Sam Adams: Fashion God

I’m no Joe Schmo when it comes to fashion sensibility, but I’m no Kanye West either. Never really got the hang of that racket. My dad used to tear the Jumpman symbols off his new Jordan’s, and while it made me cringe, I find my 25-year-old self not interested in the least in logos, trends, or “the new black.” But after taking an in-depth review of my internal closet, I may have just stumbled on the glass slipper….

I went to an art school, but I never much got along with the kids there, and I always felt it had something to do with my under-the-radar duds. It was hard to be the guy in Gap jeans, a Bulls hoodie and beat-up New Balances in a place where the mandatory wardrobe included Yasser Arafat shawls, straight-brimmed baseball hats that had more to do with aesthetics than team affiliation, and jeans that cut-off one’s genital circulation.

I thought about trying their look, maybe just to make friends, but it just didn’t make sense: I had no affiliation with the Palestinian nationalist movement, I hated the New York Yankees, and I really was interested in the future prospect of fathering children. Also, I hated PBR, or as those born within the Chicago city limits call it, Pabst. No, hipsterdom was never for me.

But what about being a jock? I’d always loved sports, didn’t have a problem with drinking games, and for one reason or another –probably having to do with my then-Hunter Thompson fixation– really liked those easter-colored J. Crew shorts that made you look like a prime candidate for the Martha’s Vineyard croquet calendar.

But after a few months at that game, my hair product bills started getting out of hand. My fashion-teacher mom said that my backwards hats made me look like “a medieval page boy.” And I gave up on Polo shirts when I learned that wearing them in public was code for “I like barfights.”

Thrift stores? Not a fan. I know we’re supposed to be more aware of this whole “carbon footprint” thing, but not for me. I don’t like the smell of mothballs, and I don’t like to think of all the things a person could have done in the clothes on my back. Nothing like walking around in an old Pearl Jam shirt that had a past life as someone’s “happy towel.” No thanks.

So where am I now? I guess a few things come to mind — I’ve been spending a lot of time around older, literary types as of late and they seem to have a style that I don’t mind so much – collared shirts, jeans or khakis, a pair of sneakers. Not that it looks great, but it’s classy enough to wear to dinner and I can find the whole get up at Marshalls, my favorite one-stop-shop spot.

Mick Dumke (r), older literary type and fashion role model

Then there’s the Southern Gentleman look. I like that one. Not many occasions for it, but if I made enough dough to migrate to Kentucky, I’d probably have a hallway closet full of seersucker sport coats and canary yellow ties, not to mention the two-tone shoes. Just ask Joakim Noah. Now there’s a sharp-dressed fellow if I’ve ever seen one:

Not so fast, Valentino….

So with these thoughts in mind, I went for a self-made makeover at my two favorite stores, Marshalls and the Gap. What I came up with was a beautiful plaid sport coat and a pair of classic blue jeans. Shopping the sales as I always do, this all topped out at $50. Not bad. I brought home the booty, proud to show my girlfriend the dazzling resourcefulness of the future editor of GQ magazine.

“Look, baby, new jeans!” I beam.

“Oh…”

Her attention must be diverted. Happens a lot when I talk about myself. Or maybe she can’t take her eyes from this sex-magnet of a coat. I try again:

“Two new pairs. Gap. The 1969’s! You love these!”

“…Have you washed them yet?”

“Sure, nice and clean!”

“In hot water?”

“What? I don’t know…Yea, yea, hot water, I guess. Nice, right?”

“Then why didn’t they shrink?”

Too big. The pants are too big. Dammit, I just can’t get this right. At least there’s the jacket. I begin to turn away, still cradling a sliver of pride.

“What’s that on your back?”

“There’s something on my back? Get it off!”

“No, no. That jacket … what the hell is that?”

“My new duds. Marshall’s finest! Sharp, huh?”

“You look like that basketball guy.”

“Who … Not Craig Sager?!?”

Craig Sager and Benny the Bull

“Yea, him! You look like Craig Sager in fat-man pants.”

Screw it. Wasn’t  cut out for this whole fashion thing. I retreat to the closet, throw on a pair of sweatpants, Bulls hoodie. Decide I’ll go for a jog. There’s my old ratty New Balances.

I step outside feeling like a million bucks. As I run, my mind wanders … the clay jogging path looks more and more like a red carpet. The mid-afternoon sun bursts through the trees like a thousand paparazzi flashbulbs. Onlookers stop in their tracks and gawk.

