“So I’m driving away and the law pulls me over. The local cops, they know me, mostly, ‘cause I phone in B&Es when I spot them, but these guys had never met me before. So they get me out of the car and I explain what I was doing, and I quote the part of the Trespass to Property Act that says that I’m allowed to do what I’m doing, and then I open the trunk and I show him, and he busts a nut: ‘You mean you found these in the garbage? My kid spends a fortune on these things! In the garbage?’ He keeps saying, ‘In the garbage?’ and his partner leads him away and I put it behind me.
“But then a couple nights later, I go back and there’s someone in the dumpster, up to his nipples in hockey cards.”
“The cop,” Alan said.
“The cop,” Kurt said. “Right.”
“That’s the story about the cop in the dumpster, huh?” Alan said.
“That’s the story. The moral is: We’re all only a c-hair away from jumping in the dumpster and getting down in it.”
“C-hair? I thought you were trying not to be sexist?”
“C stands for cock, okay?”
Alan grinned. He and Kurt hadn’t had an evening chatting together in some time. When Kurt suggested that they go for a ride, Alan had been reluctant: too much on his mind those days, too much Danny on his mind. But this was just what he needed. What they both needed.
“Okay,” Alan said. “We going to eat?”