I was down at the Yard a little after five. Jones came along a few minutes later. The group was there. It always is, except when there is a city clean-up. Then it moves over behind the church. Today there was a tension. Jones was smiling, gentle and friendly as always, but there were nerves back of it. Probably the others were mostly just suffering dry nerves. But I was rattled enough so I fumbled a five out and put it on the rock. That, naturally, meant that Coaster Joe and Feeny, who moved the quickest, went to make a run and didn't come back. With the right change for the jug, the wino never skips; with change to bring back, always. * * * * * Well, some more silver was painfully dredged up, mostly by Jones, and somebody else went. The wine went around and I admit that this time I took a swallow or two on my turn. I noticed Jones did too. Not much; a little. We were cold sober. Too cold, actually. I needed the little wine I had in me and a lot more. That bottle and another went around. So did the talk. I was leaning on the wall next to Jones. Neither of us had much to say. Finally, it was just coming on dusk, I asked him, "You're sure he'll come here? Are you sure he'll show at all?" "He'll be here. Most any time now, Ed. I can feel it. Can't you?" I could feel something, but it was only a contagion of tension, I told myself. Then Jones said, "Look there," and pointed. I followed the line of his big, pink-nailed, black finger off along the path through the park from Broad Street, a little hazy in the summer evening. There was nothing. Then there was a darker spot in the haze and then, not more than about twenty feet away, just about to pass back of the row of bushes along the path, I saw Stanley. Tonight he seemed, somehow, a more positive presence, even at that distance. There was a cocky bounce in his walk and a tilt to his chin that announced "Here is someone to reckon with." Other eyes in our little circle turned his way as he passed behind the bushes. A couple of seconds more and he came around the near side and moved in to join us. "Hello there, Wino," he said to Jones and there was condescension in it. "Fellows, I want"--proudly--"you should meet a friend of mine." Around the bushes came a shape, a dark shape; Stanley's friend, from some other place or world. In our group, Saint Betty, a retired queen, choked on the jug and handed it to me. I shoved it along to Jones. The paralyzing effect of Stanley's friend can be measured in the fact that the jug went three times around that thirsty circle--and no one even lifted it to his lips till it fell in the dust at my feet. Stanley's friend was there all right; really there. What did I say he was like? A dark shape? Yes. But that dark shape and the detail of that shape came through as clear as a hot blue flame to me.