buildings were burnt bricks, low and built of a blackish stone that suggested the misery of long-ago immigrants and the grueling grime of industry. My destination was such an edifice, all possible entrances blocked off by construction crews and cranes. Noticing my confusion, an orange-hatted man pointed me to an unmarked metal door. Inside, I followed a dusty hallway to a narrow elevator and rode to the fifth floor, where I followed another hallway. Almost all the way back around to the elevator, I reached a door. A plastic, faux-wood sign read: TALENT AGENCY. The door was locked, and no one responded to my knocks. It was 8:45. I grabbed a rusty folding chair and waited. At 9:45 I went downstairs and crossed the street to a payphone. I dialed the office -- the phone rang and rang. No answering machine. I tried the door and waited some more. At 10:15 I went downstairs again.