You could say the two of them were stepping into uncharted waters, walking into unknown lands, but the fact of the matter is these two were nomads. They had no home, no safety. They had no real sense of security for the better part of the last three years. They were victims of the elements, soaked by rain, frozen by winter and disgusted with each other's sweat glands as the reek of summer, sifting up from street corner grates, mixed with the putrid smell of bodily cologne.

At least there was no more pain.

They walk side by side, along 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn, under the light of the half moon, visible only in the streetlights to the occasional passing car. It was strange like that. In the darkness of the street with the light of the moon following them they were seemingly invisible, but under the glow of the streetlight shine, they are prey. Kids in cars spotting them would shout obscenities and toss beer bottles or soda cans at them. Sometimes they'd slow down and flick lit cigarettes, which is why the two of them remained inseparable.

There use to be three of them but one of them had a fight with the two of them over a banana and now he's dead. He went his own way, became a loner and died a miserable death. It happened in Park Slope. Thurmen B. Howard, alone, sleeping under a children's slide in a concrete park. He woke early one morning as the sun broke through the darkness chasing the night away. He woke with a start to the smell of gasoline and the pack of wolves. They were pouring the gasoline onto his face and his clothes, lighting him up like a campfire. They didn't even run. A witness said they watched and joked about not bringing marshmellows. There were never any arrests.

The part of Brooklyn they always kept to was largely deserted, empty at this time of the night except for the occasional girl, hovering under the street light as if the world were her stage. Soon the 50s would melt into the 60s of Bay Ridge and they would emerge from the shadows, visible strangers in a potential land of plenty.

It was Grogan's idea. He was hungry. So many of the regulars in the neighborhood were falling apart, disappearing. Nancy's breakfast and lunch was the first to fall, on 2nd Avenue and 39th Street. There was plenty of food to pick through when she put her garbage out and while neither of them would ever get fat, it sustained them. Partial eggs and half eaten bagels weren't so bad anymore. In the beginning, Grogan could go days without eating. Not eating, however, gets old real fast.

Gargoyle was initially against it. He was older, the wiser of the two, but just as hungry as Grogan. If the recession was particularly harsh on those surviving, it was downright cruel to those who weren't, as restaurants and bodegas fell like dominoes from lack of business leading to a real lack of garbage to sift through.

Gargoyle found a great grey coat from a Cheap Charlies, that he used as a blanket on cold winter nights. When Freddy's Fruit Stand collapsed, they were heartbroken because Freddie, or at least somebody who worked there, bought 16 ounce bottles of coke and never finished them. They always tossed at least five half drunk bottles a day.

Sometimes you'd even get half a cup of coffee, but it was always cold. Grogan never liked cold coffee. Gargoyle used to be an accountant. He lived on the upper eastside in a condo he owned until his wife threw him out. She was cheating. She was doing some kid 15 years younger than she with reckless abandon. Gargoyle was crushed. She threw him out, moved the kid in and seized all the money. Gargoyle took a room in the Bronx and bought an air mattress to sleep on with an advance in pay. He bought a week's worth of clothes, but his anger, his pain spilled over into the workplace and soon he was out of a job. He was out of an income and out of a room with a view in the Bronx.

Grogan was just a working stiff. He went from agency to agency doing this and that until the work slowed, dried up like a puddle of water on a hot summer day. He never had much going for him, anyway. He had a sister, but she had a family of her own and didn't much seem interested in Grogan once the folks died. She was real interested in Grogan when they were sick and needed things, but once they died and the money was split, she changed her number and never spoke to Grogan again. Of course, there really wasn't much in the way of money.

They cross the line into Bay Ridge, Grogan anxiously looking for restaurants and back alleys; Gargoyle looking for cops and wolf packs. There is an invisible border between the place from which they came and the place they were now in. The place they were now in was considered a relatively nice region, free of hookers and street urchins. They could be chased, beaten, arrested. They heard stories about a cop beating the sh__t out of bums and claiming they were resisting arrest, but he was on four to midnights, and midnight was somewhere in the past.

