I

Elroy, an elder, walks out the heavy metal entrance door of the non-profit substance and mood disorder facility in response to screeching sirens – two fire engines and two police cars situate themselves in both directions under the high bridge appropriately nicknamed (particularly is this situation) suicide bridge: this occurs as I walk through the “client” parking lot. I hear Elroy say to himself, his usual hushed native accent, “If people could only find the courage to face their problems.” (In a twist of cosmic irony, Elroy burned to death six months later at the hand of a cigarette too stubborn to stay unlit in an ashtray too stubborn to not get out of bed and back to its nightstand during a late summer evening. After taking a drag, Elroy often stated in a squinted eye pensive tone , “One day, these things are going to kill me.