Walking up the steps of the jail house, visiting Hugo, was eerie. He's a good guy, not deserving of this. He wouldn't destroy Mocha Daze for insurance money like, like...like...like I couldn't have stolen a design from Tigre?

All people have their secrets, their private thoughts and sometimes actions. Didn't I? At eight years old, I liked chasing the girls on the school black top rather than the traditional being chased by the boy, which I characteristically detested. I mean, at that time it would have never entered anyone's mind that my "deviant" sexual preference was developing in full swing.

I was eager to see Hugo's jail cell, but my fantasy was disseminated when I was directed to a room with a couple of cafeteria tables and told to wait. Several "inmates" sat whispering to their wives, lawyers or whatevers a safe distance from one another. I tried to keep my eyes down, but I couldn't prevent my eyes from their nervous and curious glances.

Close to me was a black man in a graying blue jail house uniform leaning dauntingly into his wife. My first notice guided me to think his crime was beating his wife and she, finally after many volatile abuses, pressed charges. His stature was great and could certainly overpower her during a moment of anger and weakness. Their whispers became audible and my ear, like radar, naturally picked up their waves.

"Baby, please. I love you. You got to stay." A closer look and a tear dropped from his watering eyes.

"I...don't love you," she mumbled.

"Okay I didn't pay the parking tickets." And a sardonic laugh lapsed from his gut. "But that's not it, is it baby? I know what it is. I didn't make it, did I baby? I didn't make it." His hope bled like a siphon. "I'll get a new job, baby. This can work."

"I'll pay your bail, but I won't be home when you get there." She left and suddenly my heart collapsed. I knew Hugo hadn't destroyed Mocha Daze for insurance money, and yet I had become too lazy to really care about his situation-- too consumed in my own life.

So when Hugo dragged across the room, in his graying blue jail house uniform, I smiled with optimism-- wanting to relieve his pressures and assure him that his freedom was not long away.

He stood hopelessly lurching over me as if with a touch he could fall in any direction. "Hi!" I said maternally, revealing all my teeth in a forced smile.

"Oh please!"

"Come on Hugo, sit down."

He pulled the chair out and plopped his ass in it. "Isn't this funny?", he said. "You actually pilfered, stole, misappropriated, and whatever, yet it is me that is incarcerated as a criminal."

He was affected by the anxieties of imprisonment and it was going to take a good deal of encouragement to ease this tension. I stayed.

*****

Later, I met Mike at Mocha Daze to find a solution.

"Hugo is going to need a lot of help," mumbled Mike.

"He wouldn't break the law and you know it Mike, but he doesn't have the bail. Anybody you can call Mike? Is there anybody?"