The big yellow house across the street from me, where live(d) the majority of my friends from the past summer: recovering veterans, the lot of them. All recovering from different substances in their own ways. I would see them as i walked to and from work, and apparently i was the only person who said hello. Sometimes they were riotous, sometimes they scared me and sometimes they were just eye-opening. Sometimes they were both at the same time.

I sent them postcards from Eugene, Oregon: one to each of the four units, with the writing spanning across all four so they'd have to put them together to read them at all. Turns out, one of the units didn't get or didn't save their card, so it was all for naught. They never got to read it.

Since then, i leave for work too early in the morning and it's been too cold to see them on the porch smoking, and they seem to come and go so often now that i don't know many of them any more. I wonder if they look out their windows.

The Cherry Street house is associated with the VA Hospital on the other side of town. I feel like it's the least i can do for them: to incorporate them into Everything. You should have heard their stories.

Chris | Lloyd | Fran | Reuben | Andy | Michael | Tony

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