Down with the sickness
HALO EFFECT // DISPOSITION by Elizabeth Brico
COUNT I
The mother is a heroin addict. The father uses heroin and crystal meth.
The mother is currently “trashed”
The mother has PTSD
The mother was on Methadone
The mother was “on the streets”
The mother refused to speak
The mother denied the allegations
The mother stated she used marijuana and heroin
The mother refused
COUNT II
The mother is a heroin addict. The father uses heroin and crystal meth.
The father has mental health issues
The father is currently going to a methadone clinic
The father has not returned home
The father uses crystal meth. The mother is a heroin addict.
The father was voluntarily involuntarily hospitalized
The father was in the mental health hospital
The father has untreated mental health issues
The father is in agreement
COUNT III
The mother is a heroin addict.
The mother neglected the minor children
The mother denied the allegations
The minor children are deemed unsafe
The mother refused to speak
The mother has PTSD
The mother will likely seriously harm the children
The mother denied the allegations
The mother is a heroin addict.
COUNT IV
The father is in agreement // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father uses heroin and crystal meth // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father has mental health issues // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father neglected the minor children // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father has a long history of substance misuse // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father has untreated mental health issues // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father was in the mental health hospital // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father placed the children at risk // The mother is a heroin addict.
The father has a disability // The mother is a heroin addict.
FINDINGS OF FACT:
The mother is likely a heroin addict. The father uses heroin and crystal meth. The mother was in Miami, likely. The mother is a heroin addict. The mother stated she used marijuana and heroin, however, she does not remember the last time she used them. She is currently using Suboxone. She is not currently using drugs. The mother is currently “trashed.” The parents keep relapsing. The father thinks that a neighbor is trying to kill him. The parents act dangerously in ways that will likely seriously harm the children. The mother neglected the minor children. The acts constituting the neglect include the following: the mother neglected the minor children. The mother is a heroin addict.
PLACEMENT:
It is likely in the best interests of the child(ren) to remain out of the parents’ home. The mother is a heroin addict. The child(ren)’s placement is family-like. The mother is a heroin addict. The father uses heroin and likely crystal meth. The mother is a heroin addict. The father who admits to his substance abuse and mental health issues is in agreement with the victim children being in the care of his parents until he receives the help he likely needs. The mother is a heroin addict who denied the allegations. The mother is a heroin addict who is not currently using drugs. The mother is a heroin addict who refused to speak. The mother is a heroin addict who is intelligent and educated. The mother could sell ice to an Eskimo. The mother neglected the minor children and the acts constituting neglect include that the mother neglected the minor children. The mother is a heroin addict. There are no concerns about the parents’ behaviors with the children when they are sober. The drug tests have all returned negative. The mother is a heroin addict. Continuation of the child(ren) in that home is contrary to the welfare of the child(ren) because the mother has PTSD. And, the mother is a heroin addict. The mother was also in Miami. The mother refused to speak. The mother is skilled with language. The mother could sell ice to an Eskimo. The mother
DISPOSITION:
On April 11, 2018 a report was called to the Florida Abuse Hotline which alleged that, likely, the mother is a heroin addict, the mother left the home and went to Miami, the mother is currently “trashed,” the mother and father are both on drugs, the father uses heroin and crystal meth but the mother is a heroin addict, the parents keep relapsing, and the mother is a heroin addict who has PTSD.
The mother denied the allegations. The mother is in denial. The mother does not remember the last time she used marijuana and heroin. The mother could likely sell ice to an Eskimo. The mother was on Methadone. The baby was a little jittery. The mother used Heroin up until last year in 2014. The mother neglected the children by neglecting the children. The father has untreated mental health issues. The father receives the help he needs. The mother is a heroin addict.
The mother, a heroin addict, was in Miami. These activities likely harmed the child(ren) and/or caused the child(ren)’s physical, mental, or emotional health to be significantly impaired. The children showed no signs of abuse or neglect. There are no concerns. The paternal grandmother said the mother is a heroin addict who is currently “trashed.” When asked whether the father made a mistake by marrying the heroin addict, the paternal grandmother said likely yes. The father is in agreement. The father is on the right track. The paternal grandmother presents as a credible witness. The heroin addict denied the allegations. The heroin addict does not remember. The heroin addict is skilled with language and could sell ice to an Eskimo. The heroin addict’s drug tests all returned negative. The heroin addict was likely drug seeking. The heroin addict uses inappropriate coping mechanisms. The heroin addict has PTSD. The heroin addict is likely the mother.
