Anyway, I eased up on the carbs so I could squeeze out my little window and stand on the fire escape. Looking down I noticed several of my cigarette butts in the courtyard below. I met the woman that lives in that apartment during Hurricane Sandy. I haven’t discussed the hurricane at all because it didn’t affect me. If you are a long time reader you will know that if I’m not directly affected by something it probably didn’t happen.

We had a nice discussion over the high winds as we stood on the stoop of the building. I was a bit preoccupied calculating my ability to push her out of my way if a strong wind should occur. She definitely said she was a musician and she said this with an English accent so you know she’s cool and probably a bit pissed about the revolution and a bit touchy about how English musicians stole the black man’s music. Again, not directly affecting me so I didn’t dwell on it.

Looking at the butts on the ground I thought I would do the honorable thing and write her a letter apologizing for the cigarette butts and Romney’s recent UK visit. I taped it to her door. Admittedly creepy but that’s how we do in the Midwest and besides I may need to hit her up for a loan that I will, of course, never repay.

She wrote a nice letter back saying that she noticed a cloud of what she thought was dust descending on her courtyard and that must have been the ashtray. I then had to write her back saying that that was actually me shaking out a rug out. The deeper it went the worse I looked.

So the whole point of this pointless little post is that if you hear a song on the radio entitled “The Asshole in 2D” it’s probably about me.

I’m sitting outside a coffee shop in the East Village with a pack of cigarettes on the table.

“Mind if I sit down?” a guy asks. He has one of those great New York accents.
“Donald” he tells me as he lights a cigarette and extends his hand- we shake.
“We are a dieing breed.” He says, motioning to his cigarette. I laugh even though I’ve heard and said that line a thousand times. It’s how smokers begin a conversation- it oils up the talk.

A fire truck goes by and all the firemen call out to Donald and wave. He smiles and waves back.

He asks where I’m from.

“Good people in the Midwest” He says when I tell him. “Pretty part of the country too.”

I agree- it’s funny how you don’t notice those things until after you leave.

“I’m about to make a terrible mistake- in about 15 minutes” he says- dragging deeply on the cigarette.

I don’t press it, he doesn’t offer.

He’s a retired firefighter who broke his back in during 9/11. He was hospitalized and forced into retirement. He had been off heroin for many years before that but with the pain medication he slipped back into using. He’s been clean now for 3 years.

The bad decision he is about to make is that the corner we are sitting on is the same corner his dealer works.

“Funny, I woke up today, walked around and found myself here, on this corner." He said smiling. "I found myself here, after taking two trains and walking 10 blocks” I just found myself here.

I told him a bit of my own past demons.

"Good people in the Midwest." He says again. "I mean there are assholes everywhere but there seem to be fewer there.”

“I’m wondering if this move to New York was a bad idea.” I say in response.

“It’s not”, he replies but doesn’t tell me why it’s not a bad idea, some information I could use right about now.

“Want to know how we would find the bodies of firemen in the towers? The smell of the burned equipment. Civilians we couldn’t find, there was nothing left of them. But the firemen in the protective gear, it’s a smell you never forget. They turned to jelly in those suits”

There isn’t anything I can say to that. So I stay quiet.

“I started taking meds for the rods in my back and the dreams- next thing you know I’m shooting up and ended up in the vaults." He explained, "The key to the vaults is you got to crush an orange around your nose and mouth to mask the smell. The vaults*.” He motions over his shoulder, beyond Thompkins Square Park. (I may have mis-heard the word "Vault" I looked it up and could't find any reference to it)

I’m looking toward the corner to see if I can see anyone that resembles a drug dealer. I don't even know how to respond because I can't even imagine how it feels to live through that. I do understand the 'urges' so I talk about what I understand.

“The beauty of having three years off heroin is that you won’t get dope sick if you don’t use today. You can always use tomorrow- it’s too pretty of a day to throw three years out the window. Tomorrows supposed to be shitty- I’d wait until tomorrow.”

