It was one of those times when I was one of America's homeless, living in a home built camper stuck on the back of my pickup that the bank was trying to repossess. I moved around pretty good, and the bank didn't try real hard. I wasn't broke, I'd sold some food stamps for fifty cents on the dollar to a welfare mother. You know the kind, a blowzy blonde with three kids by different fathers, who worked the summer season as a chambermaid in one of the local tourist motels. In the winter, she worked under the table at a restaurant and collected as much welfare as she could. She was in the loot, she'd a job. Can you believe it.

I took the money and headed down to the fanciest bar in town and was slamming them down with the old retired coots, who had plenty of bucks and houses on the hill. I guess they got a kick out of me, living in my truck and drinking Jack Daniels and water and talking about all my big plans. You gotta understand, it ain't easy to make it as an artist, and if I would of been born rich I wouldn't be hanging out with the street people and such, so when I got bucks I like to hang out in fancy bars and hob-nob with the well-to-do. I figure they gotta get to know me, I'm really their kinda guy.

Well, anyway, it was the worst time of the year. And old Kenny who's about seventy and is a biologist who writes text books, and taught in college and inherited a million bucks is bragging right along with me telling me that he's going down to Scottsdale for Thanksgiving with his old lady, who's beautiful and refined and plays the cello in the local symphony. Kenny plans on working on his tan and playing golf during the holidays while his wife plays tennis and goes to concerts.

Well, Kenny telling me all this don't make me feel so hot because I don't have nowhere to go on Thanksgiving at all. You know, I'd like to have a wife and a big house on the beach maybe some kids or something. I'm not really a bad guy... I'm a navy veteran... got my honorable as a petty officer first class, they told me I could re-enlist, I guess they needed somebody who could fix there fancy computers or something, and I told them no thanks I could make it in the real world. The captain he then told me I drank to much and couldn't re-enlist and he put a black mark on my record so I couldn't re-enlist if I wanted to.

I guess that showed me, and the only time I heard back from the navy after that was during Desert Storm when they wrote me a letter telling me I could re-enlist if I would come in right away and go over to the battle zone. I guess drunks are good enough to fight wars but they ain't any good for standing inspections and taking bullshit orders. I was thinking about going but realized they were going to want me to take piss tests, and I never did like taking them, though I always passed them one way or another.

Anyway, old Lenny was telling me about the silver star and two purple hearts he won in World War II, and how he was thinking about buying this town but wasn't really sure if that was what he wanted to do with it or not. Well, I told Lenny that I thought buying the town was a hell of an idea, except that it sat on top of the Juan de Fuca fault and that any minute the whole thing could swallowed up into the sea. He grinned and said that he figured I was right, and ordered another martini, extra dry with a twist of lemon.

Lenny's a great guy... yuh gotta love him. He never drinks more than three drinks in one bar, but he hits every bar in town. Of course he's nicely dressed so only the pros know who he is. When he's on a run he gets pretty bombed and when he gets home to his fancy house and I'll bet he catches hell from his wife. Of course, after hitting six bars he's so blitzed he probably can't even hear her. Anyway, I'm having a hell of a time at the bar when I feel this hand on my shoulder. It's Percy the prep cook and he sits down and wants to buy me a drink.

Hey, I let Percy buy me a drink, he's a helluva guy, lived down in Hollywood before he came up here to write the great American novel, and he wants to buy a computer and learn how to type to write the book that will make him a fortune and famous. He thinks he might learn how to write a sentence first, then even learn about them verbs and nouns and things. Well, hell, it being Thanksgiving I buy Percy a drink.

Percy settles down on the barstool next to me, wipes his greasy hair out of his eyes with dirty fingers and orders a mondo beer. A mondo beer is a big beer, a clear beer, twenty-two ounces of good old American lager. I watch Percy drink deep and wonder if he's gonna tell me the same story he tells me every time he tells me a story. He does, he digs right in and he tells me about how he came to town and got his job at the Sea Witch.

The Sea Witch is the fanciest restaurant in town and sits out over the water and has a famous bar which I drink in and am known as a local character. I write a little myself and tell everybody about it because I brag too much. I'm a little bit of an artist and con-man and go though money a hell of a lot faster than I make it. It always wasn't that way... after I got out of the Navy I met a Dana and we ran away, she left her husband and kids and I started writing sports. I started out in weeklies then wrote for the small dailies before I hit the major metros. Then Dana met a fisherman and moved to Alaska and I've been drunk everyday since.