“Who’s that man?” One guy asks.

“Couldn’t be certain,” says his friend, “but I believe I’ve met him before …Style… Yes, that’s it, Style’s his middle name.”

Randolph Street: Random B&W

Country Gent–Green Island, Iowa

Pedestrian–New York City

County Jail–Chicago

White Castle–Chicago

No Lights–Wrigley Field, Chicago

Beware–Chicago

All photos © Jon Randolph

Big Mike: The Banking Racket

It does my poor old heart good to see Lloyd Blankfein and his fellow reprobates squirming under the hot lights in the Senate committee chamber this week. Still, these gangsters are getting off easy, merely having to face a bunch of flatulent senators rather than, say, a half dozen or so unemployed teachers, bus drivers, and construction laborers armed with Tasers and switchblades. I’d pay to watch that.

You know that character from Inglourious Basterds, I think they called him The Bear Jew, the one who carved swastikas in the foreheads of Nazis? I can see him carving dollar signs into the foreheads of Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, Vikram Pandit, and a few other desmodi rotundi. Hell, I’d help him.

Make That A Dollar Sign, Eli

Anyway, it appears that the banking racket is about to change. Reform is up for consideration in Congress. Michael Lewis and other muckrakers are topping the best-seller lists with books about the evils of Wall Street avarice and Main Street stupidity. Many among the inert millions of TV watchers are even redirecting their choler from brown people and Socialists to the Wall Street con men.

I don’t care if Blankfein, Dimon, et al go to jail. Just so long as they’re thrown out of work, have their assets seized, and have to walk down the street wearing some kind of stigmata. I wonder how long that stroll would last.

And I’d like the banking racket to be redefined and tightly regulated. Not just Wall Street banking, either. Those Mom & Pop banks everybody talks about? You know, those idealized George Bailey-led pillars of the small town that we pretend are in it only for the good and love of their brothers? They need some ass-whuppin’ as well.

This Is A Movie Character Folks, Not Your Banker

I’ll tell you a story. I know a guy who’s a big shot at one of those smallish banks, the kind that advertise themselves as your next door neighbor. Let’s call him Gregory.

Gregory runs the commercial loan department at the bank. He’s an honest guy. Mows his own lawn. Has raised a nice family. Drives a fairly modest four-door. Takes his elderly mother grocery shopping once a week. We were at a funeral not long ago. After the church and the burial, we were pounding down the lasagna at the luncheon for all the mourners.

I figured, Here’s a guy who hasn’t been tainted by the poisons that run through the banking world. So I told him about an encounter I’d had at my bank a few days before. I’d lugged an enormous sack of coins in, hefted it up on the counter, and said I’d like to make a deposit. I’ve been keeping a coin sack since I was a teenager. It’s like my little emergency savings account. I once paid a month’s rent by cashing in my coins.

The teller looked at me as if I had dogshit on my sleeves and said, “We don’t do that.”

I recoiled. “What? You don’t do deposits?”

“No, sir,” — she drew the word out contemptuously — “we don’t do coins.”

“Huh?”

“I said,” — she drew the word out again — “we don’t do coins.”

I fumbled for words. Finally I said, “But isn’t this a bank?”

“Yes it is. But we have no way of counting the coins.”

I was stunned. I repeated: “But isn’t this a bank?”

“Sir,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “We don’t have a coin counting machine.”

“But you used to.”

“Yes, we used to. We don’t have it any more.”

At this point, I was sorely tempted to say, Well, then, since this is a fucking bank and you people are fucking paid to count fucking money, empty this fucking bag out and start counting the fuckers by hand.

A Month’s Rent?

But I didn’t (damn it.) I only said, “What am I supposed to do with these coins?”

The teller reached under her counter, grabbed a fistful of coin envelopes and dropped them before me. She said, “You can count them yourself. Then you can bring the rolls in and deposit them.”

Now, if you know me, you know there wasn’t any way in hell I was going to pick up those freakin’ coin envelopes. “No thanks,” I said and I turned to walk out. But before I left her window, I asked, “This is a bank, isn’t it?”

Icily, she replied, “Yes it is,” which was code for I hope your balls get run over by a steamroller as soon as you get out the door.

A Teller’s Revenge

So I told this tale to Gregory. I was hoping he’d commiserate with me, tell me how nasty the teller was, and say he’d have fired her on the spot. But no. Here’s what Gregory said:

“Banks don’t count coins for customers anymore. It doesn’t make any sense. Why should we do it? It’s a waste of our people’s time.”

