Today, I once again met a reader in a bar in Baltimore, exactly on the City-County line.

I walked in one minute late to an empty bar and took a seat in the darkest corner. To this, the bearded, tattooed and long-haired bartender said, “Are you meeting someone here?”

I answered, “Yes.”

He pointed through the back door and said, “He's in the yard.”

That was mighty courteous, making sure he showed first and had the barkeep look out for me. I had not been in this bar in 25 years and had been put off by the ultra-fag mask notice that we would have to mask up even at the table when the waiter came to take our order.

He was a fit man by post lock-down standards, looking five years younger than his age and insisted on paying and also bringing the coffee back to the table. His hospitality extended to an offer to feed me lunch at my choice of venue and other assistance in my wayfaring. He is an ultralight hiking enthusiast and had some very useful tips for the hobo. The need to help me out was humbling, that this man had gone out of his way on an icky, mist-shrouded morning, to meet me in a city that has done him wrong.

We shook hands and he said, “I thought you'd be bigger based on the videos.”

“Nah, I'm a twerp—was just fat for a few years.”

His story is his—and I think he has the stripe of a writer, so there won't be any snippets of his painfully interesting life. He gave me two good hobo tips, an offer of help come other days, an idea for a science-fiction yarn, and a research lead that I intend to follow up on.

Life early today was twisting me around and honestly getting me down—no fault but my weird own.

Then another man—done far more wrong by this meat-puppet metropolis than I and in fewer years—shared a cup of apolitical coffee with me as a wind cleared the fog.

One by one some dozen thirty-something ladies, dressed to please, gathered behind my host for a birthday party and my single eye was treated with a visual feast until the man who seemed to just want to make sure I was okay, noted that my yeti hide was burning red and that we ought to go on our way.

Thank You, Sir

James, April 10, 2021