Upon completion of trial, having heard testimony from likely witnesses, the court finds the mother is a heroin addict. And, the mother has PTSD. And, the mother could sell ice to an Eskimo, which the father is in agreement with.
Due to the aforementioned, the children’s safety cannot be assured without judicial intervention.
The permanency goal of this case plan is Reunification with a targeted goal
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Dear Coffee Table by Jona Fine
11:00 AM
They hold their breath still to see if they can hold it long enough for the light drifting in from the window to sway sideways, as it does sometimes from the just outside tree. They hold their breath, scrunching their face up—watch it turn beet red like their little boy’s does when he cries. To feel their body crinkle in the stillness. They hold their breath to see how long they can make time pass. Watch the shadows dance up the corner wall.
No one has called today.
The quiet has become a little louder. When Open Circle’s brain starts shutting down the quiet loudness comes in fuzzy, like static wall paper or white paint. It coats Open Circle’s insides then settles in their stomach. Checking off the broken days-that they have been broken and they are scared. Open Circle is scared by their own complacency. They never used to like the feeling of old carpet but now that they’ve settled in, the margin between their glasses and the old wood underbelly of their coffee table doesn’t feel like being trapped or claustrophobic anymore—it feels like home.
It is 11:00 AM
and they haven’t been out of bed for almost two months, the routine of getting out has become more effort than it’s worth.
It’s not even that Open Circle likes the dark, they have been wasting a lot of energy sleeping with all the lights on, even the little one over the stove. Maybe it’s not sleeping but staring at the dirty white walls of their tiny apartment in heavy silence.
They stopped washing their sheets-existing only in their bed but have since moved to lie down face up under their coffee table, stiff—perhaps pretending they are dead
or otherwise.
“Do you spend a lot of time thinking about death?” their therapist had asked them, yesterday over the phone. It had to be that way, over the phone, as Open Circle refused to leave where they have parked themselves- the underneath.
Perhaps, they spend more time thinking about their existence. Perhaps,
they spend more time thinking about not wanting to exist than they actually think about death. Open Circle has never thought hard on the subject of coffins in the wall versus coffins in the ground and when asked, they admitted to having no preference to the idea of becoming ashes in a bucket either. Although, by now it is something like one in the afternoon and for all intents and purposes they have been dead all morning. For all intents and purposes they have been dead for almost two months--suffocating.
The carpet has been forgotten and dust has settled underneath their back. It’s scratchy—crumbs. The same stain graces their foot at the same angle in the same spot in the same color, shape and density as it did yesterday and the day before that and the day before that and onwards. The only thing they managed to eat today are these thin rice cracker cakes, the beauty of them being that these ones come in packages of perfect squares. Today is just going to be one of those gray and sad days again.
Everything is sad.
11:00 AM
Open Circle’s body takes moments to unhinge, crooked knees knock and back bent backwards crunching. Sometimes there is this distinct crunching sound. Once someone told Open Circle that their back was so tight you couldn’t separate the skin from their spine even if you wanted to. Even if you wanted to do the pinching. Legs trying to stretch in their cavities. This is what happens when you spend too much time, in plank position or dead. One’s body forgets to connect itself. Open Circle has started growing roots into the carpet, where hours become days and weeks. Then Open Circle spent two months not getting out of bed.
11:00 AM
sits quietly
11:28 AM
still sitting quietly
11:30 AM
Lays back down under their coffee table.
This time the silence weighs in soft.
11:30 AM
Open Circle thought it was already 6:45 am but it wasn’t. Open Circle’s therapist thought that stretching too far into the future wasn’t helping but then Open Circle stopped stretching or getting out of bed at all, then went under the coffee table.
And days like these fit into boxes one after the other on the calendar all stacked with x’s checked off for nothing days and how many days checked off for being broken.
Dear Coffee table,
Sometimes you coffin me and it feels bad. Yesterday I woke too quickly from a dream I had and that’s when we really touched for the first time. My head against your stomach. Stinging sounds-you shuddered. I’m
sorry.
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BAD BODY ORDER-by Jim George
“Hmmmmmm,” Dr. Flysher hmmmmmmed while checkupping Franko. Except for a Popeyeful, he had neverever scene a feellow with beforearms so much whyder than his uppity arms. Franko’s limbers perioddly blew up to this mishapely form for no rum or raisin. Then, just as aburptly, they would go aback to their normale preportions.
