“Can you go get my friend from the bar and bring him to his house? He just called me…” You drive through the drizzling rain, thinking of what your uncle said over the phone. He had told you that his friend was going through a hard time, probably the cause of this pickup.

Inside the bar, Mark Hoffman drinking again. He’d just drunkenly texted John to be picked up, and was now waiting, sipping lazily on some whiskey.

He did this often- his sister’s death weighed on him heavily, and he was so goddam lonely at home that he didn’t see a reason why he shouldn’t just go to the bar and drink until he couldn’t remember that he hated the way that his bed, his apartment, his life felt without another person to share it with.

You pulled up to the bar, parking on the side of the street- it wasn’t too busy. Now to get this man.