I needed to go see Francis because I needed a favour but he was a hard man to track down. If anybody knew how to get me into the Mawntauk without anybody asking any questions it was him. Most people are sticky. Things become attached to them and help to define them in space and time. Their choice of clothing makes them sticky, their politics and ideals, the scars they wear from broken relationships, the crease of worry, the glow of love, the hangdog of depression. But Francis was slippery. Things just slid off him and disappeared. Words, ideas, definitions, women, jobs, they just flowed around him, arrived in a burst of light, faded and vanished like they were never there. An old mutual friend of ours once sketched a picture of Francis standing outside a coffee shop on Commercial Drive back in the days when we used to score at that apartment on 3rd ave before they got snitched and shut down. That sketch was a perfect capture of Francis in his purest form. Resolute and indistinct at the same time, the rain pelting his pale tan overcoat belt and buckle fastened at the waist, hands deep in the pockets. Short blonde hair almost resisting the rain, unnecessary shades covering his eyes under overcast skies. A few days stubble framing his idiot grin that looked half way between thoughtful revery and the blissful effect of the hit finding its mark. I wish that I still had a copy of that sketch. It seems more real than Francis. He exists more in memory and art than reality it often seems to me.