40 years old and Spence was barely more than a day laborer at a Compton manufacturer. His $180.00 a week was good for rent, a bottle of bourbon, lunches at Nick's, a few groceries and one or two working girl visits.

His Friday evening ritual long ago became habit and saved him from driving cross-town to spend the evening listening to his neighbor’s cats fighting and his having to drink in the emptiness of his by-the-week studio rental.

He’d been there going on six years and the landlord had offered him a break on the rent if he went annual or even monthly. Saving money was pointless to Spence. He didn’t have anything to spend it on.

Philosophical he wasn’t. He’d never read Descartes. Never been to the theater. Mozart had never been played on his car radio. Those pleasures for other people, not him.

Once, he read a book. It was in high-school, before he dropped out in the tenth grade. The Outsiders. He really liked it and felt he could relate. Then his pals told him that SE Hinton was a girl and that was that. He wasn’t reading books written by girls.