So, from time to time I would stop by The Yard for an evening. I would spring for a jug. I was welcome. Those in the regular group knew me and they held me in no more than the same contempt they had for each other and themselves. Being no stranger--or, perhaps, not too much less strange--I fitted well enough with the misfits of that half-world where the individual rarely stands out enough to be noticeable. Wino Jones, though, and his friend Stanley were, each in his own way, quite noticeable. I first ran across Wino Jones and Stanley one early spring evening. It was a Thursday. I was beat. It had been a tough week--a political scandal, a couple of fires and a big "Missing Kid--Fiend" scare. Turned out the kid had skipped school to catch a triple-feature horror show and was scared to go home when she came out late, so she went to hide out at Grandma's. The suspect fiend was a cockfight sportsman from the Caribbean colony smuggling home his loser under his leather jacket. But it had been a rough week with a lot of chasing around and getting no place that left me in one of those hell-with-it moods. Like, maybe, I ought to take a week or so off and--and the hell with that. It was time for me to pay a little remembrance-of-things-not-so-far-past visit down on the row. I left the city room, tired, dirty, needing a shave. Where I was headed, this would put me ahead of the fashion parade, but it would serve. I stopped for a bowl of chili at Mad Miguel's and then wandered down to those four blocks on South River Street, known as Bug Alley, that make up the hard-core skid-row section of our city. Across from St. Vincent's in Scott Square, called the Yard, by the old wall, there was a group of six or eight passing the time and a nearly dead jug. I shambled over and squatted down. Got a hard, bloodshot look or two, but not because the jug in the public park was against the law. Even if I was the law, so what? These, they made the jail now and then, if there were too many complaints, if they made a disturbance. But not even the jail wanted them. The hard looks wondered only if the jug should be passed to me or by me. I lit a cigarette, took a couple of drags and handed it on. Bootnose Bailey, big, old, bald, with the cast-iron stomach and leather liver, settled the jug question by handing it to me. I lifted it, letting only the smallest trickle of the sticky sweet cheap wine past. It is not for me; no more. It is sickening stuff. But, as always, the effort of holding back left me shaking. All right; with shaking, I had plenty of company. The next man looked pleased at the two gulps left in the bottle and drained it. "Ed?" Bootnose asked in his hoarse canned-heat whisper. "You gonna spring for a jug?"