When I was fifteen years old my home was blown up, but that's not the reason I'm homeless. After the explosion - and the subsequent aftershocks - that shattered my world, I made a conscious decision to remove myself from society. I don't regret that decision. My ten years on the street have been an invaluable experience and I've learned many lessons, most particularly how wrong I was. But I never would have realized this had I not run away. Before I left society, questions and doubts enshrouded me like a second skin. However, the transience of street life makes it difficult for too much moss to gather, and I suppose it was only natural that eventually I would have stumbled upon larger revelations. These came at a cost of pain and loss but the alternative would have been much worse. Remaining stagnant, my second skin would have solidified and, as a result of this emotional alchemy, I would have been sealed off to the point of suffocating inside of myself. I never would have felt a thing….

___

     Technically, I told myself, there was nothing dishonest about it. If you order squab at a restaurant, it stands to reason you know what you're getting. Therefore, you're probably not going to ask where it came from; after all, how many times have you inquired about the slaughterhouse which produced your steak? Most people have a notion that a cow was slaughtered somewhere near Chicago, and they leave it at that; no one really wants to think about the details. No one ever worries that their food might be, in any way, substandard. But the restaurant owners know everything about the food they serve. They've got the upper hand and, unless you ask probing questions up front, you put your trust in those hands.
Deep down I knew it was wrong, but it was a case of survival. I had to permit myself to believe in the technicalities of the transactions. If I didn't, I couldn't have gone through with it.
     But it was more than just survival. I once saw a headline in the Herald peeking out from the window of a yellow newspaper box. The accompanying article related how the suspected Unabomber had been living in a shack in the middle of nowhere. I envied him. I thought it must have been wonderful to live like that - free from society. But now I've realized that society is the one thing we cannot be free of. Its boundaries are like the glass walls of an aquarium: invisible and impenetrable. It is our whole world and we are the fish swimming inside. We can swim solitarily but we cannot pass through the glass; it holds our world together and without it, life would drain from around us all.
     But at fifteen, I had thought differently. I thought I could detach myself from society and only duck my head through its door when absolutely necessary. It was those times when I'd show up in the alleyways of some of the finer restaurants in Boston with my little canvas sack. A transaction would be made, and I would walk back through the door, weighted down by some cash and my technicalities.
     This worked for years until the evening Sid picked the wrong bird out of my bag.
     "I don't think you'll want that one, Mr. Sid. I was going to throw it away. It didn't look very good."
     "Aah, I'll do you a favor," he said. "I'll take it off your hands half price, seeing as you were gonna toss it, anyway."
     "It may have been sick."
     He laughed, the tip of his ever-present cigar glowing like a brake light.
     "Always the salesman, Cole," Sid chuckled. "Okay, then I'll give you two bucks. What's the use of throwing it away?"
     "Well…."
     He laughed again and handed me two more crumpled bills. Although the brake light flashed between his teeth, I thought about the pack of cigarettes I could buy and put the money in my pocket.

___

     Of course he survived. After they pumped his stomach, he called the Board of Health, which performed an unannounced inspection on Chez Sidney. Pigeon feathers were found in the kitchen and the restaurant was closed down. Then he came looking for me but, oddly enough, he wasn't out for retribution. As it would be some time until he proffered his "business opportunity," the morning he found me on the green, wooden bench in the Common, he merely asked a bunch of questions. All during that first meeting, my mind clicked like a misfiring gun. And the thought that repeatedly refused to fully discharge was that it would have been better had he died.