I still sell a story now and then, still got my portable printer and computer in the back of my truck... but, I'm drunk so much of the time that I don't get much done, and really don't want to. I got a crazy girl who chases me around, and I gotta watch out for her... she wants me to do a drug deal but I don't trust her. You can't trust anybody now days, everyone in society is paranoid and a liar. Maybe even the crazy girl. She may be a secret agent or have AIDS. Life ain't what it used to be and it just isn't cause I'm getting older either. Like a friend of mine said, "When we were kids we had it made, gas was thirty-cents a gallon, we drove big cars with V-8's and the worst thing you could get from fucking they could cure with an injection. Hell of a thought, ain't it?

Anyway, Percy invites me over to his yacht for Thanksgiving dinner at 1 PM. He's got the turkey in the oven at the Sea Witch and needs a ride to the yacht. I tell him sure, the mayor and city planner nor non of the big businessmen invited me up for dinner so I'd be glad to go on his yacht. Percy's yacht is a twenty-six foot Chris craft with the windows boarded up with plywood. He got burned out of some place in Seattle where he used to be a draftsman before the bottle got the best of him, or the worst of him depending on how you look at it. Percy has flurries of brilliance... he's a hard guy to figure out. He can talk a good line... but when the bottle gets to him he gets kinda crazy. He thinks the mob's after him and have stole all his good ideas for movies. Well, maybe they have. Everybody around here's got Hollywood connections, now. Washington's a hot state- popular you know. 'Course, I'm here. So how could it not be? Hey I'm the man. My life is perfect, after half a dozen drinks I feel like dancing on the moon.

Well, we say good-bye to Kenny-who's turned mean and is telling me my writing ain't worth a fuck-and Percy and I jump in my truck after throwing the turkey in the back and we roll on down to the boat. Percy's boat is a real mess, I mean he lives like a pig. Dirty clothes and bottles are piled everywhere. I wonder if he ever had a woman. He never talks about women much. I know he had a barmaid girl friend once but she dumped him for a bartender who was really rolling in the tips. A career move, I guess. Anyway, the party was going along swimmingly.

A couple of bikers showed up as Percy and I were draining a bottle of apricot brandy on the fantail. They were dressed in black leather and studs, driving a knucklehead and a panhead-don't ask me how to tell the difference. They had a case of beer and a fifth of Jack Daniels. After we polished that off and watched a football game on Percy's twelve inch black and white TV I broke out a half gallon of rot gut Scotch I'd stashed for a special occasion and we carved into that bird and had us a real dinner. Panhead, the medium sized biker with long greasy black hair and absent front incisors gnawed a turkey leg to the bone then threw it out the hatch.

"Great stuff," Panhead said. "To bad we can't eat this way anyway... a regular feast for kings... gimme that Scotch will yah."

I handed him the Scotch and watched as he tilted his head back and took a long bubbling Adam's apple bobbing swig. I was thirsty myself to I poured myself another drink after he'd slammed the bottle down on the table. Knuckles, six-foot-four, florid and baby faced snatched the bottle and mixed himself a beer and scotch, half and half. The party was going great.

"How's the turkey guys? I cooked it at the Sea Witch."

Knuckles laughed and knocked over his drink, screaming, "The Sea Witch, that pussy joint... shit Pan and I've been 86'd out of there ever since we came to town. They ain't got no sense of humor."

"What did you do, Knuckles, something to piss them off."

"Piss them off shit! All I did was haul the bartender over the bar take him out on the deck and toss him into the bay... pisser was mixin' weak drinks."

"Yeah, they're on the gun," Pan added.

"Like I said, a chicken shit joint. Yah, shit I spilled my drink!"

I handed him the scotch as Percy brought out the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. We kept on partying and I was starting to get warmed up. Things were looking, warmer, smoother, somehow. The world was taking on a rosy glow.

"We should get some more beer," Percy said."Outta beer!" Knucks roared.

"Well now, we got three left," Percy said.

"Shit that's nothing... we gotta take a collection," Knucks leered at us. Empty Pockets all.

"No money!" Knucks roared, "I'm tired of being broke. All them rich people live in their fancy houses on the hill, they got everything... they got the bucks they got the women... they got everything... I'm PISSED!"

