the writings of john scott ridgway
In one dimension, a hoboish drunk, late fifties and over-weight, sits stinky and silent on a bench in Loyola Park. No one knows that he is secretly watching everyone there, on the look out for any sort of trouble. That was his job now. He had lost everything except his need to drink... and of late, the cheap wine had started to make his brain resemble smooth vanilla pudding with chocolate chips and coconuts -- a disease that was going to help kill him in twelve days, when the first icey Northeasterner roars acrss the lake and freezes to death any wino who has the bad luck of passing out on a street corner all exposed to the evilish elements of the cold, cold wind chilled air that freezes their flesh and slows their heart down more and more, until they end up in a paupers grave . .. but that night, he was just drunk enough to feel like he could take on the world!!
He turned real quick, alerted by a movement in the corner of his eye, and saw a young women with a Depaul University shirt walking a yapping small white dog... The dog started sniffing a tree and preparing to let loose some used up foods and liquids... He watched the woman closely. He had a feeling she was just going to leave the shit and he was pissed. Really pissed. Too pissed to calm down even after the women suddenly pulled a box of blue, scented bags out of her pocket and knelt down and picked up the steaming pile of poo. He glared at her as she passed and was pleased when she quickened her step. 'Have to keep an eye out for that one,' he thought, though he knew he would forget because he forgot everything at somepoint in the day, when the wine made his speach a moan that drove away anyone he tried to bum a smoke from or tell about some squirrel that he saw that day.
There had been no crime that day... Once a cop had told him this was the safest park in the city.
Only he, Bob The Drunk, knew that he was a knight, and entirely responsible for keeping people in line. The Kids he watched especially. And of course those damn dog walkers. If they tried to get away without cleaning up, he yelled at them, made a scene... usally they ran from him and he would just have to accept that he couldn't pass out in that spot until the stuff was dry enough.. He knew that they would think twice about leaving shit in his park after his rebuke, at least. He was also worried about trolls, though he had yet to see anything more than a few of their ghosts.
And indeed, there was no crime that night; or the next, or the next... until finally, Bob laid down the doorway of a closed dry cleaner and felt the wine pull him down into blessed black. Six hours and fourteen minutes and ten seconds later, he froze to death.
Bob was quite surprised to find himself reincarnated and already an eight year old girl . . . which is why she started drinking so young and became a lesbian and changed her name back to Bob. True story.