So, the truth finally escapes, as it always had to, just like air underwater. It's forced out of me. You can't stop it. I know fish would like to change the dynamics of that whole air/water deal, but evolution and . . .

Well, it's obvious that I'm rambling here, eh? Would you want to face the reality of what I'm about to tell you if it were you about to tell this? I don't think so, my lethargic friend.

You see, I've been around for a while. This "being around" has led to some adventures I'd just as soon forget. One of the episodes I've tried to repress was in the early '70's when I ran across a girl who went by the given name of Mary Patricia McDonald. (I knew her as "Trish.") She was a sweet Irish Catholic girl, just out of third year choir practice. I saw her crossing the 59th Street Bridge one afternoon when I was in the Big Apple trying to keep alive that Southern Connection we needed for all the users up and down the East Coast.

I was looking pretty good that day, I must say, but I really wasn't looking for action. Then this Catholic Schoolgirl came across the bridge. My heart sank down around my Glock 9mm and I couldn't take my eyes off her.

She was shy, she was. But there was one instant when she took her eyes off the pavement and looked at me. Oh, my God! The twinkle there would set your soul free.

We had a couple of sweat-drenched, fitful weeks together. It was all I could stand. Never has a woman drained a man like Mary Patricia McDonald did dannye. I could only wish and hope that no child had been spawned of that illegal union. But now my worst nightmare has come true.

moJoe is alive and, apparently as well as a heathen bastard could be, in the Northeast portions of this land. Even one as talented at the elimination of humans as myself is having a hard time dispatching Vito and Corluna to rid myself of this potential problem . . .