Letter 25

April 25, 2011 (included with letters 22 and 23 to Renelle)

I don't know exactly how, but I've got an undeniable need to create, and writing is how I roll. Sitting on my bunk (an uncomfortable experience at the best of times), I'm reminded of one of the many outstanding characters I've met. This is definitely not to be construed to mean he had an outstanding character, or any discernible character at all, for that matter.

At any rate, in those days I was in a state of drunkedness at all times, as it helped ease the pain the world inflicted on me. 

I met the man I'm reminded of when I first chose the building to live it (I thought he worked there). So, being as I'm receiving SSI/SSD checks at the beginning of each month, I chose to part with some of it by drinking it up in a strip club nearby.

When we left (or were escorted off the premises), we weren't even close to being as impaired as I was determined to be yet, so after buying liquor at a store, we decided to drink on the nearby beach and sort through our plans in the process. On the way to the beach, there's an entire line of hotels for miles in both directions, which, unknown to me, was the eventual cause of my friend's--uhm, well--incarceration.

We decided to roam from pool to pool instead, drinking as we went. At one of them, when I was beginning to feel "untouchable," I was busy trying to keep my drink from being washed away by the activity in the pool--and he was busily running a pedophilic "game" on some very young girls. I was entirely occupied with trying not to get pool water in my drink, hand it to God, when I got out to freshen my drink and ran into him making for the open beach with the aforementioned girls in tow. 

He actually told me he was about to make a woman out of at least one of the girls, so I asked about their ages. When they told me, I made a judgement call then and there: these girls weren't even 12 years old, but I needed to stay with them until I could do what needed to be done.

As we went away from the lighted walkways, he was trying to get one of them close enough to him where he could grab them, but I knew it, and got between them every time, pushing them behind me. Nothing occurred to me for a way to deal with him when he did get a hold on one of them, but this would preserve their innocence for a moment or two longer than if I hadn't been there.

My desperation seized onto a measure which would cost a friend, but hopefully not more than that. At the time this happened, I was in my late 20's (not old and slow as I am now); so, taking one hand of each of the girls, I stopped. I'd no idea what I'd do if he was intent on pressing them to his will, though hopefully it wouldn't go that far. Thinking quickly, I further refined my lack of a plan by saying something about the ghost crabs being out, which had the effect of causing the girls to be rethinking their decision to venture onto a deserted beach at night with two older men who were drinking. Ghost crabs are a type of fiddler crab, but pale-colored and with their eyes on stalks, not spectral crabs.

Soon, we were walking them back to their hotel, unsuspecting of what nearly nearly happened.

(Included as an afterthought, as much as I'm after any thoughts!)