The Day I Knew I Could Kill a Man

Before this, I guess I didn’t see myself as the type

I spent most of the third decade of my life in one kind of pickle or another. In and out of jails and mental institutions, drifting, drinking and drugging. I’ll probably have a lot more to write about those years, eventually. But for the purpose of this story, let’s concentrate on the events of one year. And one day in that fateful year, and one event that happened that day.

On a complete whim one day in 1989 I spent most of the few dollars I had on an Amtrak ticket from Rocky Mount, NC to…