On the day in question I had risen early. I worked out, showered, and ate rolled oats with a banana. I went into the office early and appreciated the quiet afforded by being so close to a holiday. People are always advantageous and the holidays allow folks to justify not giving their day jobs, whatever they may be, all of their attention. Personally, I think that’s fine. I take advantage of that and focus on things that have been hiding in folders on my desktop, with titles that I don’t understand why I gave. At lunch I participated in the sparsely attended jiu jitsu class taking place next door with my boss. He was a do-gooder type who, I assume, felt he was opening doors for me, encouraging me to have good credit n shit. That was cool, I took a lot of the encouragement but never drank the kool-aid. People take themselves too seriously sometimes. 

After the roll about with the boss he sent me home early. I was never one to argue with an early day. I’ll happily get stoned a couple hours earlier than I had originally intended any time. Now at this time I’m living in the ghetto on State St. This prison block looking apartment complex. Bleek as fuck. My schizophrenic friend lives across the common space – the whole of which is no bigger than a dentist’s waiting room. She has a boyfriend who was recently released from prison, drugs charges. He later accidentally murders his best friend, both of them hopped up on meth, and finds himself presently back in prison, but this is all before that wild party. In this story he is fresh out of prison and my friend is helping him experience some of the things he missed – that whole story. She suggests we walk to DK Doughnuts, just 3 blocks away.

On the one hand doughnuts are always yummy… but on the other hand that amount of fried gluten dipped in sugar will most definitely give me some epic diarrhea… and probably a pretty intense sugar-coma. Fuck it! I’m a girl who likes to live on the edge. As I sat eating my maple bacon doughnut – yeah, I doubled down, I don’t half-ass shit – I watched an old man out the window. He was crossing the street slowly and with much effort. The weight of him pulling toward the ground more and more with every step, as though his soul was trying to return to the earth, but his feet pressed on without him. How was he still moving forward? I wondered. And then he collapsed into an old heap of rags on the sidewalk. Though there were a half dozen near enough to have witnessed it nobody raced to the old man’s aid. In fairness he looked like he smelled something awful. 

Eureka! I thought. That’s why I’m here! To help this old man! As this ran through my head I leapt from my seat, leaving my doughnut, friends, and beaded leather wallet (hand-crafted by a Paiute artist – this was stolen that day and the story of discovering who done it deserves it’s own chapter). As I ran across the street a very handsome man on a bike stopped and helped the old man up. Holding him upright the beautiful angel pivoted around seeming to look for just what to do with the old man now. He noticed me still running in their direction and said in a marvelously jarring british accent “Oy! Do you know this old man?”

To which I replied – obviously – “Shut the fuck up.” Followed closely by, “I mean no, I do not. I am just a very good person who saw him fall and came to help. I have a car 3 blocks down, wait here and I’ll go get it. We’ll get him where he needs to be toot sweet!” And then I ran off before he could respond, hoping that his good nature would keep him there until I returned… and that he would see fit to help me help the old man around. 

As I jumped into my 2008 Toyota Yaris, 2 door, economy vehicle I saw there in the rear view mirror a bookshelf I had left in the back seat mocking my procrastination to bring it into the house. God damn it! Why had I done this to myself!? There was no room for the beautiful, foriegn, stranger, saint. There was no time to take it out. The old man needed help. I pulled up to see that gorgeous dark-haired man had sat the old fart down in a comfortable spot and was still sitting there next to him. Working together we loaded him into the front seat of my very small car as he began to tell us his story. His name was Miles “like the aqueducts in Rome, Miles and miles… “ He was going to the free Thanksgiving dinner at the church on 12th St. but missed the bus.

The handsome stranger laughed as he decided to overlook the bookshelf taking up all the space in the back of my car and crawled in the back hatch, curled up, and said let’s get him to the church. “Let’s make a fuckin’ baby” I thought. Nevertheless, I drove us safely to the church where we discovered that Miles had missed the dinner. “Duh ya mind driveen us ovah tuh ve shop? I’ll get ‘im some lunch.” This man, whom I’m fully convinced at this point is a beautiful figment of my imagination, says cooly like he’s not tryin’ to make this pussy wet. Fuck right off. “I can, if you can eat that lunch off of my body!” I think to myself as I drive us all to the shop. 

I won’t tell you the racist joke the old man told me while the gorgeous stranger was in the shop, but I will tell you that I did not believe this old man was living in the right now. He said he lived on 26th street and was going on about some bastard cop that gave him shit… maybe today, I don’t really know. I do know his name was Miles, like the aqueducts in Rome, he was a vet, and that cop fucked his whole day up. As we helped the old man out of the car and up toward the house he’s directed us to I was earnestly hoping that it was his house today and we weren’t about to disturb some poor stranger with a senial old man going on about aqueducts and bastard cops. I could sense the strong and sexy stranger opposite me was thinking the exact same thing. 

As the old man reached for the knob, twisted it, and then opened the door to a home filled floor to ceiling with stacks of garbage, the distinct smell of cat urine wafting out into the street air; I let out a sigh of relief that he did, in fact, live here presently but was quickly overwhelmed by disgust at the realization this poor old man lives in this condition. We struggled to fit all three of us past the doorway so we followed Miles’ instruction to set him down on a stack of old newspapers. We got him situated with a bottle of water and lunch before we bid him adieu. As we closed the door behind us we looked at each other and said “Well, that was weird.”

That was the day I met my best friend… and sexiest fuck.