Swallowed by the vast and practically empty lobby, I wandered over to the window and looked out at the Grand Circus Park through the lens of a September morning's first hour. Across the way, the newly completed Metropolitan Building pierced the Detroit skyline, and lights twinkled in the many competing tall buildings.

I inhaled deeply and felt the smoke pass slowly from my nostrils. Lies, like thick, warm, invisible syrup, must've secretly coated Alan's situation with a soothing, sweet, and delicate aroma. It had hardened, making him a victim-immobile, trapped-looking out through a thick, unbendable lens to a distorted world beyond.

The city, after four years, had unceremoniously dropped me back at the Statler Hotel and left me feeling completely alone. It was too early to be here and too late to be awake, standing in this place, berating myself for something I couldn't change. I didn't want to count the cost of false pursuits- not for running, not for never scraping off the lies that guilt had used to hold me captive.

It had been approaching midnight. I'd been hanging out longer than I'd planned when a 1928 Lincoln Model L-swanky by any definition-pulled in near the club's entrance and double-parked alongside the string of other black vehicles. Two heavily garbed figures emerged, one with a cigar implanted between his teeth. Fat lips forced it to the side of his mouth. Someone came out of the club, and the three of them moved into the shadows.

Tomorrow morning the mindless noise in my head was going to resume, which meant facing the glaring reality that law enforcement wasn't suicide but came mighty close.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe whatever held him could possibly have satisfied his yearning. Depravity's an addiction.

For an impotent few seconds, I felt like an actor standing speechless on the stage, unable to adjust the urgent part of me that wanted only my father and his strength. Time and distance had not diminished the need.

But it was not business as usual. Black Friday was a household word. The industrialized world spiraled downward as billions of dollars were lost in its wake, and Albuquerque was no exception. In the coming months, the Great Depression stretched its tentacles over all of America, snatching away whatever hopes to lay in its path.