This is the author's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of the author's voice, we'll hear T. Coragison Boyle read his story,

The Fugitive from the July 4th, 2016 issue of the magazine.

Boyle has published more than two dozen stories in The New Yorker.

He's the author of 15 novels, including San Miguel, and The Harder They Come.

His 16th novel, The Terranauts, will come out in October.

Now here's T. Corraguson Boyle.

The Fugitive.

They told him he had to wear a mask in public, which was ridiculous.

It made him feel like he had a target painted on his back, or his face, actually, right in the middle of his face.

But if he wanted to walk out the door of the clinic,

he was going to walk out with that mask on.

Either that or go to jail.

Outside, it was raining, which made everything that much harder

because what were you going to do with a wet mask?

How could you even breathe?

Here, inside the office, with the doctor and his caseworker from

health services, there was no sound of the rain, or if there was, he couldn't hear it. All he could hear

was the rasp and wheeze of his own compromised breathing as he sucked air through the fibers

of the mask. The doctor was saying something to him now, and Marciano watched him frame the words

with his hands

...