Uncle Ray bends down to pluck a cigarette butt out of the bushes across the courtyard, far enough away to sidestep Lenny’s wrath if he sees him and makes a scene.

It’s obvious Ray is having a hard time of it. He’s shaky, unfocused, and clearly three sheets to the wind. Ray’s gambling that Poppi won’t notice he’s staggering drunk. He’s crossing his fingers she’ll give him his usual meal of chicken and hot chocolate.

My first brush with Ray was in front of Mama’s Truckstop in the summer of ‘76. He was squatting at the curb beside a shopping cart filled with empty bottles and other objects of questionable origin.

I was riding past, when the bottles in his cart caught my eye. Likewise, Ray glared at the cans in the bag slung over my shoulder. I’d finally met my main competitor in the recyclable-bottles-and-cans racket.

I was twelve and desperately needed pocket change for comic books. I was also on Ray’s turf. And he wasn’t just collecting cans around the campus. Ray was tapped into the motherlode. All the empties the frat boys stockpiled in their party houses.

Several years before Poppi was in the neighborhood doling out dolmas and serving souvlaki to the masses, back when 675 East 13th Avenue was Eggsnatchur Natural Foods, Ray appeared one day with a handful of blackberries he’d picked by the river and offered to swap them for a sandwich.

Lee Boutell, a gregarious college hippie turned vegetarian restaurant entrepreneur, made the trade and staked Ray a meal on the regular. When Lee sold the restaurant, Poppi Cottam took over the old Craftsman house and opened Poppi’s Greek Taverna.

Uncle Ray figured he was part of the deal.

Seven years later, Poppi is still feeding uncle Ray from the back door of the kitchen any time he shows up hungry. Unless he shows up drunk. Then Poppi will send him away with a cup of black coffee and tell him to come back later when he’s sober.

~Richard La Rosa (9/17/1985)

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This is page 1 of my story about uncle Ray in Tales of the Nosh Bar.