____

     Actually, that's not entirely true. Another question pulsed through my brain. For the first time, I also wondered how it tasted. This may seem odd, but I'd never met anyone who ate one before. This guy who showed up in front of me, with his long shadow blanketing me like an extra section of newspaper, was the first. I didn't have to guess that it was him, just as I didn't need to imagine the food poisoning or the stomach-pumping. I knew him by the way he dressed. His bruise-colored sweater tucked into his black, woolen slacks. The tops of his leather shoes displaying an intricate pattern of holes like some crazy Chinese checkerboard. And, of course, the trademark gel-slicked, black hair. The epitome of Eurotrash, he was just the type to be drawn to Chez Sidney. The longer I looked at him, the more vivid the scene in my mind became. A candlelit table, soft music, wine, and Eurotrash trying to impress his date: "To the common man, it's pigeon; to me, it's a delicacy." I wondered how delicate the doctors had been when they were evacuating his stomach.
     Eurotrash stood above me. Black tufts of chest hair, like spider legs, crawled out from the top of his sweater. I started to rise. My own hair was sticky and my spine ached where the wooden slats of the bench had embedded themselves like railroad tracks. A big maple tree provided a chilly, leafy canopy against the sun and I shivered under it. As I drew my plaid flannel coat around me, some stuffing fell from the ripped sleeve, reminding me of an unexpected snowfall I'd once woken to on a particularly cruel April Fools' Day.
     "I always thought it was just a myth." He spoke as if the letter 'h' hadn't yet been invented. "A legend."
     "No. It's true."
     He nodded slowly and, while he ran his fingers through his gelled strands, I was reminded of another front-page story about the Exxon Valdez.
     The clicking in my head continued. I wondered how he knew it had been me. There were thousands of homeless people in Boston; how did he arrive at my park bench?
     "How do you catch them?" he asked.
     I said nothing. We looked at each other for a moment, and then he offered me a cup of coffee. I was dubious. I'd never had Starbucks before.
     "Go ahead," he laughed. "It ain't gonna hurt you."
     He held out the cup to me, almost threateningly, so I finally took it and drank.
     "It's not so bad. Thanks."
     I stretched and then took my canvas bag from the bench and strapped it around my waist. At night, I used it for a pillow but I kept a few items in it that I liked to have with me at all times - cigarettes, some change, and my little tool. During the day, I wore it like the small fanny packs I'd seen attached to bicyclists as they cruised down Beacon Hill.
     I started walking towards the Public Garden. I had to piss, and there was a clump of bushes I could use without being seen. Sometimes I'd use my clients' bathrooms, but none of the restaurants were open in the morning. Eurotrash followed me to the little duck pond where the paddleboats were and I sneaked behind the bushes. A few flies buzzed around me as I let loose, carving small yellow trenches in the dirt.
     "Poison?" I heard him ask. I stayed quiet. "I know. You snare them, somehow."
     I wasn't afraid that he'd have me arrested; after all, they got Sid. I was small change. And if he wanted to beat me up, he would have done it already. Instead, he had stood in line at the forever-busy Starbucks (one of two nestled between the historic buildings and antique shops which lined the cobblestone sidewalk of Charles Street) and bought me coffee. I thought he must be psychotic, and I envisioned his dark eyes screwed up as he plotted an intricate revenge while puking pigeon.
     I finished pissing and walked out from behind the bushes, vaguely aware of the flies which still followed me.
     Eurotrash was sitting on one of the benches in front of a freshly landscaped flowerbed. The new blooms looked like an artist's palette. Eurotrash watched me with the expectancy of a cab driver waiting for a traffic light to change. He seemed to know, intuitively, that I'd answer his question, so I finally opened my bag, rifled through it and brought out my tool.
     He laughed in that condescending manner parents use when they don't have the answer to their kids' questions.
     "You're kidding."
     "I don't get 'em all this way. The one you ate was already dead on the sidewalk."
     His smile twisted slowly like a lemon rind.
     "You asked."
     "Yeah."
     We sat down on a small grassy hill and drank our coffee. A young mother walked by, pushing her scream-filled stroller ahead of her. Eurotrash watched her pass and then said:
     "Ten minutes of pleasure for a lifetime of aggravation."
     Then he turned to me. Although I shivered in the eighty-degree heat of early June, his bruised sweater looked horribly warm.
     "Let me see you do it."
     "Sorry. I can't."
