‘I started life in an apartment near here … downtown, average, far away from everyone … They put me on a fold-up bed in the kitchen to sleep it off. The next morning, they fed and sent me on my way.’

‘And you came back?’ I seem surprised by this, but I guess seventeen-year-old Alexi was not as closed off and untrusting as thirty-two-year-old Alexi and probably wasn’t much like he is now. I get a pang of longing to know what he was like back then and try to picture him so ...