He laughs “Yea, tomorrow, maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow's always a good time to start back up”

I like Donald- he’s a nice guy.

He smiles, “I know I’m not going to shoot up today. I knew the moment I told you I was going to”

I understand the notion of "telling on yourself" but I have to ask. “Wonder why you decided to tell me. What made you sit down next to me and tell me?”


“Guys like us can spot each other a mile away.” He says. "I'm going home to see my wife."

We shake hands and he walks toward the subway, away from the corner. I wish I had gotten his number so I could check in on him but maybe we were just supposed to meet over a cup of coffee and a cigarette on a pretty autumn day.

There was an old man at my job when I first started, 9 years ago. He was, appropriately enough, named Dick and he was mean old man.

He had one of those cancer voice boxes, you know the kind where they put this little mechanism up against their throat and speak through it- I've also heard them referred to as cancer kazoos- although I suspect that this is less than politically correct. The sound of that drone would make me cringe. His main complaint was that he couldn't express emotions with the kazoo although the only emotion I could ever get from him was annoyance. He once explained to me that "you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground" I would, of course, beg to differ. Dick would slam his open hand on my desk and proceed to insult me- I usually ended the converstion by telling him to "get the f* out of my office". He stopped speaking to me after I refused to call him anything but Little Mary Sunshine.

He went into a coma and was put on life support- two days after that his family made the decision to pull the plug. I always thought it was interesting that they only took two days to make that call. I think you are supposed to re-evaluate your opinion of people out of respect after they die- I didn't- Dick was a mean old man.

He wheeled up to the main entrance, pulled himself out of the wheelchair and sitting on the lowest step he lifted himself up each step, backward.

Could you get that for me?” he said nodding to the chair.

I struggled to carry it up the stairs

“Damn, it’s heavier than I would have thought.”

“It’s even heavier when you have to sit in it”- he laughed in a mean spirited way, which I didn’t much care for.

He climbed back into the chair once we were inside and only then did he look at his surroundings. A smokey, beaten down building, once a large, private residence, then a cooking school now a smokey, beat up, recovery center. We called it ‘the clubhouse’.

Despite his initial gruffness Jerry became a favorite at the clubhouse. His drunk stories were entertaining and they always ended with the police trying to arrest him and he fighting several of them either in his wheelchair or sprawled on the floor swinging his arms. He had a huge laugh that would ring out when he told his stories of drunken debauchery.

He had become paralyzed in a car accident and was expecting a big payday after his lawsuit finished out. He was suing his former friend that was driving the car the night they were in the accident. Jerry and his friend had been drinking and drugging all night. His friend was driving the car when they ran into something, I never knew what. Jerry became paralyzed but his friend escaped any major injury. Jerry decided to sue this guy for the loss of his legs. It always seemed peculiar that Jerry blamed his friend, as they had both been drinking and Jerry could have just as easily been driving the car, but I didn’t say anything, because, despite his huge laugh, Jerry was an angry man capable of great violence, even if he was in a wheelchair.

Jerry was one of those who came in and out. He got a significant amount of time at first, maybe 9 months and went out one day when he was feeling sorry for himself, that’s usually how that happens. After his initial relapse he could never stay sober. He would always come back with stories of his exploits- each worse than the last. He was still getting into fights with the police and getting arrested but the stories were no longer funny. He asked me one day, after recounting the tales of yet another weekend of binge drinking, why the people at the clubhouse didn’t respond to his stories anymore. I decided to just answer with the truth, at least how I saw the truth.

“The problem with your stories, Jerry, is that they are happening now. Those kinds of stories are funny only after they are over, when they are happening they are heartbreaking. - That shit going on in your life now isn’t funny ...it’s just sad.”

I don’t think he spoke to me after that. That was about 8 years ago and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. Someone told me that he was in prison for selling crack and that the big court payoff never happened- but who knows- He may be fine. He could be telling the stories about fighting cops that happened a long, long time ago and how he's grateful that he doesn't have to live that way anymore...or not.