     "What do you mean, you can't?" It was the first time he raised his voice, although his next sentence was a quiet hiss like a truck's airbrakes early in the morning. "After all the trouble you caused?"
     "That's not the way I see it."
     "Oh no? Well, just how do you see it?"
     "I warned Sid. I told him. But he bought it anyway." He looked at me with doubting eyes, until I added, "Look, I'm just trying to make enough for an occasional meal."
     "Oh, so that makes it all right?"
     In the sun's glare, his gelled hair look tenuously brittle, like fresh tar just before it dries. He pulled out a silver cigarette case and opened it. Late one night, I'd seen the same case behind an alarmed shop window on Newbury Street. Up close, his unmarked cigarettes lay there in neat rows, looking like Arlington National Cemetery from the sky. He handed me one, and stuck another between his lips. A flare from his lighter ignited both, and he exhaled a huge sigh of smoke. Crossing one leg over the other, he idly fingered the little tassel on his loafer. I looked past the barely scuffed soles of his shoes and watched his fingers play.
     "I went to that restaurant with this beautiful chick," he said, drawing out his sentences nostalgically. "Her name was Amanda. I met her at the M.F.A. Ever been there?"
     "I slept on the steps once."
     He squinted at me dismissively, and then continued.
     "We were both there for the Monet opening. But I was kind of bored, so I started talking to her. To make a long story short, we go to Sid's the next Saturday. We had a great dinner. Good wine, good conversation. Then, we headed to my brownstone in Back Bay. We started up the four flights to my apartment and I began to feel a little queasy. I poured some more wine and suggested we sit on my terrace, 'cause a cool breeze was blowing. I started feeling a little better and we continued our conversation. Then, after another sip of wine, we bent towards each other and started to kiss. I ran my fingers through her hair. Fuckin' silk. Must have cost her a fortune to keep up. Anyway, she put her arms around me, holding me tight. Unfortunately, she held me too tight. I felt a gurgling in my stomach, but it was too late."
     He stopped playing with his tassel and looked me straight in the eye.
     "That's disgusting," I said.
     "No shit. So you see? It is your fault."
     "Why? You were the one who ordered it. A guy like you probably knows every five-star place in this city but you go into Sid's and order the squab. And you even told me you've heard all about it. You 'thought it was a myth' but you ordered it anyway. You're the one to blame."
     I thought it strange when he smiled and asked:
     "You really feel that way?"
     "Absolutely. Like I said, I'm just trying to make my own way. I've got to look after myself. I'm not responsible for anybody. Anybody except myself."
     He nodded and kept smiling.
     "Good," he said. "I like that. I'll see you around."
     He got up and started walking away, but then turned back.
     "Something's funny."
     "What?"
     "You...you don't talk like a bum."
     I shrugged.
     "No, no, I mean, you talk...educated."
     "So what's funny about that?"
     He scratched his head again.
     "I don't know."
     And he turned and walked towards Tremont Street.
     I sat for another few minutes and, finishing my coffee, thought over what he had said about my speech while abolishing old memories. Then I stood and walked through the Public Garden towards the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The buds on the trees had popped open a month before like small traps I'd never noticed. The tulips and crocuses had already bloomed. As kids, we used to say the crocuses had croaked. I smiled at that as I crossed Arlington Street and walked up Commonwealth Ave., passing the old brownstones that, unlike so many things in Boston, never changed except in value.
     I pulled my tool out again. It was an old slingshot. The wood was marble-smooth with age, but the elastic bands were new. I had to constantly replace them, which meant grabbing them from magazine bundles in front of the newsstands early in the morning. The leather pouch was as old as the slingshot, made from a scrap of a jacket that I still wore in the cold weather.
     Strolling in the median of Commonwealth, where people walk their dogs and the kids play on the statues, I approached an immovable statesman. Oxidation had colored him the same blue-green as the Statue of Liberty. My prey was on top of this statue, its shit dripping down onto a metal placard which was also blue-green. Bending down, I picked up a small stone, stuck it into the pouch and fired. I heard the familiar reverse-sucking noise as the rock hit the bird's breast. The pigeon fell from the statesman's head, following the trail of its last shit to land in the bright green grass. I picked it up and wiped off a bit of the white droppings from its hind feathers. The pigeon's eyes were glassy and vacant. I watched them for a moment, as if they might suddenly open, then put the dead bird in my sack and moved on.

