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New York had a cold snap that year right around the tiers were in it, so our weather didn’t affect the outcoers surprised everybody and won it in five, with Kirk Gibson and Hershiser providing the heroics The Mets, who’d led their division since Opening Day, were in it through seven playoff gaers had so more Whatever it was, it carried theames at a friend’s apartan’s Open House and the rest in h the end of October and there were speculative stories in the papers about long hard winters On the local news shows, reporters took caot rustics to point out the thick coats on the livestock and the woolly fur on the caterpillars Then the first week of Nove and people were out on the streets in their shirtsleeves

It was football season, but the New York teaup as the power in the NFL, and the best Giants linebacker since Sam Huff drew a thirty-day suspension for substance abuse, which was the current euphemism for cocaine The first time this had happened he’d told reporters that he had learned a valuable lesson This time he declined all interviews

I kept busy and enjoyed the eather I was doing soency, an outfit called Reliable Investigations with offices in the Flatiron Building at Twenty-third and Broadway Their clients ran heavily to attorneys representing plaintiffs in negligence suits, and etting preliminary statements froood on paper if I decided to get ator I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do this, but I wasn’t sure that I didn’t, and in the meantime I could keep busy and earn a hundred dollars a day

I was between relationships I guess that’s what they call it I had been keeping company for a while with a woo I wasn’t certain it was done forever, but it was done for now, and the little dating I’d done since had led nowhere Most evenings I went to AAout with friends froo ho out in a saloon instead, drinking Coke or coffee or soda water That’s not recommended, and I knew that, but I did it anyway

Then, on a Tuesday night about ten days into the eather, the god who plays pinball with my world turned a shoulder to the ht and clear

I had spenta ferret-faced little man named Neudorf, who had presu a Radio Shack delivery van and a bicycle Reliable had been retained by the bicyclist’s attorney, and Neudorf was supposed to be able to testify that the van’s driver had thrown open the door of his vehicle in such a ht into it

Our client was one of those ambulance chasers who advertise on television, and he h, with or without Neudorf’s testiured to be settled out of court, but in the etting a hundred dollars a day forto find out what he could get for his "I dunno," he kept saying "You spend a couple days in court, you got your expenses, you got your loss of inco but how can you afford to do it, you knohat I mean?"

I knehat heif we paid him for it and not much more than that if he wasn’t well et paid off under the table when he testified in court, andpreliet the case settled

I didn’t really care how the case was resolved Both parties looked to be at fault Neither one had been paying sufficient attention It cost the van a door, and it cost the girl on the bicycle a broken ar out of it, if not the threefor As far as that went, , too Expert witnesses in civil and criet paid all the ti up on one side or the other and contradicting the experts on the other side Why not pay eyewitnesses, too? Why not pay everybody?

I wrapped up Neudorf around three, went back to Reliable’s offices and typed up roup has its offices in the Flatiron Building, so I stopped on my way out and answered phones for an hour People call there all the ti, drunks who are beginning to suspect that so off a bender and looking for help to get into a detox or rehab There are callers, too, who are just trying to stay sober a day at a time and need someone to talk to Volunteers work the phones It’s not dramatic, like the 911 command center at Police Plaza or the hotline at Suicide Prevention League, but it’s service and it keeps you sober I don’t think anybody ever got drunk while he was doing it

I ate dinner at a Thai place on Broadway, and at six-thirty I met a fellow named Richie Gelman at a Columbus Circle coffee shop We sat over cups of coffee for tenfor having lost track of the time We went down into the subway and took a couple of trains, the second one a BMT line that let us off at Jaood ways out in Queens, in a neighborhood called Richstore and walked half a dozen blocks to a Lutheran church In the large basement room there were forty or fifty chairs set up, and soe urns, one with coffee and the other with hot water for tea or instant decaf There was a plate of oatmeal cookies with raisins, and there was a table of literature

There are two basic types of AA s, a single speaker talks for twenty eneral discussion At speaker s, two or three speakers tell their stories, and that takes the entire hour This particular group in Richhts, and this particular Tuesday ere the speakers Groups all over the city send roups; othere’d hear the sa the sa would be eventhan it already is

Actually it’s pretty interesting a fair percentage of the tiht out at a co you’re supposed to tell what your life used to be like, what happened, and what it’s like now Not surprisingly, a lot of the stories are pretty gri because they’ve been hurting their sides laughing all the tirimmest stories come out funny soht in Richmond Hill