He remembered back when he was younger, that time he had to swallow a bag, trying to keep himself out of jail. He had way too much on him that time, and once they ID'd him as a swallower he was headed straight to jail anyway. The lawyers counselled him the way they do, and he got really fucking sick in that cell before he eventually gave in and went to the hospital. Confessing kept him locked up for a while, but he got out one Thursday afternoon, with nobody out front to pick him up.

He got back his Zippo lighter, gold with his initials on it, and his money clip too, also gold, just his first initial. They kept all the money he had when they took him in, but he had credit on these streets. Back to his supplier, a little older, a little wiser, but with only one way to get back on his feet. He slept in parks those first couple nights back out, before he made back eight hundred. A new apartment, one that didn’t know his face, but back to the old neighborhood to make sales, and business stayed strong.

For two years he stayed out of the way of those damn cold blooded bastard cops that put him away the last time. By that time he had a new car, another new apartment, evicted after a fight with the landlord from the last one, and a new daughter, who had his eyes. He still swore to straighten up one day, but even he couldn’t argue with numbers, and he was making good ones, selling to some of his old boys from high school, and even one of his old bosses, from way back when he had an "honest" job. Then in November, one night when it was too cold to pay as much attention to all the shit around him that he needed to keep an eye on, they caught him in the spotlight, the one that rotates around on top of the driver's side mirror.

He ran, as fast as he could in the cold, dropping little twist-tied baggies in the bushes as he cut around corners, staying close to the apartment buildings, in the shadows the best he could, eventually tripping, in a spot where the ground apparently dipped down a bit in the dark. They were on him then. He felt a knee in the middle of his back, a cold baton on the back of his neck. He tried resisting, but it meant nothing. Handcuffs next, and they said they had found all those little baggies. The read him his rights; he knew them already, by heart. Then they pulled him up, in a way that hurt his shoulders, hands behind his back. They threw him in the back of that car, lights flashing, and the only thing he could think was how good it felt to be in out of the cold. His eyes were glazed, he was out of breath, and he could feel where his knees still hurt from his fall.

He remembered back to when he was younger, that time when he had swallowed a bag, and how bleak shit looked once they had pumped his stomach. He got through it all that time, maybe he'd get through this. Then he remembered his daughter, and prayed for her all the way to jail.