From: Lee Lady
Subject: An Indian Bounty Hunter
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000
I had an interesting evening last night. I went to see Onegin at the Art Academy. It was a must-see movie for me, because of the many years I devoted to studying Russian. It was okay. Rather strangely done in some ways, as far as the editing and camera work, and not really a memorable film. Very slow, but I didn't mind that. My mind was constantly full of ideas the film suggested, and I like films like that.
Afterwards, I went to my neighborhood bar, Anna Bannana's, to get something to eat, and one of my two favortie spots at the bar was available, so that was good. By chance it put me next to a woman I'd noticed several times before, and who I had noticed definitely noticing me the week before, when we were seated on opposite sides of the U-shaped bar. She was mostly talking to a young Navy guy on the other side of her, but she quickly brought me into the conversation as well.
She was walking about having just got off work, and the fact that her hours are somewhat irregular, and that she owns her own business. When I asked her what kind of business it was, she finally admited that it was a ``fugitive recovery service.''
``Ah,'' I said. ``So you're a bounty hunter.''
``In layman's terms, yes,'' she said.
In other words, when somebody gets arrested, they go to a bail bondsman and put one-tenth of the bail to the bondsman, who then pays their bail to the court so they can be freed until trial. When they show up for trial, the court refunds the bail bondsman his money. (The person never gets the one-tenth back from the bail bondsman, though.) If they don't show up for court, then the bail bondsman loses his money unless he can cause the accused to be brought back to jail. This is where my new friend comes in. Her company gets paid by the bail bondsman to track down the accused person (possibly in another state by now, but more often not) and have him arrested.
There have been a number of movies made about this subject. A very good one is Midnight Run with Charles Grodin and Robert DeNiro.
My new bounty hunter friend also told me that she is an American Indian, from the Crow tribe. She certainly didn't look like it, although she certainly did have an unusual looking face. And then she told me that actually she's half Crow Indian and half Italian.
``Aha,'' I said, ``you're a very intimidating person. One half Mafia and the other half Indian brave.''
``Exactly!'' she said.
Anyway, I also learned that she is in her thirties, has a daughter (I don't know how old), and lives in a very suburban neighborhood not very close to Anna Bannana's. By the end of our conversation, the Navy guy was extremely drunk, and she decided that she'd better give him a ride home, although it was somewhat out of her way. She gave me a kiss on the cheek as she left.
Love & kisses,
--Lee