____

     A few weeks later, I dreamt I was a prince living in a fairytale land. The King came to me with a treasure chest and said, "All of this is for you." He opened the chest and I saw it was filled with jewels. Myriad colors gleamed from within. But as he handed the chest to me, I began to grow, taller and taller and into the clouds, dwarfing the King. He couldn't reach high enough to hand me the treasure. Finally, I stooped down to take it from his elfin hands. But as I lifted it up, the jewels changed into oval, brown beans.

____

     My first night sleeping on the streets was in Copley Square, in front of the Boston Public Library. When I awoke in the morning, conflicting feelings pinned me to the sidewalk as if I were a footprint in the cement. People walked by, their glances drenching me in shame. If someone I knew had seen me, how would I explain? I was also scared. Had I been molested in the night? Had I been robbed? I moved slightly and felt for my wallet. It was still in my back pocket but, to my initial surprise, this did nothing to comfort me.
     In those first moments, I had hoped for a convincing way to get up and walk away. But then I was flooded by images of the circumstances that had put me there -- my once-heroic father; my destroyed home; the crime I still couldn't quite believe. I realized I was as away as I could ever hope to be. Melting into the sidewalk was the only option that would have been more preferable.
     From that moment, I began to live up to the vow I had made to myself. The day before, the life I thought had been promised to me was revoked. Like a roller coaster out of control, the world had spun about and thrown me off. Now I was on my own, and I had resolved to remain that way. I was officially a non-person. Visibly invisible.
     But it wasn't easy getting to this point. I was constantly prodded by temptations to abandon my life on the street. A few days without food, a rainy night without shelter - like taunting school kids, the elements of life continually nagged at me. However, the more I struggled against them, the stronger I became. I soon realized that instead of real alternatives, the temptations only offered more questions. It was when I finally gave up struggling that I was able to believe I was no longer anybody. And then an incredible rush of freedom rained through my body and dissolved my fears and shame. After a few years, this freedom simply became a way of life. I rarely heard the people around me and, when I did, I didn't care what they thought of me. They were movie extras passing through scenes in my existence. Once I got used to sleeping on the streets, I felt as if I never really woke up; I just moved from unconscious dreaming to conscious dreaming.
     The morning I dreamt of the beans, I felt a gentle prodding in my ribs. The hot sun massaged my eyelids and numbness nagged my lower back. Although half-asleep, I was aware of my body's usual contradiction of shivering in the heat. I blinked and then looked up. Eurotrash was standing above me, with his head framed in a green halo of spring leaves and his patterned sweater tucked into his pants. He looked like a Roman soldier off to a disco. I blinked again and inhaled. The aroma of coffee pulled my head to the side, and I saw a Starbucks' cup sitting on the base of the statue I'd slept under.
     "Morning," Eurotrash said.
     I sat up slowly. We were in the median on Commonwealth Ave., not far from the place I had killed the pigeon the first time Eurotrash and I had met. Straight ahead was the Common; to my right and left rose the brownstones. Some of these building were luxury apartments or townhouses, while others were old-time social clubs like something out of a Salinger novel. Taking up entire city blocks, these buildings were all three and four stories high, with many of the window frames and gutters stained the same blue-green color from oxidation. Some of them had wrought iron fences that surrounded curt, manicured courtyards.
     A dog barked and I saw some children squealing with delight, playing keep-away with the mutt as their two Irish nannies looked on. Both were plainly dressed, and one wore a faded kerchief around her throat that looked as if it could have been an heirloom. I could hear them talking, their lilting voices playing musical chairs with their sentences, moving words around to fit their native vernacular. They were speaking of some boys they had met at a local pub and, while one girl was advising against sex before marriage, the one with the scarf mockingly let her rosary beads slip in her fingers. They both collapsed into giggles.
