Name: Brandon Copple
Location: Chicago, IL
DOB: 1971
Email: copple(at)2walls.com

Bio: Of all the websites in all the word you had to come to this one.

So you want to know about me? It started on a summer night in the early 70s, dead-center of a blazing-hot July in a dusty High Plains town. I was born a little after midnight, just as the Southwest Chief pulled in to the depot, sounding its lonesome whistle – a sound that would haunt my late-night wakings through all the years to come.

I had an American youth: Baseball cards and soda pop, playgrounds and dreams. At 18 I left my hometown, and I can't ever go back (for reasons I won't go into). That, I suppose, is where it really began. Spent a few years studying, bounced around following those train whistles, eventually gave myself over to the mercenary life. I fought with the loyalists in Spain and ran guns to the rebels in Ethiopia. Of course I was well paid on both occasions but some, like my friend René the constable, still suspect that beneath it all I am a sentimentalist.

Anyway, after too many dark-of-night escapes and close calls in shadowy harbors, I landed in this end-of-the-line town, this terminal point for refugees where everybody's one step ahead of somebody. I decided to stick around, opened up this night club. It's my place, and everybody comes to my place – ex-pats, prefects, grifters and losers, all preying on each other in evening wear. Most of them are welcome, so long as they know the rules. I don't drink with customers and I don't pick up anybody's tab. Come on in if you want, have a drink, listen to my man on the piano, but don't expect any favors: I stick my neck out for nobody.

So play it Sam – You played it for her, you can play it for me. I'll pour another one, think about the lies I've told, wonder if I'll ever see her again. In the meantime, here's looking at you, kid...