I was standing outside Oak Street, finishing up a cigarette before the AA meeting began. I saw a red sports car pull up and out of the passenger side stepped a woman. The car sped off as she crossed the street to go to the meeting. She was all dolled up, make up applied, hair just right, you could tell it was her first time at an AA meeting.

It’s easy to tell when someone is there for the first time they are either beat down mentally and often physically, they shake and they are full of shame or they come strolling in as Kristen did put together extra well. Yes, they will go to AA as they were court ordered, but they will make damn sure it obvious that they don’t belong with a bunch of drunks. I liked her right off the bat and she and I, with time, would become close friends. She asked where the meeting was, I pointed through the doors, she smiled, took a deep breath and walked in.

She never could stay sober; she’d get a couple of months and then go back drinking. She died in June at the age of 28. Between the alcohol, drugs and the eating disorder her body just couldn’t take it. Her family had a closed casket, because her body and face showed signs of the struggle. Some of her friends were bothered that it was a closed casket. I, for one, was glad they did it. Kristen liked to look good, she wouldn’t have wanted us to see her any other way- of course maybe that’s what killed her.

D.P., a guy I used to chum around with is a smart and clever guy. He has a great sense of humor and a huge belly laugh. He reminded me of a big laughing Buddha.

He receives social security checks which I never understood. He usually held a job and other than being a little weird about women he seemed ok. In my early days I was as liberal as they come. Social services are the price we pay to live in a civilized society was my motto, (actually it was, 'another one over here barkeep').

DP had a guy who he used to be friends with as his payee. Essentially what a payee does is have the SS checks sent to him, help the recipient with a budget and basically make sure that all the money doesn’t go to hookers and crack.

DP felt the guy was screwing him over and asked me to take over this role. I was fine with it, although I did tell him that I would take these duties seriously and that he needed to consider that before he got me involved with it.

I was planning a party at the house on Hays for a friend of mine who had just had their second child, DP was co-hosting this party because he is good at organization and food preparation. We had a great day going to Cosco, and planning the festivities, etc. As I said DP is a smart, funny guy and a joy to spend the day with. Afterwards we would go to social services to arrange the change.

When we got to social services I had to be interviewed, DP immediately changed. He started talking to the social services rep in a child’s voice and he kept saying “I don’t understand”, at one point he started to almost cry with frustration. …”but the guy my last guardian stole my money.” It was all an act. It was complete bullshit, DP was working the system and he did it shamelessly, profitably and very well.

I still believe that social services are the price we pay to live in a civilized society but I would be curious to know how many people milk the system. If you want to be uplifted by the struggle of people to get better and then depressed by the number of people that work it, go to a dependency 12 step meeting- Zoiks.

DP and I eventually had a falling out over his budget, as was to be expected, and he had me replaced as his payee, which was fine because I couldn’t help but feel like an accomplice. I’m still pretty liberal, but I am less naïve than I once was.

I had this up once before and I took it down because I thought it might violate someone's anonymity- but the more I look at it the less I think it does. I may have a change of heart and delete it again.

Heroin Part 2

D- worked as a waitress. When she got caught cashing stolen checks with her sister she was sent to a drug rehab/ half way house. Her drug of choice is herion, like her sister and her mother.

She told me that waiting tables is a great job for a heroin addict. Cash paid daily. She worked at several restaurants usually getting fired. She told me that she has only had sex with a guy for money once, but I would imagine that if you are a heroin addict its a fine line between dating and whoring.

D- and I used to be very close friends. There was never anything sexual in our relationship but we enjoyed each others company and spent a great deal of time together. It's too hard to keep a friendship up with a drug addict once they begin using again. They are heart breaking. You will continue to do them favors as a friend. Lend them money that you know you wont get back. After a while you realize that you are being used, they no longer consider you a friend, you are just another resource.

