13. The correct place.

Past the debris of discarded paper cups, cigarette buts, the bottle caps of beer, he walked. Skateboarders sped by him, then turned, kicked up their boards, and watched him.

He came to a circle of benches beneath the shade of some trees. An old man--unconscious and reeking--was slumped to one side. An old woman, a portrait of loneliness with swollen ankles, clutched her purse on the bench opposite, staring straight ahead. A couple broke off from each other to watch him, one of the two young men extinguishing his cigarette with his shoe and absently forgetting to exhale.

He had found the correct place. The pigeons fluttered around him, then descended. In Sarnath, they had been doves.