When I was eleven years old, my Dad took me to a meeting in a smoky, crowded union hall. The Bartenders and Restaurant Workers Union was a disreputable outfit. The president shouted into the microphone, “I see some non-union members here. They have to leave.” My Dad whispered to me, “They don’t mean you.” The president, pointing at an obvious reporter, “I mean like that guy over there!” Two busted-nosed thugs grabbed the reporter by his arms, dragged him out, threw him in the alley. No one ever noticed me, but for a while there, I continued to shit bricks.
Jim DeFilippi’s novels DUCK ALLEY and BLOOD SUGAR have just been reissued in paperback. Find them and the rest of his books at his Amazon Author Page: Jim DeFilippi.