Dear Mr. Marshal Frank,
We met once, two years ago in Columbus, Ohio. You showed up at my house, looking for your dog, Max. I was doing a lot of drugs then, but I was not, as many people must have assumed, homeless. I was not a vagrant. I was simply on drugs, most of which were in the opiate family, and I hung out at the park. I sometimes fell asleep there.
Was I a drug addict? Yes, Mr. Frank, I was. I was never as badly addicted as others I’ve seen. I’m lucky for that. I’ve never driven away a girlfriend or a wife. I’ve never been the target of intervention conspiracies from well-meaning family members. I’ve never, as my friend Nathaniel has, stumbled home to a house I’d moved from eight years ago and woken up on the couch to see a rifle pointed at me.