Through a mouthful of lasagna, I protested. “A waste of time! I’m the goddamned customer! You guys are nothing without me!” (Admittedly my emotions were running a little high, it being a funeral and all.)

“Lemme tell you something,” he said. “Small depositors are hardly worth the time of day to us. Your business is microscopic compared to our entire bottom line.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, my voice getting louder. “Maybe my few hundred dollars doesn’t mean much to you but all of us little guys together must mean something!”

Now, the restaurant turned deadly quiet. Friends and relatives of the deceased stared at us. I’d never seem a roomful of Italians stop eating lasagna so abruptly in my life.

Gregory’s voice rose too. “I’ve got news for you,” he sneered. “All the small depositors together don’t mean shit to the bank anymore. We’re doing you a favor by taking your money.”

“Oh yeah? Well how about the concept of good customer service? What if the grocery store had that attitude? What if they said, Providing shopping carts are a waste of time so we’re just gonna get rid of ‘em?” I was nearly shouting by now.

“You’re lucky your bank used to count your coins,” he said, matching my volume. “It should have been charging you to do that!”

“Oh great. What else are they gonna charge me for? Opening the door? Breathing their air? Yeah, that’s it. They can say, The air’s inside our premises, therefore it’s our air — that’ll be a dollar, please.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. The bank is a business. It has to maximize its revenues — it can’t be giving services away.”

Now I was on a soapbox. “We’re the lifeblood of your business. We provide you guys with the money you need to do whatever raping of the environment or blockbusting you’re into. Again I say, without us, you guys are nothing.”

Gregory sat back and said, in a calm soft voice, “Not anymore, pal.”

He had me. Over the last couple of years we’ve learned how extraneous depositors are to the banking racket. All these small banks and S&Ls that have been packaging their home loans into collateralized debt obligations and selling them to other banks and S&Ls while the Svengalis (from Salomon Brothers in the 80s to Goldman Sachs today) who’ve created these mortgage bonds then cover their asses by taking out credit default swaps really, honestly don’t give a shit about my money or your money anymore. If Ralph Kramden were a banker in the early 21st Century, he’d have looked at his savings and checking account business and said, “A mere bag of shells.”

The little guy has never, ever been so little.

I had nothing more to say to Gregory the banker. The rest of the people in the restaurant went back to eating their lasagna. So did I. I could only think, as I put a forkful in my mouth, “Oh, brother!”

Today’s Banker And His Small Depositor

Benny Jay: The Great Debaters

For the big game against Cleveland, we buy broasted chicken and an 18-pack of Budweiser and drive to Norm’s house to watch the Bulls on his high-def TV.

It’s me and Norm and J Dub and Ross – Norm’s old buddy from the days when they were conductors on the railroad.

Cleveland wins the game, thus ending the Bulls season. As we watch LeBron James celebrate, I say hate the Cavaliers. And Ross says, I hate Cleveland. And Norm says, I hate all them mutha fuckas. And that, my friends, is about the last thing we agree on….

On comes the Lakers/Oklahoma City game and we watch Andrew Bynum – L.A.’s center – dunk the ball.

Norm says Bynum’s his boy – one of the best centers in the game….

I say, he’s not.

And Norm says, name three who are better.

And I say, Dwight Howard, Yao Ming and Lopez….

And Norm says, Lopez ain’t shit….

And I say, he averaged 18 points a game this year – at least!

And Norm says, he didn’t average shit….

And I say, he did….

And Ross says, he might have but it doesn’t matter cause his team only won twelve games….

And Norm tells J Dub to look it up on his Blackberry. Which takes forever to download….

And J Dub says which Lopez brother? Cause there are twins: Robin and Brook….

Brook Lopez, or maybe it’s Robin

And Norm said, we’re talking about Robin….

And Ross says, I thought we’re talking about Brook….

And Norm says, no, Robin….

And I say, no, it was Brook….

And Norm says, what the fuck you talking about, Benny, we were talking about Robin….

And I say, how can you tell me who I was talking about?

And Norm says, well you should have been talking about Robin, cause Robin’s better than Brook….

And I say, are you kidding, Brook’s way better than Robin….

By the way, we’re bellowing as we carry on this great debate….

Somehow or other – I can’t even begin to remember how – we get on the subject of the best European basketball players to play in the NBA.

