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I wasn’t sure you’d be here this morning.

I was too tired to go anywhere last night.

Ed speaks.

Where were you going?

To get high.

On what?

Crack and liquor.

Ted speaks.

You a Crackhead?

Yeah.

Me too.

Ed speaks.

That shit’s fucking gross.

Ted looks at Ed.

You’re gross, you big, dumb, steelworking Motherfucker.

I might be big and dumb—

Leonard speaks.

And you’re ugly too.

Ed looks at Leonard and he gives him the finger.

I might be big and dumb and I might be a steelworking, ass-kicking Motherfucker.

Ted laughs. Ed continues.

But I ain’t dumb enough to have ever smoked that bullshit, Ghetto drug.

Ted speaks.

Yeah, you so smart you sit around a fucking Steel Mill drinking vodka and handling tubs of molten metal.

I ain’t never had an accident.

What about your hair?

That wasn’t no accident, that was a fight. I got sucker punched.

Ed is, as he always is, wearing a bandana on his head. I speak.

What happened to your hair?

Nothing.

Leonard speaks.

He doesn’t wear that silly bandana because he likes it.

What happened?

Nothing.

Ted speaks.

You can tell him or I’m telling him.

You ain’t saying nothing.

I will if you don’t.

Ed looks at me, speaks.

I was doing this married lady. One night we’re in a bar and her husband walks in. We decide to go outside and as I’m walking out, he cracks me over the head with a bottle. I go down and he kicks my nuts. Now I’m really down. He leans over and grabs my hair right here.

He makes a grabbing motion on the top of his forehead.

And he knows when he grabs that shit that I had plugs put in nine months earlier, and he fucking pulls and pulls till he pulls the Motherfuckers right the fuck out. Now my head’s all fucked up and scarred and shit.

I wince.

Fuck.

Ted speaks.

Ask him how he got that Bastard back.

Ed speaks.

Shut the fuck up, Ted.

Tell him you got him back.

I’m gonna kick your ass in a minute.

Ted looks at me.

He didn’t do nothing. Let some Motherfucker pull his goddamn hair plugs right the fuck out of his head and he didn’t do nothing to him. I’d a shot that Motherfucker’s dick off and served it to his Momma on a sandwich.

Breakfast is the blink of an eye. I sit and listen to Ed and Ted fight and tell stories and I laugh as Leonard eggs them on.

Ed is a Drinker and a fighter who’s in Rehab for the fourth time. His Union, which has generous medical benefits, has paid for each of his trips. They sent him here because this is the last time they will pay for him to go to Rehab and they want to give him the best opportunity that they can to get better. He is grateful and says if they can’t fix me at this place then I guess I’m fucked. Ed is not married, but he has four children, all of which are boys. He says that all of them are ass-kicking Motherfuckers, just like himself. He says that they are the great love of his life.

Ted is a Drug Dealer and a Car Thief who was recently arrested for the Statutory Rape of a Sheriff’s Daughter in Louisiana. He already has two Felony convictions and a third means Life-No-Parole under the Three-Strike Law. He skipped Bail and he came here to try to clean up in order to win some points with the Authorities since the Authorities generally look kindly on individuals who have gone through Treatment. He paid for it with money that he made selling crack. He’s not married and he doesn’t have any Kids, but he does, as he says, have a whole mess of fine-ass Bitches.

Ed and Ted are good men who happen to be bad men and I like them and I can relate to them. Although we come from three parts of the country, are three different ages, and have distinctly different problems, we are, in many ways, the same. Alcoholics. Drug Addicts. Criminals.

I finish breakfast and I walk to the Lecture and I sit and I listen to a Nurse talk about the effects drugs and alcohol have on the health of the liver and it strikes close to home and when I can’t listen to any more of it, I watch Leonard as he throws pennies at the Bald Man’s bald spot. He hits the spot about every third