The last time I considered myself friends with D- was when I lent her money and she asked me drop her off at the McDonalds on V* Street to score heroin. I dropped her off and told her she'd have to walk back- I didn't want that shit in my car. As I drove away I realized I made a mistake in giving her money and driving her to her dealer. Her choices are hers but it would be on my head if she OD'd. I decided then and there that I couldn't be the friend she needed.

I saw D- a few months ago, she was picking up some prescription at the CVS. She had given birth to a son. Her boyfriend left her, she was talking about having him arrested but it was unclear for what. She didn’t want to engage in conversation with me, I thought it was because she owed me money or because I didn’t bring her cigarettes at the Justice Center like she asked or because she was dope sick and ashamed but I realize now she was probably picking up a prescription under a phony name.

We had two people over on Friday night that K- wanted to fix up. I was less enthusiastic but with our fight earlier in the day I thought it best not to make waves. Choose your battles, a wise woman told me.

It turned out to be a wonderful time. K- made a lovely meal, the fire was blazing and the two actually hit it off.

At 10 o'clock they wanted to go to a bar to hear some music- "good", I thought "have a wonderful time" but alas it turns out we are going to go join them in order to keep them 'comfortable'. I'm less interested in keeping them comfortable and more interested in going to bed.

We went to a place called the Gypsy Hut to hear, what turned out to be, an early 20 something punk screaming into the microphone. There seem to be a lot of mutton chops and Russian fur hats. The men looked even stranger. The place was smokey, I quit smoke 2 years ago and find the smell to be atrocious but the act of smoking still looking good. It's a madonna/ whore thing I have going with cigarettes

The next day, while lieing in bed, K- is talking to her girlfriend, finding out how the rest of the night went. There was a lot of chatter and laughing as I attempted to sleep.

"I'm so glad you like him" K-said into the phone. "Was it a long kiss good night or a quick kiss? Ooooh, I love the long kiss good night. The first six months will be great! but after that..."

The first six months! They just went on their first date last night and already these two had mapped out the first 6 months and of course the slow demise of romance after that. That poor bastard doesn't have stand chance.

We had a book group last Saturday night on The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud. It was my first book club and a very pleasant experience.


One woman was much too enthusiastic about the whole book club concept and wanted to know who had read the book.
"Did you read it?" she demanded from me early on.
"Yes I did -but I don't think a lot of people finished it" I responded, wondering who the hell she was but more than willing to rat people out.
"Oh" she said in a fright, "People have to read the book." She raced around the party looking for the remiss book club members "Did you read it?" she asked an equally confused man I'd never seen before. Their voices trailed off.

"I didn't read it," said Ken and took a drink. He had waited to approach until after she had left.
"I figured as much", I replied.
When I visited Ken's apartment several years ago he had two paperback books on his window sill, there were no other books in the place.
"Did you read all those?" I had asked him, pointing to the two books, he looked at the books and seemed confused as to why they were there and went back to watching golf on TV. Some people aren't readers.

There were 16 people discussing the book which seems like too many, especially when you throw liberal drinking into the mix.

Joe hadn't read the book but that didn't keep him from discussing it, and drunkeenly assault anyone that disagreed with him "9/11 changed everyone!!" he barked at us. It was quiet as we all tried to figure out what in the Sam Hill he was talking about.

Chuck spent most of the night explaining what happened in the book to the prettiest and youngest woman there, K- and Ken's wife, Felicia.
"Does it seem like Chuck is always trying to pick up our wives?" I asked Ken.
"Yup, everytime we get together", Ken responded. We watched for a minute and then went to the kitchen to get more snacks.

K- got tired and wanted to leave.
Joe's wife offered to host the next book club and would let us know the book.
Ken promised to read it but asked that it be at least under 300 pages.
Joe got mad at me, for some reason, and flipped me off

It's funny, many years ago I used to be chased by the police with some of these people now we are discussing books. There were no fights, no tears, no drunken hook-ups. Where have all the good times gone?

I don’t know why that guy is in AA. He may be court ordered, he may honestly be trying to quit smoking crack or drinking or whatever his problem is. He just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would show up voluntarily. Maybe he’s lonely.