Norm says, Dirk Nowitzki….

And Ross says, he kinda liked Vlade Divac….

And I say, Toni Kukoc…

And Norm and Ross in unison say, Toni Kukoc? He ain’t shit!

And I say, Next to Michael Jordan, Kukoc was the best clutch-shooter in Bulls history….

And Norm says, C’mon, Benny….

And I say, name one better….

And Norm says, Scottie Pippen….

And I say, okay, there’s one second left in the game and you’re down by one and you have the ball: Who would want to take the last shot: Kukoc or Pippen?

And Norm says, Pippen….

And Ross says, Pippen….

And I say, you’re both wrong – Kukoc!

And J Dub says, you didn’t ask me what I think, Benny….

And I say, who would you want to take the shot?

And J Dub says, Pippen….

And everybody’s roaring with laughter cause J Dub set me up. Led me to believe that he was going to take my side only to join the others. Got me good….

And on and on we argue – voices so loud that  Smokey, Norm’s faithful dog, wakes from his sleep, lifts his head, and looks around to see what all the bellowing’s about.

Never seen so many loud arguers in one room. Reminds me of the great debate my sister and I had at at the pancake house on Clark Street many years ago. She said there’s no difference between one penny and two pennies. I said, there’s a one penny difference. She said that’s not really a difference cause it’s so small that it doesn’t matter. And I said it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t matter – it’s still a difference. And she said, shut up. Which is generally how debates with my sister wind up….

Anyway, the Laker game ends and we head to the door arguing about where we’re going to watch the next playoff game – Norm’s or J Dub’s?

I get into the car and drive down the street. The cell phone rings. It’s Norm. “Hey, Benny,” he says, “Bynum scored 21….”

And so three hours later, we’re back to Bynum.

“Well, let me tell you this, Norm,” I say. “I hate Cleveland….”

“I told you, Benny,” he says, ” fuck all them mutha fuckers.”

Can’t argue with that….

Sharday Cage: Zombie

The intrigue of pretty green,

Makes the saliva runneth over.

The thirst lingers until we’re all mad with it.

Our spirit laid to rest.

The dead swallow our hidden dreams,

For their ancestors did the same.

Awake, child!

Open your reckless eyes and take notice upon yourself.

See what a spectacle you have become?

To die and be resurrected.

But look, you are still dead!

Only you are just a vessel,

Filled with nothingness.

Just an empty pity,

Standing hopelessly like a dumb caucus,

On that assembly line.

Dying for your turn at your precious zombie’s chocolate.

The hunger stinging your throat,

Like needles scratching.

Going only where the blood runs.

Immersed in debt and bills,

Our bodies have long given way.

Such weary fragile shells,

But the will to suffer on quietly continues.

The body has no other choice but to function.

With our decrepit feet,

We’ll walk until our toes fall off.

All in the name of those dead presidents.

We’ll all chase after them,

Until the bullet forges its way through our head.

By Sharday Cage

Editor’s Note: We’re proud to bring a little class to this outfit by offering poems by Miss  Sharday Cage, also known as Lady Day — a young poet with a bright future.

Big Mike: Child Porn At Barnes & Noble

Don’t tell Constance, the Big Potato over at the Book Case, where I work peddling copies of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies three days a week, but The Loved One and I spend our Sundays at Barnes & Noble. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all about how we should be supporting local and independent businesses — and we do, for the most part — but going to B&N on Sundays has become such an ingrained part of our lives that we can’t seem to break the habit now.

We get the New York Times and whatever the local paper paper is, depending on which city we’re living in at the moment. These days it’s the Bloomington Herald Times. (I don’t want to be a jerk about it but the H-T would be hard-pressed to be compelling if it were a weekly paper. As it is, most of the paper’s headlines deal with traffic accidents and new tree plantings.) Anyway, we get our coffee and tea and sit in the cafe where I do my crossword while The Loved One scans the ad inserts for coupons.

How could anything be more innocuous? Only this Sunday as we were walking out of the place, The Loved One dashed up to me and said, “Well, I just did my civic duty. I told the manager to call the police.”

And here I thought she’d only been in the bathroom.

“What the hell happened?”

“That guy is sick,” she said.

“Who?”

“That guy who was causing all the trouble.”

