i remember

when my friend e. & i were wandering around Old Sac.  it was the early 1980s.  the buildings dated from the mid-1880s.  i mean, sure, Old Sac by this time was a tourist mecca.  indeed, it's claim to fame back then was an annual dixieland jazz festival that brought our town national & international renown.  but the building infrastructure was still from the 19th C. & as teens we would explore the back alleys & the wooden stairways attached to the outside of the buildings.  imagine fire escapes.  but instead of metal scaffolding it was made of wooden stairs.  e. & i were fucking around on these stairs going from building to building as we were wont to cuz we were bored out of our minds teenagers.  when, out of nowhere, a smartly dressed man, in a business suit & tie, slightly rumpled, appeared before us.  his face was beat in.  his eyes were purple & swollen.  his nose was bleeding.  he appeared.  right in front of us.  an apparition from another world.  he climbed those same wooden stairs as us.  & met us.  as if our fate was the same as his.  & in a clear voice asked, 'do you know where i can get a drink here.'  stunned we stammered the names of a couple of tourist restaurants.  he thanked us & disappeared to, we assumed, was the ground floor.  who the fuck was he.  what had happened to him before we found him on those old stairs in the back alleys of the tourist trap of Old Sac.  it was like a neo-noir movie where the protagonists find a mystery that leads them to the place they've always known.