It is late at night. Your body is screaming, “I need it. I have to have it. I’ll do anything to get it.”

You check the billfold of your wallet: Five dollars.

Not enough.

You open the glass jar where your wife throws her pocket change. Eighteen quarters. One dime. Six pennies. Total cash on hand: Nine dollars and sixty-three cents. Still not enough.

Silently … surreptitiously … you tiptoe to your wife’s purse in the living room. You unzip the main compartment, delicately fish out her wallet, and remove two tens, five twenties, and six ones. Then you replace, re-zip, and reposition all that you have touched. New total: One hundred and thirty-five dollars and sixty-three cents.

You return to the kitchen and put sixty-three cents back into the change jar. You check your pockets for your car keys.

Quietly … ever so quietly … you exit the backdoor of your house. Anticipating your midnight excursion, you had parked your car down the street, in front of Jerry’s house. When Jerry is in the same grip of need as you are, he parks in front of yours.

Ever since … what was his name? When you asked, he just grinned evilly, shook his greasy head, and snarled, “Call me Mr. Fry. Yeah. That’ll do, because I’m your fry guy.”

You choke back a knot of fear.

Fry. Isn’t that another word for die? As in execute. As in electric chair?