     Eurotrash gestured for me to take the cup. I wasn't used to eating first thing in the morning - usually my stomach was empty until well into the day, so as soon as I took a sip, I was famished. I began to gulp at the coffee.
     "This is how you make your own way, huh?" Eurotrash asked.
     Slowing down, I said, "It's not so bad."
     He grunted.
     "By the way, my name's Vince."
     I watched him as I drank, warning myself to be careful.
     "And you are...?"
     I didn't answer. He laughed and ran his fingers through his ever-oily hair.
     "Okay. You're Birdman. You're the Bird."
     "Larry or Charlie? I don't play basketball or sax."
     Vince squinted.
     "Where the hell are you from, anyway?"
     "Here," I shrugged.
     "You mean here, Boston?"
     "More or less," I answered, sucking down more of the coffee. I needed food to go with it. My body was reacting violently; hunger pangs bit into my stomach. I wondered if this was anything like the feeling a vegetarian might experience after eating a chunk of beef.
     Vince rocked on his heels, looking around at the tops of the buildings. The nannies walked by and he stepped back in mock gallantry to let them pass. "Good day, ladies," he said. The girls giggled and walked on. Then Vince turned back to me.
     "So, how long you been catching pigeons?"
     "A while."
     "Like...a coupla years? Or longer?"
     "A little longer," I said, sucking up the last drop of coffee. When I put the empty cup in my sack, Vince gazed at me questioningly.
     "You never know when it might come in handy," I answered.
     "What would you use it for?"
     "Lots of things. If I get thirsty, there're plenty of places to get a drink of water. The duck pond, a puddle in the street, a gutter. But I don't always have a cup. Now I do."
     His brow furrowed in a slight wince.
     "It's part of making my own way," I reminded him, and got up to collect my few belongings.
     "What say we go get a bite to eat? We can go to Downtown Crossing. Grab a sandwich."
     It had been a long time since anyone invited me to "grab a sandwich," and temptation dueled with hesitancy. As a rule, I tried to avoid downtown during the day because I don't like the crowds. But, more importantly, I didn't want Vince to see how vulnerable I could be. I didn't know what he wanted, but he didn't strike me as a philanthropist.
     "Well...," I said, affecting reluctance.
     "If you got other dining plans…?"
     "No," I said, as my body betrayed me. "Let's go. Thanks."
     We walked through the Public Garden and the Common. As we wended our way along the tar-black pathways, I avoided conversation by surveying the day's activities around me. In the distance, I saw the State House on Beacon Hill. A few dark-blue State Police cruisers were parked in front and the crew from a television news van was readying for a broadcast. Their satellite dish was raised and a guy was setting up a camera tripod. In front of us, the path darkened under the canopy of the drowsing oak branches. Sparrows pecked along in the dirt under the trees, unconcerned as they looked for worms. Up ahead, a little boy cried as he watched a flock of pigeons maniacally devouring the popcorn he'd just spilled.
     You're not the first," Vince mused.
     "The first what?"
     "Pigeon catcher."
     "No."
     We walked through the flock, sending them flying in a haphazard beating of reluctant wings.
     "There goes what - twenty, thirty bucks?"
     "You can't catch them in daytime. I mean, not when everyone's around."
     "What then? You just chalk it up as a loss and don't think about them?"
     "You can't lose pigeons," I replied. "Eventually they'll land again."
     Vince scratched his cement head thoughtfully.
     "So, where did you hear about it?" he asked.
     "Hear about what?"
     "The legend. Where did you get the idea?"
     We had reached Park Street Station where the Red and Green lines of the subway - the T - intersected underground. Across Tremont Street, I noticed the wall of four-story buildings. A small convenience store and some fast food places had seeped between the cracks, trying to choke the indiscriminate shops which looked as though they'd been there for hundreds of years. The clash of time and place always made me question permanence. As we crossed the street, I answered Vince:
     "I heard about it from some other homeless guys. Not many do it, but it's been going on for years. There are a few others...."
     Vince laughed.
     "For years bums have been passing pigeons off for squab and nobody's the wiser. Fuckin' great! What I've been missing out on."
     "You eat a lot of squab?"
     "Not really."
     He kept laughing as we headed towards Downtown Crossing.

