They Hired a Linebacker to Take Me Out

Adventures in saying "Yes"

I was twenty-six and living paycheck to paycheck, though in those days I didn’t actually get a pay stub because I was self-employed, paid in coins and wadded up bills directly into my hat as a street performer.

When the alarm went off before sunrise on a Sunday morning in July, I imagined the crowds of tourists that would soon descend on the public marke…