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straightened out, I eagerly told her the Real Story about what went down with Pop in that hallway. But she was surprisingly, and very annoyingly, unsympathetic. So later that night after the kids were asleep, I tried again. We were sitting together on the living room sofa, but about as far apart from each other as two people could get.
    "Andrea, you have to understand, he pinched me," I repeated, exasperated.
    "I don't care," Andrea replied, equally exasperated.
    "He pinched me hard, on some weird pressure point. It was like getting a hundred tetanus shots at once. I'm still aching there." I pulled up my sleeve and rubbed the tender spot.
    "That's still no excuse for turning into a total lunatic—"
    "Okay, so I overreacted. Look, I was in excruciating pain. How about I pinch you as hard as I can on one of your pressure points, and you see how it feels!" I snapped, my voice and my temper rising.
    "Please be quiet—unless you want to put the kids to bed all over again."
    "He was smiling," I hissed quietly, desperate to make Andrea understand. "The prick stands there smiling like he's my best buddy, and the whole time he's squeezing me like he's studied some top-secret North Korean torture manual—"
    "The prick was a cop, for God's sake. You almost got yourself thrown in jail!" She pointed a finger at me. "Don't start acting like some macho jerk!"
    "Thanks for the sympathy," I said, and stood up from the sofa. I stormed into the kitchen, grabbed a beer, and guzzled it, feeding my rage against Andrea, Pop, the Zoning Board, the neighbors, and the rest of the world.
    I came up with some really nasty things to say to Andrea, and started back to the living room to say them. But just in the nick of time, I decided I'd be better off going outside and walking off my anger. My impulses had already gotten me in enough trouble tonight; no need to add to it. So I put on my jacket, stepped out the side door, and took a deep breath.
    The sweet smell of ripe grapes instantly surrounded me, miraculously lifting my mood quicker than pot ever did in my younger years. Maybe those aromatherapy people are onto something, I thought. Our fruitful, century-old grape arbor was in full harvest, so I grabbed a handful of big luscious purple grapes and rolled them around on my tongue, spitting out the seeds as I ambled down Elm Street, letting life's worries fade away and blithely ignoring the fact I was probably adding a few more stains to my T-shirt.
    It was the kind of crisp autumn evening when you can feel both summer and winter simultaneously. I always find that strangely soothing. Way up high the North Star was beckoning, and in front of me Jupiter was strutting its stuff. Meanwhile the Nightmare House on Elm Street was dark and silent; maybe they were taking the night off from drug dealing, and Andrea and I would sleep for ten hours and wake up refreshed.
    I walked down Elm and up Maple. The whole West Side was eerily quiet tonight. I whistled an old Yiddish lullaby, Rochinkes mit Mandlen, and it reverberated in the deserted streets. There were no cars whizzing by, no loud music, no children crying. What a magical night, I thought . . .
    And then I turned onto Ash Street and realized it wasn't magic after all. Ash was lined bumper to bumper with parked cars, and the huge lot outside Pirelli & Sons, Scrap Dealers, was filled to bursting. The reason the rest of the West Side was so quiet tonight was because everyone was at the big S.O.S. meeting at the corner of Ash and Walnut. Even though it was ten-thirty already, and the meeting had started at eight, it was evidently still going strong.
    I was feeling so peaceful, and the night was so serene, I had half a mind to walk away. But the other half won out, and I soon found myself walking up the steps of the Orian Cillarnian Sons of Ireland Hall.
    I couldn't get any farther than the front door, though. The joint was jammed, no doubt breaking several fire laws. All two hundred folding chairs were