“I’m sorry. What is your name again?” Mr. Rockwell asked into the cell phone.

“José. José Bordero.”

“José,” Addison Rockwell’s voice said. “I have to tell you something: this is no joke. You can’t go back on this. The last guy that…

…sometimes it’s the story that matters most…

I’ve slept these streets. I’ve eaten throwaways out of fly-circus garbage cans. I’ve been beaten, had my whole world stolen — not much of a world, a smelly winter coat, boots worn to the soles, a copy of Candide, lifted from the downtown public library.

AS THE NON-STOP RED-EYE FLIGHT descended into Las Vegas, I stared out my first-class window at the shimmering lights of suburban sprawl that grew like a cancer all the way out to the mountains, the peaks dark and jagged against the twilight of the sky.

He had never belonged anyplace, and that realization was slowly dawning on him

They were looking for peace, not majesty, yet the child had its own notions.

One day, he promised himself, one day he would change the nametag that said Petjan.

“How do you say your name? Is it Pet-jan (Pet and John with accent on both syllables) or Petjan (just really quickly Pe-gin)?”

He got this at…

I don’t know why, but Fred was always talkin’ to me. Maybe because we
was both loners, kind of outcasts, but he was more friendly to me than he
was with the other kids.

As the story opens, it will be my FIRST Christmas employed in a retirement home.

My wife says I’ve been sleepwalking again. Next she asks, “When’s Ben coming?”