mcgrew's Journal: -- ...and in the darkness bind them.

It's amazing what mischief a useless shiny bauble can cause. "I'll let you hold this ring as collateral".

So now I'm a pawn star, I guess. Tami and Robert had been renting a room from Billie, the redneck broad that knocked one of my teeth loose, and had gotten thrown out. For what it's impossible to imagine, but they'd moved into a boarding house across the street from me. Somehow the ring had come from Billie; Tami said Billie had sold it to them and it was going to be a wedding ring.

"But not now. Every time I look at it it makes me think of that cunt. You know I don't like that word, but she's a cunt!"

The ring sat on my dresser longer than they stayed at the boarding house; they were thrown out of there as well. They moved into an apartment way down in the darkest part of the east side, where most of the buildings were boarded up and you would be crazy to be outside alone after dark.

That Sunday I went to church with Tammy, and some big guy dunked me in a giant tub of water. Afterwards she spied the ring and asked about it. "It's Tami's. I'm holding it for collateral."

"I'll give tou twenty five bucks for it!"

"I can't do that!" I exclaimed. Jesus, I'd just gotten baptized that morning and she wanted me to steal Tami's ring.

"It's not like she hasn't stolen a lot of stuff from you."

True. My and Evil-X's wedding rings were among some of the stuff that had gone missing, and Tami had been the #1 suspect, although it could have been Linda or Brian; I heard Brian, a heroin junkie, had just got out of prison for shoplifting. But I'm pretty sure it was Tami.

"That's true, but it still doesn't make it right. I'm a Christian, remember?"

"Yeah, you're right," she said.

A week later, Amy was fighting with Tim and wound up back with Connor. Then she fought with Connor and had me take her to Tim's to get her things, which he'd told her he'd given to Goodwill. Fearing violence, she had a Sherriff's deputy meet us at Coonrod's, a bar down the street from Tim's. The cop was no help at all; Tim wasn't answering the door. So we went to Felber's, she saying "I need a drink!"

Of course she needed a drink. Everything makes her need a drink. Halfway through my first beer Tim called saying she could have her stuff back, so we drove back up to NEWT country. NEWT is short for "North End White Trash", which used to be the name of a bar up there. The deputy showed up just as we were getting the last of her things in the trunk.

Two days later she was back at Tim's, leaving the stuff she didn't want to lose at my house. Connor had worried about her and I'd told him I'd call if I heard from her, so I did. "Are you missing anything?" he asked.

"Not that I know of."

"Amy told me Tim talked her into stealing a ring from your dresser. She said she was going to tell you about it and apologize."

Sure enough, the ring was gone. She called a couple of hours later, and I told her Connor had narced on her. "I was going to tell you... look, Tim talked me into it. We were about to get our electricity shut off and I took it to that pawn shop on Cook street. I'll get it back, it'll cost thirty bucks. The slip is in my bookbag." The book bag was in my bedroom.

Tami called an hour later as I was on my way to get Amy. "Can you give me and Robert a ride downtown? We'll give you a couple of bucks for gas."

"Uh, sure. Uh about your ring..."

"Yeah?"

"I don't have it. Amy stole it."

"What? That bitch! I'll have her ass in jail, I need it back to get Billie off my ass!"

"Don't worry, I have the pawn slip. We'll get it back."

I picked Amy up and headed to the Ghetto to give the two white ghettizans a ride. I was surprised that the bitching wasn't worse.

Two days later and Amy was sick, probably caught it from me; the common cold is an STD, apparently. Tami got a ride to my house, we got the pawn slip and went to get her (Billie's?) ring out of hock. It cost me thirty bucks.

Tami turned around and repawned it, still having not paid me back what she'd owed me. Amy got some money out of Connor and paid for the pawn ticket.

Yesterday Tammy called, and somehow I wound up asking her out to dinner, where I told the sordid tale of the One Ring at D'Arcy's. I put in a few digs about how often she blows me off on our dates, and she was amused at my choice of terminology. "I know better than to make a date with you" I'd said on the phone.

She called this morning to thank me again. "That was better than an orgasm!" she said. "Lots more memorable, and lasted longer."

Diamonds are forever? Don't put your treasure where moths can corrupt it and thieves can steal it.

It's only money.