Recovery is a great place to meet people and socialize. It's high school with ashtrays and the prom queen is a crack whore. Well... maybe its not like high school at all, but it is a good place to meet people.

I was going through some of the posts I've written and they are pretty depressing. So to the two people who read these posts(Storm in Rosewood and Anonymous) if you are still around- I apologize, but thank you for the comments.

For the past few months I've been thinking about my life and the people I've known and the tragic cases are the ones that stand out. Perhaps one of my resolutions should be to focus myself of the positive stories and less on the depressing ones.

To me Bones is not depressing. I have always loved talking to him and I've gotten a kick out of the two of us becoming friends. Two more unlikely people you will not meet.

The sisters J- and D- are sad cases, especially because they will both be dead in short order unless they pull themselves together. The saddest thing about them is that I don't know if they can get it together.

Mandy Lee, the one who saw the UFO, married a crooked cop and is now separated and has a restraining order against the, now, ex-cop.

It's a strange conglomeration of people that I know and before I can be too judgmental I have to remember that I have my own problem. We know each other because water will seek its own level. I hope it doesn't sound as though I am talking down about these acquaintances, that isn't my intention.

Heroin Part 1


I see her enough on the corner that if she isn’t there I notice, at the exit off the highway. You’ve probably noticed her, but didn’t give her too much thought except to think to yourself, 'Get a job. Who’d live that way'. It would be easier to actually work. She looks miserable/ ugly/ like stone/ staring directly ahead of her, not looking directly at anyone. If you want to give her money you’d have to call out to her because she’s not looking at you.

I knew her right after she got out of jail for forgery. She and her sister were cashing stolen check and they got caught. She was sent to State Reform for Women. They were forging the checks to buy heroin back in ‘95. That’s her thing. That’s what makes her face so itchy that she scratches it raw. When she got out of prison she had been off heroin and was trying to stay clean,that's when I met her. You wouldn’t know it to look at her today, but she’s actually a very intelligent, funny person with an incredible knowledge and appreciation for music.

Staying off heroin was too difficult for her.

Now She just looks like marred stone. Her face is emotionless as she stares straight ahead. She’s not begging, she is standing there, if you want to give her money fine, but she wont ask you for it directly. She has a sign, "hungry and homeless". She hasn’t eaten and looks too skinny, but I don’t think she’s hungry. She’s a junky, she’s not hungry. she also isn't homeless. She lives at ****. It’s a new address it seems like she’s always lived downtown.

When I knew her she had a job working at the Salvation Army sorting clothes, her mom got her the job but her mom isn’t doing much better than she.

J- is her name, she’s been arrested 6 times for panhandling always by the same cop. You’d think Officer M- would just let it ride after awhile, but he keeps ticketing her. Its an $80 ticket, yet she keeps going to the exit off the highway with her sign and her face of stone.

Bones and I were sitting around the coffee shop, not doing much of anything.

Bones: "My kid aint spoke to me in 30 years" Bones began.

Midwest: "That seems kind of extreme, maybe he needs to get over whatever his problem with you is."

Bones: "Nah...I hit him around too many times, he got the right to not talk to me"

There really isn't much to be said after that. He looked genuinely sad. I don't think I'd ever seen remorse in his face. I had a mental picture of him in his prime; thin, wirey and violent- straight razor in his sock, which he still carries. I could imagine all the damage he had done yet all I could see before me was a thin old man, with faded tattoos, staring at his hands, regretting that he hit his son one too many times. He was no longer interested or able to hide the regrets and the loneliness.

Midwest: "The best thing he can do for himselddf is get over it"

Bones: "There are somethings you can never make right, that's just how that is, anyone tell you differently is lying or never did the things I done."

I no longer saw the old man who acquaintance, but a young punk who would have killed me over $20 or a misunderstanding. Bones was right, he should have died, he should never have lived past his prime. His hell is being as feeble and weak as the people he preyed upon.

