Though this time my aspirations of sailing were nowhere to be found and I was picking up some film from the 1-hour photo lab at the Walgreen’s of choice. The weather called for a hoodie, so being the Boy Scout that I am I was prepared.

The clinical Walgreen’s scent permeated the store as I walked to 1-hour photo lab counter. The talking fish was still in full stock, as if it were the hot new gift for the good ole boys and the 50 million pack of batteries were on sale for $9.99.

Finally making it past the hot sales, I stood at the counter with my hood up. The photo technician asked me what the last name was.

“Robinson. Bradley,” I replied.

A faint sound muffled in the back of my mind appeared, like a balked fast food speaker. Not paying attention I stood there with hands in pocket waiting for my 1-hour photos.

“Put your hands in the air!” The broken fast food speaker box said.

But this didn’t make sense I thought, as I watched the photo-technician retrieve my photos from my Florida trip?

“Put your hands behind your head!” The speaker box said louder.

Interested in what was going on I turn around. A moment of question then occurred.

“Why are these two SWAT officers dressed in all black, pointing their guns at me looking a bit bothered?”

Lifting my hands like my brain was interpreting, a slow bamboozled apparatus, the two officers rushed me. One of the officers coupled my hands together, while the other patted me down.

“Why didn’t you turn around when we told you to,” the officer exclaimed.

Still trying to analyze the situation, I replied, “I didn’t hear you.”

“What are you doing here?” the officer demanded like I was being of hassle to the 1-hr. photo lab. Immediately he followed up with another question.

“Why do you have your hood on?”

A fashion for those of the utmost quality of course, though at this point I began to understand what was going on.

“Well, if you look behind this counter, you will see that I have photos with the name Bradley Robinson on them.”

A bit offended by this, the officer pulled the sleeve of my hoodie.

“Are you in a gang?” the officer demanded again.

Amused by this I chuckled and said, “No. Are you in a gang?”

“What do these tattoo’s mean?” with a final demand, before I abruptly spoiled the escapade.

“I do believe I am being profiled right now,” I said casually.

And as quickly as they came on, they let off. And then the situation for the two officers went sour.

“You guys don’t even know who I am, or what I do. I am just a kid who goes to school and is here to pick-up some photos,” I hammered. “If you look in my wallet, it says Bradley E. Robinson on my I.D and behind this photo counter…Bradley E. Robinson.”

“Well…” one officer stammered. “We have had a lot of robberies here at this location lately and you looked suspicious with your hood on.”

“Are you going to stop every person, like you just did me, that comes in here with a hood on? I think that is some sort of grounds for profiling?” I defended. “I was standing here minding my own business. The least you could do was wait and see what I was about to do.”

“Well…you have to understand…”the officer began to say as I furiously interjected.

“Oh, I understand. I understand that I have just been profiled. I have no interest in the field of being a cop, but I would take a guess that was bad practice on your part.”

The situation lay silent, with me on the offense defending my basic rights that were at first thrown out by these two shifty public servants. I got the impression that the two officers were got off guard by this kid full of tattoos, reminding them of my basic rights as a citizen.

Jessie is the nephew of Dale, a 17-year old guitar (gee-tar) guru and one fuck of a kid to hang with. So it’s only obvious as to the offering of beer to Dale on Jessie’s part.

Around 50 years-old, Dale is a bit if a drinker I must say, perhaps closer to a guzzler more so than a drinker. Dale is the father of a kid that my brother and I grew up with while I was an early teen. His round small spectacles rested on his slender face atop his mass of a beard, giving him the persona of a biker-pirate. This particular night Dale was sporting a blue welding cap/hat that was branding the rebel flag. His swagger is one of similarity to that of Jack Sparrow. A country boy at heart, Dale is pure redneckness.

While walking in, Dale said to Mona, my brother’s dog, “You leave me alone and I will leave you alone.” He then walked over to the table and picked up the bottle of Kentucky Deluxe that my brother and Jessie were sipping on, looked at it and stammered, “Piss water.”

Finding a spot to squat, Dale sat on the treadmill and began to talk his usual shananigan’s of talking shit and being the firecracker of a redneck that he is. At the beginning of his rambleness you could make out what he was saying. But by the end, it was pure drunkardness.

My brother then poured a shot for Dale and gestured to hand it to him. In response, Dale cunningly looked at my brother square in the eye and reached for the Kentucky Deluxe he had just previously denounced as “piss water” and began to chug it while still staring at my brother.

Pulling the bottle from his whiskery dripped mouth, his face shivered from disgust and sheer retardedness. A loud burp followed. “Oh, you poured that shot for me?” said Dale sarcastically. “I told you it was piss water.”

Continuing on with his drunken ramble, Dale got onto the subject of how he hated people. “I hate people,” he said to my brother. “But you’re not people, you’re a person Nate,” he continued while pointing at him as if lecturing him.

My brother listened attentively as though he showed genuine interest. But as I know my brother and myself, he listened so Dale wouldn’t sound like a complete rambled drunkard.