Grogan spotted a bodega, but he couldn't find any garbage so he moved on. They had gone another block when Gargoyle stood stuck in an intersection. Gargoyle stood glued to the blacktop, staring up the street. Grogan was scared. Was he staring at a cop, or, waiting for the wolves as they spied the pair and slowly made their way toward them?

"What is it?" Grogan utters.
Gargoyle starts to walk down the street, a residential street, which is not allowed, always forbidden. They are fawns on residential streets waiting for hunters.

"Gargoyle? What the hell is the matter with you? Have you lost all your marbles?"
This was a stupid question because any marbles Gargoyle may have had, his wife took and probably tossed into the Hudson River from the terrace of his once beautiful condo.

Grogan bolts after him, grabbing him by the arm but Gargoyle pulls free.
"Have you forgot the rules?" Grogan asks. "What about the rules?"
"Look," Gargoyle says and Grogan sees the flicker, the glow. It is dancing inside the first floor window of a four-story walk up.
"Fire?" Grogan asks.
"Maybe some big fancy TV." They approach the window slowly, cautiously. Gargoyle turns a garbage can upside down and with one hand on Grogans shoulder, climbs up for a better view. It is a space heater and there are flames leaping out of it, caressing the cloth, covered chair beside it. The old lady in the bed is dead asleep or maybe just dead 'cos she is old and Gargoyle knows the older we grow the closer we come to the heart attack, the stroke changing everything like a Strawberry dinger back in '86, a monster shot making winners out of losers in the heyday of the Mets. Just ask Bill Buckner.

Gargoyle bangs on the window.
He turns to Grogan.

"Find a phone. Find a phone, Grogan and call 9-1-1."
Grogan takes off for 3rd Avenue. There has to be a pay phone, or a firebox. He barely turns the corner when he hears the soft explosion. Looking back down the street, he sees Gargoyle flat on his back, sitting up slowly in the glow of the light. Flames seem to reach for him through the window and then he stands up and races into the front of the building.

Grogan is panic-stricken. He doesn't want to leave his friend. He has to find a phone. He runs from corner to corner until he hears the sirens. He knows someone has called. He races back to the building, back to Gargoyle. Gargoyle is carrying out the old woman. He sets her down on the sidewalk and races back into the building. It's an electrical fire, now. It's an old wooden building and the fire is spreading. There are people screaming. Firemen jump from trucks. They open hydrants and pull hoses. Grogan can't move. He is frozen with fear. He just wants to see Gargoyle. Where the hell is Gargoyle?

If anything happens to Gargoyle he'll be alone. They'll be no one to watch for wolves as he forages for food and then Grogan has to move. The police are moving him, cuffing him. What the hell is he doing here? Where does he live? Does he have any ID?

"Did you start this fire?"
They push him into the back of a police car. He turns staring out the back window as it pulls away.
"No!' He cries, struggling with the cuffs, protesting; trying to explain.
"Shut up, you f____g derelict, or do I need to pull over, climb in the back and shut you up?" warns the driver.
"Man do you reek,' his partner adds. "You crawling with bugs too?"
Grogan silently weeps.

The fire makes the news. The Brooklyn Spectator carries the story for weeks. The roof collapsed. The cause of the fire was electrical. Two children died in the fire. The mother escaped with her infant. Her husband and two daughters weren't so lucky. It is the tragedy of the husband and both daughters that keep the story alive because the woman had no husband. She had no boyfriend. They don't know who he was.

Grogan knew who he is. He was Gargoyle and he owned a condo on the upper east side, but he doesn't know where it is. He doesn't know the name of Gargoyle's ex-wife, or the accounting firm he once worked for. He doesn't even know Gargoyle's real name.

"Can't you do something?' He shouts. "Somebody ought to be able to do something! Doesn't anybody f___ing care?"