Okay, so I have this friend Chris whom I would describe as an idealist. The fact that he's completely middle class really upsets him, but he has this plan which makes it al okay. He justifies his immediate ambitions, which are undeniably bourgeoisie—comfortable job, wife, kids—the whole bit, with this long-term plan to give it all up and live like a bum for a couple of years once he hits middle age. To me this has always been sort of laughable, but the significance of it is that Chris became sort of obsessed with this vagrant who lives in the area. He really just thought the guy was cool and wanted nothing more than to talk to him.

So, when Chris and I were walking back from La Pizzeria, a local Italian restaurant, with the remains of our meals, a familiar clean-shaven man wearing a v-neck sweater could be seen in the distance. Chris couldn't pass up this unparalleled opportunity to meet his hero. Well, that was fine with me, so we crossed the street and approached the guy with the offer of food. “Is ther any meat—sausage or anything?…I don't eat that.” Although a bit surprised that someone accepting handouts would have the luxury of being so particular, we ezplained that, since neither of us consumed meat, the food wasa free from flesh.

“That's a good idea—not eating meat. Did you know sausage and hot dogs aand that kind of stuff are made from humans? That's why it tastes so different from other meat—saltier.” We professed our ignorance on the proposed subject.

“Yeah, in every major U.S. city, there is a torture center where humans are taken to be made into these products. You know when you hear about people disappearing? That just means they've been taken to be tortured.

“I'm not a professional homeless guy, you know. I have a home in Virginia. But I can't get back there because I don't have enough money. See, I work for the government. I'm supposed to infiltrate this system of torture centers. But the government hasn't paid me so I'm stuck here.

“Anyway, I've got to go now. But, hey, if either of you kids is ever going to Viginia, I could use a ride. And tell all of your friends to stop eating hot dogs and sausage.” So, he hefted his garbage bag to his shoulder, waved goodbye, and strolled off down the street.

Well, we saw the guy—Al was his name—around a couple more times that year, but he always crossed to the other side of the street to avoid us. It didn't really hurt our feelings much. We figured he was worried about having compromised the security of the infiltration job. We wanted to reassure him on that point, but we never really had the chance.

See, he was normally talking, and we didn't want to interrupt him. We figured he was wired as part of the infiltration scheme and was probably taking care of some pretty important business.

Anyway, I guess this was a pretty roundabout way to get to my point…it's probably not a good idea to eat any sausages or hot dogs.