WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.920
An old drunk, probably about the age I am now, broke in our house before I was born.

2
00:00:07.920 --> 00:00:13.480
Broke in my brother Herb's room, Herb was small and sick with a fever and not at all

3
00:00:13.480 --> 00:00:16.880
frightened by the stranger standing there.

4
00:00:16.880 --> 00:00:19.160
Would you like some orange juice?

5
00:00:19.160 --> 00:00:23.880
He held out the glass of it he had on the bedside table.

6
00:00:23.880 --> 00:00:30.480
Then Dad appeared with a baseball bat and led the man off, whose name escapes.

7
00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:33.880
No one was hit or prosecuted.

8
00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:39.840
All that resulted from that bemuddled night was that twisted iron bars, as though for

9
00:00:39.840 --> 00:00:44.440
a castle, were fastened on all our bedroom windows.

10
00:00:44.440 --> 00:00:49.720
And I grew up looking out through those bars at the river and climbing on them.

11
00:00:49.720 --> 00:00:54.840
I know more now of the blank confusion he felt, the drunk.

12
00:00:54.840 --> 00:01:01.080
And I've done unconscious things, too, that have had consequences like the way he affected

13
00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:07.960
my view of the outside for years, who wasn't even born then and who has just as blind a

14
00:01:07.960 --> 00:01:14.200
notion of what bad or good could come of some wandering, dumb thought to go and do I don't

15
00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:16.440
quite know what.

16
00:01:16.440 --> 00:01:17.920
Could I offer you some orange juice?