And I eventually lost Walt to a tall, skinny, freckled poet who he later explained kept him up all night whining about the duality of the human nature before finally sucking him off. I still question the authenticity of the end of his tale.

It’s awkward being alone at a big party. It’s sort of like you’re equally connected to everyone, but not really aligned with anyone. Could have been the booze. Ordinarily, I’d just conduct business, but on this particular night I hadn’t yet received my monthly supply from the administrator, so I was sitting on a small supply that I needed to reserve for my regular clients.

After thirty minutes of pacing around and attempting to sidle into someone else’s conversation, I eventually just decided to call it a night and head home.

My head was spinning, and my feet were struggling to maintain connection with the sidewalk. So, I figured it’d be best to cut through the backyard and head through the woods over to 19th street rather than try to stumble across the four lane highway I needed to cross to get back to my apartment complex.

As I lurched through the little stretch of woods in the now very cold night, I was slapped in the face by more than a few switches of leafless low-hanging tree-limbs. My eyes and nose stinging from the slap and my hands pawed clumsily in front of me in a vain effort to thwart the assault of the limbs attacking me. I finally emerged blindly into a clearing on the other side of the small patch of woods.

There was a long wooden fence that ran the length of the field, and on the other side of it I’d cross through another small patch of woods, scurry between a couple of houses, and then I could follow 19th all the way home.

But there, forming itself in my bleery drunken vision was the shape of a man huddled over the fence. He was wearing a long, brown duster-style trench coat. I could tell he was in some sort of laborious condition as his back was arched and curled over and he seemed to be straining. It took my drunken mind a few moments to realize that there were two pairs of feet huddled beneath the tail of that duster.

Oh, I muttered as I finally connected the dots and acknowledged that some guy was dogging his girlfriend over this fence. I figured I should probably get out of sight, but apart from heading back into the woods, there wasn’t anywhere to go. Then it dawned on me that this couple was likely as drunk as I was, so who cared if I discreetly made my way over the fence while they did their thing?

So I began moving toward them. I took a long stride over to the left, giving them a wide berth as I passed. I kept my eyes faced forward, and attempted not to try to focus on the motion distracting me in my periphery.

As I approached, I could hear the huffing and grunting of the trench-coat clad fellow. “Man, he must be giving her one to remember,” I thought to myself as I reached the fence. That’s when the fellow doing the working noticed me and popped upright, halting his bucking motions.

“Oh shit,” he exclaimed, probably more frightened than embarrassed.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” I slurred matter-of-factly as I straddled the