Tony, It Makes Me Sad You are Fucking Up

I met him last year when he stopped by the Cradle asking to see if he could help clean up. He, like everyone else in the homeless world “just needed to get to Durham.” So I called him on it and said that if he were to meet me the next day at noon I would give him a ride to Durham. My thoughts were if he was bullshitting he just wouldn’t show. Next day, he was there and Billy and I drove him to the VA. On the trip we got to know him and he seemed like a pretty nice guy and I felt bad that the one homeless guy that I liked was now in Durham. A year later I see him back in Chapel Hill. I talk to Frank to see if we could get him to help us with some clean-up and Frank seems down with it. Thing is, being homeless, Tony doesn’t have any reliable contact info so I had to wait until I saw him again. That finally happened last night when I, Mer and Molly were outside of I<3NYPizza. Tony walks buy, I call to him, and he and his friend come sit down next to me. Immediately I am having second thoughts. I can tell he's been drinking. He asks me for money. He tries to get his friend in on the work deal. A lot of strikes, so it saddens me to know that this year has found him worse for the wear. Still, I told him to meet me at the Cradle at 8 tonight. I'll decide then.