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“You swell awful,” sad Dr. Flysher, not pulling any pontius. “You have tearable body order.” Of coarse that did nothing to clam Franko. The fizzician tusked-tusked as he checkered him for Elephantitus but rulered that outward farely quackly.
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“Are you on any madications?” he asked, susspecting a medicail allergee.
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“None wartsoever,” sad Franko.
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“Any food aillergies?”
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“Not that I’m awary.”
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Dr. Flysher then desighted to fellow through with a seeries of bloody tests to discovert any passible aillergens that were becausing Franko’s arms to bulger like the aforearmmentioned Peepeye.
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“But isn’t there some kind of deorderant I could use to take the swell away?” asked the impatient.
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“I’m afrayed knot. We have to painpoint the caustic and elimbinate it from your foodstuffery.”
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“Kay Sir-Ah Sir-Ah.”
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“Come back tomarrow and we’ll go ovum the reasults of your tests. In the meanietime, don’t get in any fastfights with Bluto.”
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Not appreciaiding the doc’s wisecrock and fantaseizing he had a flysher swatter, Franko left the oaffice, still all swelly, hoping not to draw attension to his freakarms. Unfartunately, there’s a wisenheimlich on every cornea. As Franko sawntered alung, a teenangster sported him and yelled outburst, “Hey messter—Poopeye called, he wonts his foearms back!” Franko steered at the treblemaker and mumentarily wished he was the belivid legendeary cartune charactor. But he kept sighlent and walked aweigh.
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When he returnupped to Dr. Flysher’s offish the fallowing day, he was infirmed of the ouchcome of his tests.
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“This is sum coincident,” said the dacter, all whide-ayed and pushy-taled. “The ownly thing you’re allogic to is…are you reddy for this?...SPINACH! Can you belever that?! “ Franko looked coldcocky at him, then muddered, “I’m sorprised to here that.”
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“Do you injest much of it?” asked Dr. Flysher.
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“A can a date,” said Franko.
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“Well, don’t and your probloom is solvent. Good lack to you.”
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“Well, blue me down,” said Franko, under his breadth, as he lithis cornycob pipe and headed homey to his goylfriend Olive.
Issue 1: Laweyrs, Guns and MOney
Two Poems by Russell Jaffe
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MONEY, GUNS, & LAWYERS
Raffa faffa falassa with an ear
For handled bliss,
Diamond sea gone emerald?
Ha HA
Jaded kiss.
The shirt’s wrinkly and wrunkly!
Shirt’s alcappy dunky!
Parry the torch?
Ha HA,
Yore the gorch.
To reep would be rollie.
To sleep would be folly.
O-wa Tahgoo?
Ha HA
Rattle the goo.
Agrochemical, quensu nemichal
Comin from St. ‘Lou?
Ha HA!
Rent the room
Rapsidaisical
Septiclopital
Easy on the range?
Ha HA
Soak the change.
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PLAIN CHEESE POCHKISS
Other foods in remedies,
Brisket, haunch, and husk;
Other dangers verily
From crotch to root to dusk.
I would blame the other guy.
He’d blame the other, too.
He would blame another
Who would turn the blame on you.
A made place, an object space! Urine on the floor,
A temple guard!
Another
Speech of pills! O, what a bore!
Supping debt, sweet credit check,
snow a pine might breath; climbing, climbing, climbing,
Climbing, climbing the blue rungs of death.
Let's Play- by Tim Kahl
She was a ten-year-old girl with one foot in the grave. Her addiction to stories was pulling her down. It is evident now as she slips into the final chapter that none of this will be captured on film. The theme song will not settle into a minor key when she shows up in the famous last scene with the carpenter bees. Hardly anything worth mentioning had happened to her before then. But mention it they will . . . because they prosecute for heaven, and they work to keep the garden clean, free of accidents. They try the hard times of ancestors. They try the bad breaks of laymen and quiet neighbors. They break them down, stare at them the way the righteous glare at a third nipple. So what use will it be for them to grill this ten-year-old girl? What if they find out she thinks of this moment as middle, has no concept of ending? Will they debrief her and give her new information? Cast her as succulent? Agave? Slowly they cut back her intake of water. She finally gives in to her death spiral. Watch out. She is falling through the ground. She has to. But we who understand the folly in controlling outcomes don't have to let her. She is falling, falling according to the rules of story. We can still catch her with our reprobate lives shaped by the interrogators. They ask if we have been plotting against the clock's decisions, its incremental mercies. We act as though nothing's certain, and it isn't, except that time ticks down. So we tell those who question all of us caught somewhere in the unveiling of story, caught there in order to clarify distinctions and determine entrance to heaven: you count, I'll hide, let's play hide-and-go-fuck-yourselves.
