San Diego - Rodrick 4

I glanced at his barren ring finger and resisted asking him about his family life.

"I go to these meetings at Stepping-Stone," he said. "Do you know stepping stone?"

I did, as a matter of fact, know stepping-stone. When I had worked at the restaurant up the street, I had always passed by Stepping-stone and seen a group of people outside, smoking up a storm.

"Yes, I know Stepping-stone," I responded.

"I go to Stepping-Stone every day. It is for people who are on drugs or alcohol. Sometimes people come up with stories that blow your mind. Do you remember that woman who drowned her children a while back?"

"Yes."

"There are people who have stories like that, wives killing their husbands or their children."

I shook my head in disbelief. "What?"

"Oh yeah, people will come up and say how they killed their wife or their husband, but it is all anonymous you know. What you say in there stays in there."

"I think there is some law about people admitting to felonies breaking codes of confidentiality," I responded, hoping that there was actually such a rule.

"Yeah, but you have to make a judgment call, you know. If you admit something like that, you might be doing a social justice, but then you'll have all that hanging over your head."

Not wanting to get into a debate, I simply stated, "Yeah, that sounds interesting. Maybe Tim and I should check that out sometime."

"You're straight. You can meet a lot of girls there," Rodrick said and a slight snicker passed through my head at the concept of picking up girls at Stepping-Stone.

"Yeah, there are a lot of younger people there," he continued, "and they are always exchanging phone numbers."

"Tim might be interested in that," I answered. "I have a girlfriend," I said, which was a lie.

"Yeah, well, there are all kinds of stories there, just crazy stories that will blow your mind away."

"Yeah, that sounds really interesting Rodrick, I think the three of us should go there at some point, listen, I have some work to do now, but I'll call you when Tim gets back and we can go to the bank."

"Oh, that's okay," he said. "I can just take the bus."

Internally sighing, I used the most baritone voice I could muster, and responded, "Rodrick, we will take you to the bank, okay?"

"Thank you."

As I walked out the door, he asked me if I had seen his cat and I noticed for the first time that there was a white lump in the corner of my room.

"He has won many awards," Rodrick told me.

The cat, as if acknowledging that he was the object of attention, rolled over and looked at me. It was a white Persian cat with eyes that looked as if they were stained with blood. The fur around its eyes was pink. It looked sickly. "How old is it?" I asked.

"She's about twelve years old."

"She's getting up there, huh?" I answered as I walked out the door.

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