That being said, I'm not sure that I can even capture this character into bits, bytes or paper.

He was a tall chap, at least as tall as me. He was in his fifties or very late forties. Or seventies - I couldn't tell. His clothes stank and he pulled a little dolly of personal belongings.

"It's you!" he spat, turning toward me as I walked past.

"Beg pardon?"

"It's you!" he hissed, his eyes bulging from his head in what could only be described as the byproduct of repressed anger. "Don't think I didn't recognize you!"

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure..." I offered warily, stopping with what I hoped would be taken as bravado. Inside, I was wondering how I could speed-dial 911 on my cell phone.

And here's where it gets crazy - and beyond my ability to capture here.

"You took my uncle's business and with your stupid regulations you intruded in my personal life and it cost me my wife and my job and don't think I don't recognize you."

I stood motionless.

"Oh yeah. Remember Washington D.C.? Well I do. I bet you weren't even briefed. Were you?"

"No," I replied. At this point, I knew that I was into a character. And I wanted to play it out.

He shuffled up into my personal space -- to close. I could smell odors from him that I wish I had never smelled.

"Oh yeah," he said, his eyes narrowing to slits. "I know. And I remember you. And you're going to pay. My uncle, my wife, my life, my job. You and your counterparts with all the coverups and ..."

At this point, he babbled incoherently. It literally was impossible to understand what he was talking about.

I nodded politely from time to time, my finger on the speed-dial in my jacket pocket.

Before too long, I realized that he wasn't going to hurt me, though he kept threatening too. I also discovered that I am a CIA agent and that I murdered someone and that because of what I did in the government, this man had lost everything and that he knew all about it and he was going to blow the lid off of it all and expose me for what I was - a traitor to this country and to its citizens.

His eyes weren't slits at this point - they were wide orbs of barely contained anger and glistened with hate. Now, I began to fear for my well-being.

He spoke in tongues. I pointed that out to him, still stringing the character along. That only provoked him further.

I thought to myself: I HAVE to get that audio recorder to capture moments like these so I can write them into the character later.

Unfortunately, his babblings were so insane that to even capture moments of them would strain credibility. And then, I didn't care about the character. And, oddly, I didn't care about him. Dumb fuck could plunge into the water of Puget Sound and I wouldn't care. I didn't care about his wife or his uncle or his conspiracy or Viet Nam or whatever he wanted to blame his situation on. I've seen the homeless and deranged and I care about them. But I have no compassion on some quack who confronts civilians in an alley, especially civilians fresh from the funeral of a friend.

I could put this character into a book, but no one would believe it. You can't make this kind of stuff up. So I'm going to forget about this forever, but I had to document it here.

Just in case my boss at the CIA wonders who told the quack in the alley that we killed his uncle. That was supposed to be classified.