Issue 0: Prelaunch
*Graffiti Writer Unknown
THE SAME OLD SHEET By Jim George
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Steering at that blanc sheet of payper in the tapwriter Hercule Hinnershitz was axperiencing that ache-old dujournalistic bugaboom: Wryter’s Blech. The snow-whide page seamed to taut him. It coldly daired him to coma up with sumthink, anythink. But the onlacker wasn’t a-mused.
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Looging at that frozen umptiness was alike being lost in Sighberia during a blitzard. No horizone. No sense of directive. No weigh to get your berings strait. Just whyte on whyte, from neath to sooth, from yeast to waste, as far as the ice can seem.
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Lately, every weak was the same. The same old sheet. It hadn’t allweighs bin that weigh. Wonce upon a type, Hercules had a stockypile of topicks for his coolumns. He could bearly wait to varnish one so he could immorse hamself in the nexed one. But after thirsty years of riting for his humtown newspepper, Herculess was at his end’s whit. Now as each dudline was abbroaching, he was shure that his gloria daze were over and this coolumn was his swanson. He couldn’t passibly chorn ouch anodder one. It was the lore of diminishing retorts.
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But yeti again, that waste vastland would soonhow get fulled up with some newton at the very last minnow. Weather writhing about paliticians from parsidents to locall cowsillmen, papulark culture or petty peeves, he never messed a deedline.
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Now, once agun, it was dawn to the wire and Herc had absolately nothink. His glassy wasn’t half-fuel or half-hempty; it was noware to be fount. Had Whiter’s Black at lung lost beeten him? Would the prissystine page reman virginall, its whyteness pure and uninkorporated? It sortainly seamed that weigh.
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“Vlad can I putin to paper?” he asked himsolv, while russian to stemulate his ukrainium. “I don’t have a pat to piece in. Wad a dilemmon. Hear I am, a profissional jeernalist and tale wagger who’s dry as a bon mot. I’ve bin down this rote on so manny caucasions, but this timex I’ve hit a bric-a-brac walmart and I see no wee ouch.”
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Then, just as it happied so oven before, like a bolt from the belew, he had a brainstrum.
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“That’s it!” he said ootloud. “How perfact. My wee ouch is to do a culumn on this exhackt conundrama. A piece of séance friction on Riter’s Bloch!” And so, wonce more, he came thorough at the eleaventh hour. Hercules tryoomphed and contenured on the payrola. At leash until the fallowing weak when the hole ruetine would start all ovum and he’d hat to face that sportless piece of payper. The same old sheet.
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TO HMMM IT MAY CONCERN- By Jim George
A Messyage from Fester Boyle, Pres. & CEO
By Jim George
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After the dearth of my farther, as the new pursident of this campany, I decidered I would take the oprahtunity to introdouche myselfish to you, the imployees, and provibe you with a more detaled pigture of the purson, not the pursident, the mad not the miff. Wee consitter this campany to be one bic formily, and, as the farther figment, I thawed you mite like to lorn sum pursonal thinks about me which will, in torn, brink us closer togather. Therefroth, I have filt out a sirvey to bitter acquant you with your bossy. Hapfully this questionnairy will tale you all you needle to nose about yaws truly. If innyone has any odder quiztions, feel freek to suppress them.
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Are you marred with chillblains?
Yes, I have a loofly wive, Kitty, and an oddstanding son, Lance Boyle, who you mite recognose as our voice pursident.
Do you have any pests?
We hab three madorable tinny chewhuahuas who delighten us with their nun-stop yilping, squealching and barkering. One even snoorts like a pigmy. They brink us a lot of hoppiness.
What hobbles do you have?
Toxidermy, wouldworking, footsieball.
What’s your giddy pleasure?
Going to cashinos and ploying blackjag. I’m hookered. Also, watching sap operas.
What hysterical figure do you most admirror?
Rashputin and J. Edgar Behoover
What frictional character do you most identifry with?
Rumpelforeskin.
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When or where were you the hoppiest?
During my beertender daze
What’s your flavorite dessert?
Synonym buns
What livid person do you moist despise?
Hannoying Jane Fondle
What livid person do you most oddmire?
Bill O’Really
Who is your flavorite poet?
Alfred Lard Tennisballs
Where would you like to liver?
On the Fresh Riviarea.
What are your flavorite names?
