Bones was a cantankerous old man, but somehow we became friends. I always enjoyed his company. We would run into eachother at this coffee bar almost every day and would have a chat and a cup of pretty crappy coffee.

I'm not certain how old he was, when I asked he'd say, "older than dirt" but he was probably in his late 70's. His real name was Ray but everyone called him Bones.
"It's not because I'm skinny," he's explain "it's because I used to play dice."
He'd make a one handed gesture of shaking dice, which looked unsettlingly like masturbation. Apparently playing dice was all the rage on Race street back in the day. He came from a different time and place and I found his stories fascinating.

The first time I met Bones was in the coffee bar. I sat down at a table with some friends and began complaining about something, probably a woman. I was going on and on about how I had been done wrong when this angry voice from the table behind me yelled,

"Get off the cross, motherfucker, we need the wood"

That was the start of a beautiful friendship.