Knucks slammed his hand into one of the plywood windows and it popped out... a cold wind of driving snow came blasting into the cabin.

"Jesus... I'm sorry Percy," Knucks muttered, embarrassed.

We all piled outside and fixed the window in a few moments and everybody was a lot happier. But we were still outta beer money, and that was depressing. Later that night we were still drinking scotch, I broke out another bottle from my camper... be prepared that's me... and suddenly the electricity went out. The storm must have knocked down a power line somewhere. Percy lit a kerosene lamp and we sat around drinking whisky, the pale orangesque light illuminating our faces as the storm raged outside.

"You know I wish we had a big house," Pan said, "then we could store all the beer we wanted in a refrigerator."

"That costs bucks, Knucks responded. We ain't got bucks, we just got our rides. We're outlaws."

"Yes, were outlaws," Percy said his face glowing in the kerosene light... and you know what outlaws do to get money."

"No," I said, not catching on.

"Stupid shit... they rob people," Knucks roared.

"You got it... and where do the rich keep all their money?"

"What you gettin' at Percy?" Knucks asked, grinning, "not what I think your thinking of.

"You know they keep the money in the bank."

"Let's rob the bank," I suggested, trying to edge into the conversation.

As the cold northwest storm struck, we put together a plan to rob the bank in the morning and kidnap the pretty girls and hold them as slaves in the fo'c's'le of Percy's boat. We picked the bank with the prettiest babes, right down on the waterfront. Since it was my idea to rob the bank, I got first choice of the slave women. The way I see it, a thousand years ago I would have been King and would have had lots of slave women. This civilization shit just pisses me off.

Anyway, we were all still drunk Friday morning when we woke up in Percy's boat. Percy reminded us we had a bank to rob and as it was about 9 am. we'd better get going. Percy produced a rusty single shot shotgun and three shells. The bikers, had a couple of .45's. I own one of them Chinese SKS assault rifles with a bayonet and 1000 rounds of ammunition. We were ready for action. We figured to hit the bank right at opening and clean them out. Percy and I climbed out of the boat, jumped in my truck and drove down to the bank with the two bikers riding Harley's pulled out in front of us. We were a little early so, I hit my emergency gas money, that I'd forgotten about the night before, and we picked up a case a beer at a beer store and hung out in front of the bank drinking. Then I saw that hot blonde, wearing the white nylons and works for the bank president going to work. That one was mine. The bikers pulled into the parking lot. I turned the ignition. Nothing! I looked down, I'd left the lights on, the battery was dead.

Percy looked at me and I looked at him, I smiled and told him, "not to worry, I gotta reserve."

"Well, get too it!" Percy said, "It's already started!"

I checked out the bank. Percy was right. The bikers were waving the gun at the blonde girl and she was sticking her hands in the air. I looked at the rear view mirror and saw two police cars coming with their lights on, sirens screaming. Percy looked at me and I opened the back window into the camper then Percy slipped both guns in the back. I switched on the reserve battery and started the truck. We eased out into the flow of traffic just as the bikers starting shooting it out with the cops. Percy handed me a beer and I pulled hard on it. There are just some things in life I do not understand. How did the cops know we was going to be robbing the bank? Maybe it was just bad luck, but then again lots of time in this life my luck has been bad. Anyway I must have been going 90 when we took the curve at the edge of town and slammed into a telephone pole. So, I ended up in jail for drunken driving, driving without insurance, driving with an expired license and just plain being an invalid human being.

Well, I went up before the judge Monday morning and he gave me a stern lecture and let me out on Personal Recognizance. I guess they didn't want to waste money feeding me in jail. Don't blame them, I like to eat a lot. Anyway, after I'd sobered up and hit the streets I found out that the bikers had been shot dead, and that the blonde bank girl hadn't got hurt, so nobody knew what happened but Percy and me and Percy and me we ain't gonna talk... and Percy better not get drunk and talk.

The owner of the Sea Witch gave me a job mopping floors and sweeping up so I'm employed now, a working man. Still, I got lots of time of my own and I spend most of it sitting on the street corner watching the burned out Viet Nam freaks, and nut cases, and punks trying to score crack and cocaine. But mostly I don't spend much time thinking about it, cause if I can get up early enough I can watch all the girls go to work at the bank, all dressed up nice and perfumed and all, then I dream about how close I came to making it. Just like Jesse James.