We met, and I must have looked like a rhesus monkey—the one in the
perils-of-freebase commercial, cornered up a tree, shunned by his
monkey pals, exhibiting erratic, paranoid and hostile behavior. I was
rail-thin, shaky, and the first thing I did was ask my old pal Bigfoot if he
could lend me 25 bucks until payday. Without hesitation, he reached in
his pocket and lent me 200—a tremendous leap of faith on his part.
Bigfoot hadn't laid eyes on me in over a decade. Looking at me, and
hearing the edited-for-television version of what I'd been up to in recent
years, he must have had every reason to believe I'd disappear with the
two bills, spend it on crack, and never show up for my first shift. And if
he'd given me the 25 instead of 200, that might well have happened. But
as so often happens with Bigfoot, his trust was rewarded. I was so shaken
by his baseless trust in me—that such a cynical bastard as Bigfoot would
make such a gesture—that I determined I'd sooner gnaw my own fingers
off, gouge my eyes out with a shellfish fork, rub shit in my hair and run
naked down Seventh Avenue than ever betray that trust.
There was order in my life again. In Bigfootland you showed up for work
fifteen minutes before your shift. Period. Two minutes late? You lose the
shift and are sent home. If you're on the train and it looks like it's
running late? You get off the train at the next stop, inform Bigfoot of
your pending lateness, and then get back on the next train. It's okay to
call Bigfoot and say, "Bigfoot, I was up all night smoking crack, sticking
up liquor stores, drinking blood and worshipping Satan . . . I'm going to
be a little late." That's acceptable—once in a very great while. But after
showing up late, try saying (even if true), "Uh . . . Bigfoot, I was on the
way to work and the President's limo crashed right next to me . . . and I
had to pull him out of the car, give him mouth-to-mouth . . . and like I
saved the leader of the free world, man!" You, my friend, are fired.
I fondly recall how once, after a long-time waitress arrived back late
from vacation, claiming her flight arrived fifteen minutes after
scheduled time, Bigfoot called the airport to check her story and then
fired her for lying. Treating Bigfoot like an idiot was always a big