there's a great big sofa

being advertised above my journal.  you guys have a seat and make yourselves comfortable on it.  i'll get the coffee/tea/cocoa and a whole bunch of decadent sweets and we'll have the last laugh.  ;-)

under the direction of The Task Master (stop chatting and start writing!), i have been writing up a storm, but it's odd...the more i write, the more certain people from my past pop into my mind.

for instance - there's little Nut Dockery.  He was a thin little wino who walked with a limp - not a bit of harm in him, he just liked his wine.  and he was actually a bit of a hero for me, in that he was responsible for my lecturing a customer in the restaurant who later turned out to be something he didn't appear to be.

it must have been spring or summer, because i remember being hot.  mike had told me nut had been terrorized out of his social security check by some of the thugs who had moved into the little community behind the store called The Line.

that burned me up and made me hotter.  the nerve of people too sorry to work for the money to support their own habits.  sure, nut spent his on thunderbird, but it was his to spend.

it was that very day, during a lull in business that he walked in.  didn't know him - but we had a lot of road traffic - travelers, fishermen - and this guy was wearing a fishing hat complete with hooks.  he wanted to chat, and he seemed nice enough, so i propped against the counter and talked.  it didn't take long for him to lower his voice and lean forward to say - you wouldn't happen to know where i could get some smoke around here, would you?

i wasn't sure i'd heard him right, so i said - excuse me?

you know, pot.  maybe something stronger than that.

right before i saw red, little Nut Dockery flashed before my eyes.  such a small little man..and i saw him being terrorized by those thugs.

i cannot believe what you just said to me.  do you know that old people are being strong armed out of their social security checks?  it's all they have to live on for an entire month, and just today, my brother told me these hooligan drug users are waiting for the first of the month and the mailman to roll around so they can bully these poor people out of their money to get drugs.  it's a damned shame, and somebody should do something about it so people like poor little nut won't be harrassed and robbed by local terrorists.  so NO, i don't know where you could get pot or something stronger.  now might be a good time to stop looking.

i'll never forget the look on his face.  i expected anger, but never surprise.  he looked absolutely puzzled.

it was about two weeks later, in the middle of the lunch crowd, that my buddy and coworker, lola, stopped in the middle of throwing a cheeseburger together and said - who's that man behind the counter in the store?

that was a good question.  he looked like some kind of inspector - he had a flashlight and was looking up under the counters.  about that time, he turned his back and we were able to read the letters on his jacket -

DEA.

poor lola's hands began to shake.  oh damn, it's the DEA!

and stupid me said - what's that?

and then the men in yellow jackets with black lettering multiplied.  they were all over the place, and i recognized one of them, even without his fishing hat.  he never looked my way...and he never set foot in my side of the business.  none of them did.

and i have little Nut Dockery to thank for that.  if he hadn't been strong armed, if he hadn't been so frail and old that my protective side kicked in, i might never have been hot enough to tell off an undercover DEA agent, and might have landed in jail beside the coworker from the store, who was selling pot.

poor little nut.  i wonder where he is now.