Believe It Or Not

"You're Methodist? My family was Methodist."

I started feeling a little scritchy in the back of my brain, wondering where we were going with this.

It's the seediest bar around, Bob Marley wailing in the background, lots of whispers and coming and going. The guy is lit up but not too bad.

"I don't really . . . well, I guess I do believe that stuff. Well some of it anyway" he faltered.

I recognized in the faltering that he wasn't really going to deny his faith -- the faltering meant there was something still there that said "I can't prove I believe anything but to say that I don't believe is worrysome, and if it is worrysome, I must believe, something at least."

The next words he said to me nailed it "I'm too old for this."

"For what?"

"All this; propositioned, offered drugs. I've got a 10 year old," and then silence as he thought about how many beers and how long he was sitting in darkness with a bunch of thugs.

"Nice to meet you." He shook my hand and headed out. It was 10:00 p.m. He left 2/3 of a beer on the counter.

Rick