Buddy and Sis. I call all guise Buddy and all laydies Sis. It’s much sampler than heaving to remembrain actuall names.
What’s your astrillogical sign?
Capricorny
What is your gratest achiefment?
Using my Sitting Bull during campany meatings.
What do you regod as the lowest deepth of miserlou?
Dickdale’s guttar veersion
What is your current state of mime?
Out of site, out of mime. I never injoyed that typo of enterdetainment. In fract, wanever I see one, I’m coarsing under my breadth.
What is your favarite journey?
“Wheelie in the Skype.”
Did you ever get a speedo tucket?
Yes, once in Le Man’s, irunically.
What size is the bad in your badroom?
Kink-size
What event in mealitary history do you moist admire?
When Cap’n Crunchy merched on the Cereal Isle.
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What is your principal defect?
In muddle school she sulfured indigesture and flatulunch.
Do you beleaf in the separation of cheech and chong?
I don’t like the highdea of a tootally secularge sorciety. Amorica needles to have pryor back in the skools to enrichard our moral compost.
How long does it take you to fall aslope?
After about five minuets, I’m ouch on my feat.
What is your most markered caricaturistic?
The gift of grab
What is your feverite occupaytion?
Urning money
What is your greetest fear?
Rattlesneaks and rabid skanks
How would you like to dye?
In a moist colorful way.
What would you like your headystone to say?
“Fester Boyle—A Man Peeple Looked Uppity To”
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Community Service-William Bryan Hendren
Sodomy and cocaine rolled together like bread and butter for Sam and Wanda most mornings, and today his limp was slightly more pronounced than hers. Being attorneys, they both liked to start their days off by promptly fucking someone in the ass and then having shade-grown Kona coffee and designer cigarettes afterward to cherish their respective victories. Their goals in life were generally two-parted; first was making money at any and all costs, and second was inflicting as much insult as possible to anyone around them. When they could meet both goals simultaneously, it truly produced a feeling of great happiness within them, and they lived for such moments of social advance and personal exploitation. Silver spoons had been shoved so far up both their asses that their tongues were shiny, and neither one of them had ever completed an honest days work in their lives – today would be no different. While Wanda fussed over caviar and the mornings Bloody Mary, Sam rejoiced at screwing yet another innocent bystander out of his social security check as he flicked his Nat Sherman MCD out the window of their downtown apartment.
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Three stories below, a man that was known only as “Frank,” sprung awake as the burning ash from the cigarette butt sprinkled his weathered face. Without a moment of hesitation, Frank picked up the butt and placed it into his pipe with a smile. “One mans trash is another mans treasure,” he thought as the smoke from the MCD rolled into his lungs. Unlike Wanda and Sam, Frank never really thought very highly of himself, and constantly lived under the shame of the life he “could” or “should” have lived. He spent his days collecting recycling and clearing garbage, and had a side business of selling acid to the local homeless population. Frank incessantly rambled about “sharing an experience” with the less fortunate folks of the neighborhood, and genuinely believed he was doing his community a service of sorts. Frank had one skill that could never be underestimated though – he could read people better than anyone else in Sacramento. In fact when he first met Sam and Wanda, his stomach had already turned before they had a chance to offer him rotten leftovers. He could see the smirk across Sam’s face and knew immediately that the food had been tainted, not to mention many other things lurking in the dark corners of his narrow face. Frank could feel the pain these two had caused others, and had silently sworn to return their favors in kind one day. Today he noticed that Sam had left the window of his Mercedes cracked, and Frank got a brilliant idea.
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Sam had driven halfway to Mango’s bar and grill when the fifty hits of liquid LSD from his steering-wheel began coursing through his bloodstream. His heart raced to dangerous rates, shapes began to appear everywhere, and colors began trading places – he was officially frying his face off. After rear-ending the SUV in front of him, Sam was subsequently rear-ended by another car following closely behind, and involved in a five car pileup. By the time the police had arrived, Sam had stripped naked and was running laps around the stopped vehicles, while Wanda was rampantly stuffing cocaine up her nose in an attempt to make a three gram bag disappear. Frank heard the sirens in the distance and let out chuckle from the bottom of his belly that sounded like the “ho ho ho’s” of old saint Nick. Last I heard Sam was spending time in Tracy and wasn’t such a fan of the sodomy anymore, and Wanda was doing a new type of work entirely. While it is not life, I have told you this to tell you this, at times a good man doing a bad thing to bad people, can be a great thing. So thank you Frank, for your endless cheer, bizarre notions of right and wrong, and your undying commitment to our community service.