In Which We Meet Roscoe, Wallace Grey and George.

Roscoe the raccoon was what in common slang is called a beat-nik. He played bongo drums smoked beedee’s and wore those stupid little round sunglasses' beat-niks like to wear. He had a little floppy black beret that he always wore cocked over his left side.
He sat around in coffee houses, joining in with little bands, drinking bad coffee, reading bad poetry on open mike night; being tragically hip and incredibly cool. Then he met The Evil Prince. Not the one you find in Thai restaurants. The one that comes in needles: heroin.
Roscoe didn’t realize just how evil this prince was `till one day he woke up face down in a puddle of his own urine, homeless.
“You still want me Roscoe,” The Evil Prince said. “I know you do.”
Roscoe heard a loud scream that went on and on. It took him quite a long time to realize it was the sound of his own voice. He was hoarse ever after.
“Come on Roscoe, get up. Come find me. I’m waiting here just for you.”
Roscoe went to a half-way house set up by some altruistic iguanas in Austin. There he got the shakes a lot and wrote a book of poetry that made him a comfortable sum of money. He quit cold turkey and seldom took methadone except on those really black days when The Evil Prince somehow found him, usually while sleeping.
Roscoe opened his own coffee shop and seldom slept after that due to mass doses of caffeine and the rigors of being a small businessman, er, raccoon.
He called it ‘The Half Way Cafe.’
He often took in smelly, urine covered, heroine addicts. He paid them in room and board only, and methadone if they wanted it. Most of the time they stole money out of his register and spilled about as much coffee as they managed to get in cups.
This was, as you can imagine, a financial strain on the business.
Sir Wallace A. Grey showed up a time or two but Roscoe respectfully asked him to leave when Roscoe caught him and his drugs in the bathroom. Wallace Grey was a rat, being stuffed with chemicals was something rats handle better than most, especially this particular rat. “The coffee here sucks.” Is all he had to say upon leaving.
Somehow folks showed up for bad coffee and good poetry anyhow; and Roscoe got pretty good on those drums.
“Why the hell do you bother Roscoe?” Suzie said wiping up freshly spilled coffee from the table a tad miffed.
“Sorry...” George, the newest arrival on the team said. “Got the shakes again.”
Suzie waved him off.
“You don’t get it do you?” Roscoe said in that deep scruffy voice. “I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it because The Evil Prince and I are now mortal enemies, and I’ll fight him anyway I can.”
You get it, don’t you?