The alleys were lined with chipheads and other derelicts, human refuse, squatting in plastic shelters or just lying on the concrete ground, all short a couple of organs and any number of limbs. Corpses went into the ferrocrete Ditch of the Garden State Parkway. Black-clad sanitation crews swept the Ditch clean every day at dawn and dusk. Claude had good reason to know of that. The art of the physical adept often compelled him to contribute to the carnal chaff disposed of in the Ditch.