There’d been a guy who spoke in a thick Chinese accent sitting at a table behind us. He was involved in a tense confrontation with another man as we walked in. They were arguing over territory, as near as we could make out. Our best guess was that the Chinese man had come in and moved the other guy’s table and chair and put his in their places while the second guy was in the bathroom. Then, and I’m only sort of sure this is what was being said, the Chinese guy unplugged the other guy’s laptop and plugged his in.

A couple of B&N booksellers were involved and soon the manager was called in. The manager took great pains to tell both guys that he valued their business and everybody was free to sit here and cruise the Internet or do homework or whatever. He kept saying things like, “I understand where you’re coming from,” and “I hear what you’re saying,” which are corporate-speak for “I think you’re full of shit but I’m prohibited by company policy from saying so.”

The Chinese guy was all hot and bothered. He started throwing out accusations of discrimination. Oddly, we could hardly understand a word he was saying except when he started repeating, “You discriminate against me!”

Naturally, the manager fell all over himself denying that he was discriminating against anybody. It’s the worst charge a human being can bring against a corporate operative. You could accuse the manager of being a serial killer or a sleeper agent for Castro’s Cuba and neither would chill his blood so much as the utterance of the term discrimination.

The contretemps went on for a good fifteen minutes. The Loved One and I started exchanging nervous smiles with other cafe patrons. A few shook their heads. The dispute wasn’t actually settled; the manager simply managed to slip away. But the Chinese man kept getting up and trying to chase down the manager and, failing that, pulling aside any old bookseller to plead his case again. They looked helpless as they listened to him, that is if they hadn’t been quick enough to duck away when they saw him coming.

Eventually, I finished my puzzle (and reading the comics, of course) and The Loved One was happily filing away her new coupons for Irish Spring and AA batteries. I got up to go to the bathroom. When I came back, The Loved One was gone so I packed up and waited for her near the door. That’s when she came bounding up to tell me about doing her civic duty.

She elaborated after we got in the car.

“I know what the whole argument was about now,” she said. “The guy comes here all the time. He always moves the chair and table.”

I had, in fact, heard the manager make reference to that.

She continued. “The manager didn’t realize why he does it but I figured it out. He always moves so he’s not sitting near the window. He doesn’t want anyone seeing what he’s doing. He wants to be in a secluded corner.”

Swear to god, the implications of his desire to be isolated hadn’t occurred to me yet. “Why does he do that?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you,” she said. “I walked over there and peeked over his shoulder.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Once when he’d got up, he bumped his laptop and it moved in such a way that I could see the screen for a second. I thought I saw pornography on it.”

“No!”

“Yes. I don’t want him thinking he’s getting away with something so I walked over and looked over  his shoulder. And I was right — it was porn. Child porn.”

“Come on, nobody’d be that stupid to be looking at child porn at Barnes & Noble.”

“Well, he was.”

“Real honest to goodness child porn? Not smallish grown woman dressed in Catholic schoolgirl uniforms? That’s really big on the Internet.”

“How do you know?”

“Um, uh, y’know, I read about these things, In fact, there was an academic study done not long ago….”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Anyway these were children, like seven or nine years old.”

I actually said the word Yuck.

“Then I told the manager what he was looking at.”

“You did the right thing.”

“I know I did.”

We were silent for a moment. Finally, The Loved One posed a question. “Why do all these men go in for that kind of stuff?”

I pride myself on being able to answer The Loved One’s questions. I like her to think I’m the smartest guy she’s ever kissed. Even when I don’t know the answer, I try to come up with really creative obfuscations.

Not so this time. I could only say, “I have no idea.”

Letter From Milo: My Friend the Bank Robber

I wasn’t always a famous, wealthy and beloved figure in the blogging world.

I know it’s hard to believe, but before I was overwhelmed by fame, fortune and the paparazzi, I was just a regular guy. By regular guy I mean I was an average Joe, shuffling along in obscurity, content to make a living, raise a family, get drunk once in a while and get laid on occasion.

Then, the feces got into the central air. Like regular guys everywhere I got hit hard by the Great George Bush Economic Meltdown. The small business I had owned and mismanaged for many years, the Dumbass Advertising Corporation, Ltd, LLC & Sons, nearly went under. The cash stopped coming in. The lovely Mrs. Milo had to shoulder the main burden of keeping us afloat. I had to do something, anything, to crank up the cash flow.

So, I got a night job.

It wasn’t a great job. I had never done anything like it before. I won’t even mention what it was except to say it wasn’t anything I’d care to post on my resume.