“But you know what?” continued Dale looking intensely at my brother, “I’m a veteran of the United States and I was proud to serve my country,” standing up squinty-eyed while swaying to defy gravity and drunkenness. “You should be over in Iraq right now serving your country. Why aren’t you? Why haven’t you signed up yet?”

As Dale sat back down and my brother shook his head I interjected, “Because he doesn’t need to be fighting a president’s war.”

I then became Dale’s squinty-eyed drunkard attention, “And who are you?” he says in his redneck twang.

Now let me remind you that Dale and I go back to the days when I was a young teenager. He and I shared a couple left handers and he watched me sneak out of my bedroom window a few times just to laugh at me. I knew he knew who I was, but just not that particular night or moment.

“I am a veteran, you respect me. You don’t know how many people died for you.” Dale said forcefully.

“I didn’t say that I don’t respect you,” I replied. “I thank you for what you have done. He just doesn’t need to be fighting a war that is purely the president’s.”

Not wanting to hear what I was saying or that a young buck was standing up to this, Dale began to ramble under his breath. My brother then intervened, “No, no, no Dale. You know who this is? That’s Brad, my brother.”

Dale’s demeanor quickly changed and the issue was dropped as quickly as it had started. I reassured Dale that I was stating a view and not disrespecting him and the conversation turned to how I don’t have all my curly hair anymore.

The drinking continued and Jessie began to get a bit canned himself. Standing to exit the situation, Jessie walked to the kitchen. As Jessie walks by Dale into the kitchen, Dale says, “I hate when people move around me. I am the only moving object that I need around me,” said Dale paranoid as he scanned the area around his feet.

The ramble continued as everyone in the room forgot about Jessie and his condition.

Jessie lay flat on his belling in my brother’s kitchen. A kitchen that you definitely would not want to find yourself almost passed out drunk, on the verge of getting saucy, face down. I felt bad for the kid considering we had just smoke a left-handed reefer stick on my account and he had over indulged on the piss water and Budweiser that flowed abundantly.

“Jessie, you alright?” Dale yelled, forgetting he was in a 20×20 alley house.

Flailing his right leg and left arm in response, Jessie responded with the utmost capabilities.

As if he were speaking to a congregation Dale dutifully says, “Ya see, Jessie’s my nephew…I gotta look out for him.”

“I need a bowl,” Jessie slurs.

“What’s that?” says my brother jokingly.

“I need a bowl,” Jessie slurred once more.

Stumbling over to Jessie, with Dale maneuvering around the space between ensuring no one invades, Nathan grabs the dog’s empty water bowl and slides it across the floor. And Jessie then begins to hurl.

“You feelin’ better,” clammers my brother.

No response. Another hurl. Jessie then pushes the bowl from his Kobain like wig.

And with no hesitation at all, one of my brother’s dogs casually walks to its water bowl and begins to lap up the piss water and Budweiser Jessie had just over indulged on.

“Mona’s thirsty isn’t she?” says Dale like a NASCAR fan.

“Mona!” my brother carelessly exclaims.

And Jessie grabs back the bowl and gives one last flail of the right leg and left arm from his belly. A signal to his signing out.

“Mona…” Jessie slurs. “This is my bowl tonight…”

As kids my brother and I, mainly my brother, befriended two other bothers. Twins at birth, the two were quite different in their demeanor and mannerisms throughout our childhood. I had always felt great empathy for these two because of their lifestyle at home and awkwardness with other kids.

Their father Mike, a full-blooded Indian, was quite the fellow himself. More so a friend than a father, he would almost always be completely canned. It was a progressive drunkenness that was controlled in the morning and throughout the day. But come the evening he was completely wasted.

Recently I had stopped in at the alley house where low and behold sat Mike. At first glance he had not realized it was I, the Bradley he had remembered from so long ago.

Mike, my brother and a friend had consumed a large amount of beer by this point in the afternoon. And were well on the way to be canned.

My brother and I had assumed that Mike had remembered me so neither of us went through an introduction.

Mike by nature is a very colorful fellow when drunk. So to say the least Mike is cheap entertainment. Approximately the cost of a six-pack. He immediately began to tell his most recent escapade with his would be cowboys. Known to most as the Wichita Police Department.

“That thing roared like a cannon,” Mike exclaimed. “I crouch behind that tree and let it go. BOOM!”

By this point three young bucks are in pure laughter by this drunken Indian as he continues with his story.

“So I run back inside and I sit in my chair. I hear a knock at the door. And you know who it is? Those, you know, those guys in those black helmets,” pointing to his head. “They’re coming to take my guns when I got illegals living all around me.”

Mike is referring to the S.W.A.T unit that had been dispatched by a call from a neighbor and is busting down his front door. Mike was in yet another encounter with his so-called cowboys where yet again he was being hauled off to jail.

“You know I was looking to go down in a blaze of glory,” Mike said as he pulled his buck knife from his butt-crack and waived it around. “But I didn’t. I never do,” he said slowly replacing the knife in its previous location and sitting in a position of failure.

As if his Cowboy and Indian adventure was brought to an abrupt stop by some sort of injustice, Mike moved on to another topic. His love for the smell of starter fluid for his car.