when you can only remember the night in little bits

Lakewood must have the northeast Ohio market of derelict late middle age white male drunks; and they're all belligerent. Where do they all come from, and further more how does one end up there? I feel most of the ones I run into are competent enough to harass me, and therefore competent enough to have most available jobs. They don't seem homeless, just people whos lives and mental states have been completely eroded by drinking and possible drug abuse. My first interaction (this year) with one of these was a man named Lloyd who staggered up to me and my group of bike riding cronies and, in short, threatened to run all of us over with the car he doesn't own in a vain attempt to salvage the few threads of dignity he hasn't drowned. Lloyd had no problem ignoring everything you suggested to him, to, in turn suggest you or someone like you is at fault for his current state. So the bar drunk has become a staple in most all of my west side ventures; sadly they get viewed almost as bar clowns. These inebriated apparitions of humans that meander around the bar interrupting each conversation to either ask for a cigarette or inform the conversationers that something they mentioned is either wrong, or stupid, or a combination of both. And/or such a statement is something that flies in the face of all the values they've come to know and love and they're penance for such a verbal fornication is an awkward squinty eyed twenty minute lecture from a drunk in a USS Roosevelt hat with less then the a modal number of teeth. Next to this are the more mobiley synonymous derelicts/oddballs on junker bicycles; These guys use the fact that your are on a bike, and for what they know, they are on a bike, and that is enough reason for them to come and talk about goddamn nonsense for x amount of time. Most of my conversations held with bums on bikes are on par with my conversations held with friends who were experimenting with salvia. Where I ask them a simple question such as, "Do you want some Cheet-O's?" And in their mind they deliver a well orchestrated and elegant response going from intro to thesis to topic sentences to supporting arguments, sometimes stopping to consider a dissenting opinion or two, segueing into summation and then QED. However in the non-salvia hazed reality they're jibbering and jabbering nonsense, staring at the ground or at some object thats not part of the conversation, and sweating ...alot. Last night's derelict was folded into this ever growing cast of weirdos. He was Dr.Shock. Dr. Shock is a bout 5'8" wearing a blue windbreaker, and black goth kid pants, like the ones sold at hot topic, with the suspenders and an inordinate amount of inoperative zippers. He was missing a tooth and was sporting a very bushy Amish beard, Dr. Shock rode a blue bike, with a bag hanging off the handle bars and bungee cords that went from his see to the fender mounts on the back of his horizontal dropouts. He was also wearing a purple kids helmet with a decal that read "DR. SHOCK!", the words were bisected by a pretty awesome looking lightening bolt. We ran into him, two of my friends and myself, while waiting for our bike group to assemble in public square for our weekly thursday night ride. Dr. Shock intiated the conversation with us by insisting that he is not going to the Brown's game that night. None of us doubted him, he was nonetheless compelled to repeat his platform on non-attendance, and question if any of us were going. So with it established that neither Dr. Shock or none of my friends were going to the football game that night He directed the conversation to his deep knowledge of the junkyard, and how its a vast cache of bikes, and that none of use should venture that and take his bikes for they are his, and that bikes at the junkyard were his discovery and therefore again..his. He got a bit worked up here with his final junkyard statements and this moved the one sided conversation to issues of security. I had lost all interest in Dr. Shock, my friends were nodding there heads in an accommodating motion that to most anyone else would infer "please, please go away". This is about when Dr. Shock reaches into the bag in front of his bike and pulls out a small black revolver half way from the opening. I looked up from the text message I was writing on my cell phone and promptly skipped a heart beat, or four. He drops the piece back in the bag and said something along the lines of "no cars will mess with me", and then scooted his blue bike onto Superior Ave and left.