To keep a wheel on its axle, spinning along how you like, a linch pin is the thing to use. Likewise, most situations have a linch pin, that key factor keeping the cycle going. It’s the guy in a group of friends who always gets the party together and keeps it in motion.

As inconspicuous as a boar at a cotillion, I lean against a rough brick wall and eye my linch pin. Let’s call him Peter. As the local warlord or crimeboss or whatever you want to call him, he keeps this mess as it is. Sure, everyone else suffers, and the good guys don’t stand a chance of changing things, but he likes it. He profits.

He sits at the cafe, his happy meadow in this forest of discontent, sipping the coffee noone else for a hundred miles could afford. Five guards look in all directions, including the one giving me the stink eye. I give him my best loser shrug and slink away, humming as I go.

It takes me a block to recognize the tune, Peter and the Wolf. I laugh but cross myself all the same. Here’s to the wolf.