Someone Saved My Life Tonight

         One night, years ago, someone saved my life. I was working in a place of ill repute and I stepped on the wrong toes. It happens in my line of work. Christ, do I have to be a diplomat 24-7? You do these things and you work in these places and make these moves and its all free and good and you walk that razor's edge with a wink and a smile but one time... One time you slip and it can all come apart. Not just the job or the friends but the LIFE that you live, the sight in your eyes and the smell of things and the air that you breathe can be in jeopardy in an instant... And it was that night. And while my eyes did not implore to friends and people that I knew, co-workers and security who should have had my back, not for anything so simple as friendship or camaraderie, but because it was your job. Well, you guys weren't there. There are still conflicting reports and stories as to why I left that place, but I tell you all, those of you that I'd known for years and worked with as long... You didn't have my back. One guy said to me one time, "When no-one has your back, its time to move your back..."
        There is a man, who, as I write this, is lying in pain from abuse and afflictions visited on him by the life that he chose. He will either succumb to his injuries or be killed. He is a bad man. He did not only make his environs the seedy underbelly of this city, he was instrumental in making it's underbelly unsuitably seedy. He is the bogeyman, the shadow beyond the trees and the piper one must pay when the tune is played.  To cross him or his "higher-ups" is tantamount to suicide. His ungovernable wrath.
         Yet one night when all of my clever finesse, all the double-speak and jibber-jabber and the ability to speak it that I have been blessed with did NOT stem the blood-dimmed tide that sought to overwhelm me did NOT suffice. Did NOT make 'em laugh, did NOT smooth things over in a situation that had gotten out of control... Until a man who someone like me, with this chip I carry on BOTH shoulders, would have never, EVER expected to have my back, had it. Not for some deep-seated instinct that told him we were brothers in a past life or that he needed to redeem himself or for God's sake be a hero, but because what he saw happening, well he thought it was bullshit.

         Friends and family may argue, but I will tell you this.That night in that place, my ass needed saving. I would not be writing this but for him. He saved my life, and for that I am eternally grateful and will never forget it.
        You made your bed, friend (and I don't call many that), but you enabled me to sleep in mine soundly. Thank you.