____

     There was a little outdoor stand that sold wrap sandwiches. This was something I'd witnessed as the newest rage. It seemed people would roll up anything in pita bread, and the more outrageous the food, the better. Vince thought it would be best to buy the sandwiches and walk up the street to a little brick rotunda. We would eat on the benches there.
     "I don't think you'd fit the dress code of the places I normally frequent," he chuckled.
     We got our wraps and made our way through the crowd. Shoppers with full bags bustled by; teenagers stood on corners with radios the size of small trunks playing loud, bass-heavy music; businessmen passed each other while talking on their cell phones, gesticulating wildly as if in negotiations; vendors showed off homemade jewelry and scarves and dresses and leather goods they sold from wooden carts; cops sat on horseback, surveying the street as they flirted with the meter maids and chatted with construction crewmen. This was downtown in the daytime: a circus in which most people unwittingly performed. I preferred it at night, after the carnival had packed up and left. That's when I would normally venture down the stained sidewalks of Downtown Crossing and hunt the pigeons which roosted in the nooks of the gray buildings. I liked the feeling of the deserted streets. They exuded the same comfort that's earmarked for autumn nights when you're wearing your favorite sweater. At night, the streets always felt as if they were mine, as if someone had created a giant playground solely for my purposes. I was always the King of the Hill. I alone had possession, and I alone belonged.
     We sat. The sandwich in my hands was called the Thanksgiving Special. Steaming, hot turkey breast wrapped around cornbread stuffing with cranberry sauce spread on top. The smell alone almost made me faint and my mouth watered as if my tongue had exploded. This was the closest thing to a Thanksgiving dinner I'd had in more than a decade. I quickly began unwrapping the sandwich, my fingers twitching with anticipation. It was when I momentarily glanced up that I noticed the middle-aged woman. She was walking towards us and, though it only took a millisecond, it was enough time for our eyes to lock. She quickly turned, as if she'd realized she had forgotten something, and hurried across the street to retrieve it. My fingers slowed down like an engine sputtering out of gasoline.
     "You okay?" asked Vince.
     "Yeah."
     "The sandwich is good. Eat before it gets cold."
     I finished unwrapping the foil and bit into the pita. The sensation of warm food was wonderfully alien and, like one who speaks a foreign language for the first time, I had to get used to forming new chewing motions. I remembered how different it was to eat hot food. My mouth was quickly going through a type of unconscious physical therapy to remind me how to properly get the turkey to my stomach. But that wasn't what made me put the sandwich down.
     "What's wrong?" Vince asked.
     "I'm just not used to this place in the daytime. I'm not used to...to the people."
     "Ignore 'em. That's what they do to you, isn't it?"
     I snorted.
     "What?" he said. "People ignore bums whenever they can. You think I didn't see that bag who wouldn't walk past us? But I would think you'd be able to tune her out the way she tuned you out."
     "It doesn't happen like that. She didn't tune me out. She's probably still thinking about me."
     "Aren't you flattering yourself a bit?"
     "It's true. People feel guilty. They think they should help me - they feel obligated to do something."
     "But you make your own way."
     "That's right."
     "So, why do you give a shit what other people think?"
     "Because," I said, "there's no way around it. Their thoughts may stay with them for an hour, a day or may leave them as soon as they pass me, but they always occur. If you look in the people's eyes, you can see it. Sometimes I feel as if I have a whole store of averted eyes in my mind which I could bring out and look at like the world's largest collection of marbles. And they're all the same. Behind each set is the same feeling of guilt. The truth is, I don't care if people pretend to ignore me. And I don't care what they think of me. I just care that they think of me."
     Vince cocked his head. The sunlight reflected in his gel, giving his hair the appearance of ice-filled cracks in asphalt. He took a bite from his sandwich and, after chewing, said:
     "There's not a lot you can do about it, is there, Birdman? It kind of comes with the territory."
     "Yeah, I guess it does."
     "Well, you're smart. You'll figure some way out."
     "It hasn't happened yet. Not in ten years."
     "That how long you been out here?"
     "Yes."
     He looked at me, up and down. His eyes scraped against my unshaven chin. They watered at the smell of the two mismatched shirts I wore. Over every inch of my body, his eyes roamed, probing like fingers reading Braille. They wondered about the blisters on my feet, how often I ate, what bathrooms I used, and what I did when a bathroom wasn't available. Vince looked at me as no one ever had - not with sympathy, but with genuine interest.
     This was frightening and consoling at the same time. I imagined it was not unlike what the young boys on the street felt when the vans came around. Every winter night, city-funded vans cruise the streets in hopes of picking up homeless people and bringing them to the shelters. Some go, but many refuse out of fear. The young kids are the most scared. They know that no matter how cold it might be outside, and how hungry they may be, they're safer on the street than in some shelter where they might be raped or killed. It's not an irrational fear; it happens to the kids. They're defenseless against the bigger, stronger men. I've seen them refuse the van drivers with tears frozen in their eyes. They want to go; they want to believe they will be safe. But despite the guarantee that the pain of freezing and starving will stop, the possibility of a worse pain is enough to make them turn the vans away.
     As I bit into the sandwich, I squirmed under Vince's gaze and saw many conflicts arising behind my own eyes. The most prevalent was the same that the young kids felt - the battle between the possible and the guarantee. I tried to fight it, but felt myself slipping. For reasons I wasn't yet aware of, Vince was tempting me and he was backing up his propositions with real guarantees. As I took another bite, I felt myself starting to give in to the guarantees, regardless of the promise I had made to myself ten years ago. I was astonished at my sudden irrational lack of will. I was astonished, too, at how good a turkey sandwich could taste.