I had a Social Studies teacher that used to tape wedding announcements from the newspaper to the blackboard. He would tape all the pictures of the ugly people who he felt shouldn't reproduce.

It was funny in a mean way. He'd been a teacher, a very good teacher for 20 plus years. The photos came from the local paper. I once asked him if he was worried that the picture might be a sibling of one of his students thus offending them. "No' he said, "if anyone knows how ugly they are it would be their siblings"

I know a lot of people who have had difficult lives. Everyone has a sob story (actually I don’t and I want to keep it that way). Angie goes to watch her son play football every week. She has never missed a game in his entire grade school, junior and high school career. That, in itself, is a warm story- makes you wish all parents were as involved and enthusiastic about their children.

The difference between Angie and the other parents is that her son doesn’t know who she is. She gave him up for adoption 16 years ago. She sits at the top of the bleachers- far away from the other parents. There is no question that her son is better off having grown up with different parents and in a different neighborhood. Still it is sad.

You could probably say a lot of negative things about Angie but you'd have admit that she’s never missed her son’s football game.

*For similar posts click on "People I've Met, Recovery"

The conversation turned to bank robbery. I said that I have always wanted to rob a bank. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, hell I didn’t even want to have a gun, but I always wanted to rob a bank. I think that everyone secretly wants to do that- Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, we wouldn’t recognize these names if we all didn’t, deep down inside, want to do what they did.

Bobby V agreed, he’d like to rob a bank. He looked at Bones, who at 80 plus years had very little to lose and lacked morals. "Bones you can drive the get away car". Bones looked indignant, "Hell no I ain’t driving no get away car, I’m going in."

In truth Bones had more nerve than any of us and I have seen him drive, we don’t want him driving the get away car. A 25 mile an hour car chase isn’t needed at this point in my life. He may think Johnny Cash is a pussy and he may have spent a lot of time in jail but he drives like an old lady. I’d never tell him that because the man can hold a resentment and he’d probably drive off and leave me after we held up the bank -of course I’d get away faster waiting for the bus. Still I don’t need Bones as an enemy. I was there when he reached across the table and bitch slapped some 20 year old punk and then threw hot coffee on him for good measure. But then he almost cried when he was barred from the coffee shop for a 30 days. He’s in a weird time in his life angry enough to kick ass but too old to hide the fact that he gets lonely.

I don’t know how old he is. Older than dirt is what he tells me. He could be 80 but he also has had a tough life and might be 70 and just look older. He has a full head of white hair which is always brushed straight back. He is skinny, but that’s not why they call him Bones. He has faded green tattoos. I have never been able to tell what they are tattoos of, it just looks like a green birth marks. He wears over sized clear glasses. His eyes are wet blue.

We are sitting around the table at the coffee shop. Bobby V is behind the bar. We are always sitting around the table, Bobby V is always behind the bar. We look to the TV when the conversation dies out. Something on the TV will spark another conversation, we will each speak, as experts, on whatever topic the news is on. It could be drugs, Johnny Cash, terrorism, beauty pageants, child molestation, doesn't matter. A conversation will be started.

"Johnny Cash was a pussy, he sang about doing time but he never did any except for some bullshit charge for drugs."
"What the hell kind a woman gonna let her children run around a bar."
"Why the hell she leave her kid with that sick motherfucker?"
"Can you believe that dumb sonofabitch got caught? You know he was bragging, that's how they got him"


The conversation will slowly begin to take on a life of its own- it will start to hum and can be disconnected from life support (the TV). It almost sounds like an old VW bus we had, it would start out slow, build some momentum begin to roar and slowly sputter out and die. When the conversation died we'd all look to the TV searching for a new topic. Taxes, political corruption, spouse abuse, rape something would come along that we could discuss at length and end an uncomfortable silence.

