Sleep apnea.  As if the flashbacks were not enough the doc’s lingering reminder that these episodes can lead in death were always on my mind.  That first Camel upon awakening made it all worth the chance.  It was different before they left.  Solitude produced a byproduct of self involvement.  Tripping over pizza boxes and wondering if work clothes were worthy for corporate America replaced making sure the bottle was the right temperature. 

 

“The bigger better deal”, those words echoed through my mind, and for good reason.  Shelton was one of those people you just cannot forget.  Even omitting my personal tragedy, his impact was everlasting.  Now I am no believer in providence, but if I were, this lesson would be my thesis.  I was at least seventeen hundred miles from Cook County, the city that earned my soul.  Out of nowhere in walks Shelton, a south side resident, to help me with some data processing goals.  I forgot most of translations, but understood the bigger better deal.

 

What’s worse I realized I was not it.  But it made sense, painful brutal sense.  Those four words eased a temperament that to this day makes me wonder how I stayed a free man.  I may never fully understand that year, but it haunts me every day.  The debate was over, the question was solved.  Like a NATO round I was one off.  The future proved this, but deep down I knew I was spent.  The longer I lived, the more I noticed that every else knew this, and the big awakening was just the realization that we were all on the same page.

 

I became the observer.  It did not take long after to start to figure out this bigger better deal thing society was playing.  Shelton was a good man, he let me figure out you can only place once.