A friend just died, so I was downtown getting drunk, if you want to know the truth. I was at a table looking out at stone and brick buildings along Sherman Avenue which made terrific admiring, and kept good company when I was feeling dull as hell or a little lonely, especially in the winter.

I was blowing through quite a bit of dough, though, chasing the ol' buzz, which wasn't very fiscally responsible and all, since I didn't make that much in the first place."Howz a kid, Tommy, my boy?" Steven said, barging into the bar. "Blowing all your money trying to get a buzz?"

He slapped me twice on my cheeks, which can be quite annoying, but I was pretty thankful for the company. Steven was always barging around in some sort of tremendous hurry, and he didn't care a thing about J.D. Salinger, or even that he died, but then he didn't get all sore if you tried to discuss sensitive topics, either. Most people get bent out of shape if you try to talk about anything besides T.V.

Take Salinger, everyone got so sore over one of his books the poor guy had to run into the hills and hide.Steven introduced me to his friend, some sergeant looking guy who had a pretty blonde girl with him.

They both turned out to be outrageous bores, but I was trying like mad under the wine to have a good conversation to get my mind off things."Valor," I heard the Sarg say, and I knew it was going to be quite difficult to find that conversation here.

I heard 'honor' and 'dignity' and some other words that don't really mean anything so I tuned the old Sarg out in pursuit of the buzz, but when his date got up to use the can I heard the Sarg start in about how much prettier the girls were in the summertime."Girls everywhere," he said, giving the table his best grin. "I can't wait."

It's funny, everyone talks about how much better the summer is, like the problems go away, but then when it's here they talk about how much better last year was."Don't you think so?" The Sarg asked me.

I hadn't heard what he said. I was pretty intense after my buzz, if you want to know the truth, but I figured it still was something to do about rights and valor so I was pretty thankful for my buzz, which was red wine like, dead and heavy and moving across both cheeks."I don't understand what makes 60-year-old men experts on a 20 year-old woman's babymaker." I said. I was only gassing around. "Aren't they complete opposites? When did those old men gain such terrific jurisdiction?"

Steven shot me a look. Ol' Sarg didn't look too pleased, either."What are you saying?" he said.

Adults have the hardest time listening to anything they don't agree with. You can tell kids listen because their heads get still and their eyes lock on a spot on the floor or something, but adults just want to shake."Nothing," I said. "I'm just gassing around is all."

"Lemme guess, you're a socialist," Sarg said, which was quite funny since I was blowing all my dough buying him drinks too. I pointed that out, and the Ol' Sarg stood up, which was quite embarrassing."OK, OK," I said. "Don't get all sore."

I mean, you can't talk about anything.Steven had a girl with him by now, and he got us both out of there on account he wanted to take her dancing. Steven's a pretty good looking guy, if you want to know the truth, so he has a pretty big list to take dancing.

"What your problem?" he asked when we were walking down Old Sherman. "You can't talk about things like that.""I was trying to have a conversation, is all," I said. "Imagine if I talked about state's rights."

I was feeling quite good. "Imagine if I talked about old Abe Lincoln," I said.I did a pretty corny Abe impersonation, where I held my arms stiff and talked in a deep voice. I can be a pretty hilarious guy, if you want to know the truth. I'd switched to beer and was getting that uppity buzz which really makes me gas around, so I broke out the old Abe right in front of the dance hall.

"We are prepared to go to war on this fundamentally humane issue," I said deep-voiced and stoically. "And for those governments which truly believe personal well being is left up to the decision of each and every state, this country is ready to war with itself; prepared are we to eradicate sons, fathers, and the entire roots of family trees until this issue is federally agreed upon." "Cool it," Steven said. He usually had a pretty good sense of humor but he was worried about embarrassing his girl, so I cooled it, but thought it was pretty funny in light of everybody talking so tough and threatening everybody else and all.

Inside, Steven and his girl started dancing. I asked Steven to go to the bar, but his girl gave me the stink eye.She was an attractive girl though, and the other guys took notice, and began bumping into Steven.

"Let's get out of here," I said."I'm fine," Steven said,

People were bumping us all over the place. That's just how it is down there.It's another thing I really couldn't stand about school, to be completely honest. Faculty spent all their time arguing over which books kids couldn't read, but then they never bothered to teach them not to take MTV seriously, or to stop watching all the fighting matches on the cable channels.

I left Steven on the floor with his knockout girl and went outside and started walking in the cold to the park to look out at the lake.I'd blown a small fortune already, anyway, and was getting a little depressed about it, so I sat on the cement at water's edge and tried talking to the ducks.

They were magnificent swimmers. When their bodies surfaced, it was joy to watch the water slide from their fathers."You don't belong anywhere else," I told them.

But then I started worrying, shivering in the cold.It'd be terrific if you could run up into the hills where nobody was bothering you and watch them swim forever, but it was only a matter of time before some developer built along the shore and up in the hill, too, so you wouldn't able to see anything, anyway.