Mandy Lee told me a story from her youth as we drove around town. She was showing me all the places she had been in rehab, foster care and jail. We stood outside the jailhouse as she counted windows to find her cell. I called it the 'Mandy Lock Down Tour of '98'. I was going to have t-shirts made up but I must have lost interest. It's surprising to me the number of people who have been to jail and didn't find it all that bad. When I asked one crusty old woman why she didn't mind jail she said, "what's not to like it's three hots and a cot." Seems like there would be easier ways to get three hot meals in a day but I digress.

Mandy Lee was telling me about the time her mom brought her to the symphony, I believe it was the 1812 Overture. Her mom got the tickets as some sort of 'bringing culture to welfare cheats' program or some such thing. Mandy Lee was young and that particular day she was hungry. Being a child at the symphony, even one with cannon fire, is bad enough but add to the mix hunger and you've got a wicked combination.

Mandy Lee kept asking her mom for a snack, but her mom was having none of it. As she got hungrier, she complained more and as the symphony got louder she complained louder. Finally, in an effort to be heard over the music she screamed,

"I WANT SOME GOVERNMENT CHEESE!!!!!"

Of course the music ended right before she began to scream and everyone turned and stared at her mother.

I haven't seen Many Lee for many years, maybe the aliens have taken her home. I hope she packed a lunch for the trip.

I met Amanda several years ago. Although, now that I think about it her birth name was probably not Amanda as she was named after a soap opera character named Mandy Lee. So I guess she is a Mandy Lee. Neither here nor there (or is it) She swore to me that she saw a UFO.

She and her boyfriend lived in a rural area (it may have been a trailer, but that would be too perfect) One evening in summer Mandy Lee heard her boyfriend give a scream and she ran outside to see what had happened. There, as plain as day, was an Unidentified Flying Object hovering directly overhead. Her boyfriend ran back into the house but Mandy Lee did not. She stood there. She was not scared, excited, nervous, or mystified. It made perfect sense to her. The UFO was coming to take her home, of this she had no doubt.

She laughs about it but she also seems sad when she tells the story. The UFO did not take her home. It flew off as quickly and silenty as it appeared. Mandy Lee had to come to terms with the fact that she was home already and that her feelings of being misplaced were something else- also unidentified.

I bailed Aaron out of jail after he robbed a convenient store. He reached over the counter and took a handful of twenties and ran. He called me and we met at Highland Coffee House. The problem wasn't that he was remorseful; the problem was they had already identified him it was only a matter of time before they picked him up. I told him that I didn't know shit about this stuff but that he should get a lawyer. I also suggested that since they know it was him and he was going to get caught anyway he might as well turn himself in. I figure they would go easier on him if he pretended to be have second thoughts about his actions and marched over to the police station. He took my advice and called me back at 1:00 AM asking me if I could bail him out of jail, which I did. I thought it was sad, he’s in jail and the only one he could call was a guy who he barely knew. I was explaining this to Bones the next day when Bones enlightened me on how the process works.

“He called you because he done fucked over everyone else. Family, friends you name it he used ‘em up. Who else is gonna bail him out except some sucker that don’t know him”

“Well it was only $100” I said, trying not to show that I began to see that I was screwed.

Bones smiled sadly at my ignorance, “It’s $100, that’s 10% of what you’ll owe if he don’t show to trial”I tried my best to look as though I was well aware that I might be out $1,000.

“...and if you don’t pay it they can take your house”

This was unsettling and I suspected Bones was lying about the property but I wouldn’t let on.
“Bones, sometimes a guy has just got to have faith in someone else, it will all work out the way it’s supposed to”
Bones wasn’t buying into my new found spirituality for a minute. He just shook his head. Even as I was speaking I was scavenging for the bail paper I signed. I needed a little light shed on this cocksucker who was about to fuck me out of $1,000.

Aaron did show up for his court date and got a little slap on the wrist. Since he just reached over the counter and grabbed some $20’s without violence or a gun and the fact that he turned himself in they let him off.

Aaron had to laugh, the guy that he shared a cell with while I was bailing him out spent more time in jail for an unpaid parking ticket than Aaron did for robbery.