The best thing about it was the hours, six hours a night, four days a week. It allowed me to keep my normal activities going during the day and it provided much needed cash. It was what I needed at the time.

The business wasn’t exactly a fly-by-night enterprise, but it was real close. The workforce was a mixed bag of characters. There were middle managers who had been downsized, college kids working their way through school, retirees who couldn’t make it on their pensions, whores who were too old to make a decent living, a number of young men with crude jailhouse tattoos, musicians who had wasted their youths trying to get record deals, a few people who were obviously junkies, and of course, an aging, burned out advertising man.

It seemed that anyone who wanted that job could have it. The only requirements were the ability to read and write and minimal computer skills. None of the employees stayed long. Turnover was ferocious. After a month there were only two of us left out of a group of 12 that started with me.

The other guy was a man named Teddy, who, as a young man, had made a living as a bank robber in Mississippi.

Of course, he didn’t blurt out this information at our first meeting. We had to become friends first. And that wasn’t easy. I wasn’t looking for friends and I doubt if Teddy was, either. All we were looking for was a paycheck, preferably one that didn’t bounce.

But as new faces kept showing up week after week, and the people we knew drifted away, Teddy and I began spending more time with each other. We’d eat lunch and take smoke breaks together, and after work we’d walk to the El train together. Teddy generally carried a half pint in his jacket and had a drink or two on the walk to the train. He was a gentleman and always offered me a drink. And I always accepted.

It was while walking to the El one evening that Teddy said, “Man, you don’t know how good it feels to be walking down this street.”

“It’s a beautiful night.”

“It’s more than that, Milo. You see, I spent 22 years in prison, in Mississippi. Got out eight months ago. Just getting on this El train and going anywhere I want is sweet.”

“Damn, man. 22 years?”

“Yeah, robbed four banks. I should have stopped at three.”

When I got home that evening, I opened a bottle of wine, poured a hefty drink and thought about Teddy. I would have thought someone who had served so much prison time would be bitter and angry. But Teddy was just the opposite. He was one of the sweetest natured men I’d ever met, always smiling, always genial. I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. He even had a playful side, which he allowed me to see.

He had begun greeting me at work by giving me an ugly look and saying, “Motherfucker, where’s my money?”

And I’d reply by saying, “Spent it, motherfucker.”

Teddy always laughed at my reply and said, “Shit, man, I would have done the same thing.”

One evening as we walked to the El train, I asked Teddy, “It must have been tough being a black man in a Mississippi prison?”

“It wasn’t easy. The funny thing is that my own people made it tough on me. You see, most of the trustees and guards at the prison are black men. But they have to answer to white men. So they can’t look like they’re taking it easier on their own people than on whites. Motherfuckers can make your life miserable, sometimes.”

“How’d you get this job, anyway? The application form asked about felony convictions.”

“”They just asked if you had been convicted of a felony in the last seven years. Shit, man, I been in prison a lot longer than seven years.”

Another time, Teddy said, “Stolen money don’t last long. This short money we making here last longer than bank money. My biggest hit was $30,000 and it was gone in a month. Course I had to split it with a partner. If you a criminal you got a lot of expenses. Plus, you get crazy with the money. When you work for your money, you watch it closer.”

About a month later, Teddy came in late to work, which was unusual. He never missed work and he was always punctual. He was also disheveled and smelled of alcohol, another unusual occurrence. He never drank at work.

“Are you okay, man?” I asked.

“My woman put me out. I had to move all my shit into my brother’s place.”

“Damn, man, that’s rough.”

“Bitch went crazy. Accused me of all kind of shit. I swear, Milo, I ain’t even looked at another woman since I been out of jail.”

About an hour later, Teddy abruptly stood up at his cubicle, raised his face toward the ceiling and hollered something I couldn’t quite make out. Then he rushed toward the exit door.

That was the last time I saw him.

Word on the street was that Teddy had broken parole, either a domestic dispute, something to do with a car or a concealed weapons charge. I was pretty sure he didn’t go back to robbing banks because I didn’t read anything in the papers about any local banks being robbed. He might be in prison in Illinois or maybe they sent him back to Mississippi. Who the hell knows?

One thing I do know is that I miss him. He was good company and always cheered me up when I saw him.

Sometime in my life I’d like to see Teddy again. If I do, I’ll throw my arms around him, give him a big hug and say, “Motherfucker, where’s my money?”