Joseph Haines put on his website an invitation to post made-up memories, taking the lead of a similar request on another website (Jed Hartman's). Joseph is a fellow writer, and was previously a police officer in Los Angeles.

He asked that the imagined memories be posted to his site in the comments section. I may have taken some liberties with the assignment. Here's what I posted:

I'll always remember the time Joseph and I got to know each other during that trial in LA. The FBI had me under witness protection because I was the star witness in a big money laundering scheme, and Joseph was one of the cops assigned to take care of me while I was hidden away at some flea-bag motel.

I remember the way we used to play cards until the wee hours of the morning. Joseph said he felt a little awkward, "playing" while on the payroll, but that kind of duty still takes away your time, does it not? As for me, I was playing with counterfeit money, so what did I care?

I remember Joseph's big hearty laugh as we would swap stories about life on both sides of the thin blue line. The raw intensity of his compassion for the people he worked so hard to help; his no-nonsense attitude toward the scum who would dare to harm them.

And I'll always remember the way he listened -- really listened -- whenever I told a story of my own. About the joys and perils of the outlaw life. About the outrageous things you'd get away with, and the small things that would trip you up. About the goofy things that crooks do, or the small but clever ways big crimes could be hidden in plain view; like the way we hid that large sack of money in a department store window for all to see.

And, of course, I'll never forget the time he was late for his shift that last Friday, and how someone had tipped off my former partners-in-crime, and how they tracked me down, and that big shoot-out in front of the hotel.

I'll always remember how I heard -- later, while I was recovering from multiple gunshot and stab wounds over at County -- that Joseph had retired from the force and just up and moved away to somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, never to be heard from by his fellow law enforcement officers again.

And I'll never forget how once I had finally healed enough to walk and talk again, and the trial finally concluded and I could once again walk the streets as a free man, how almost all of the places I'd stashed the money I'd been skimming off the top had turned up empty. Joseph had expressed his doubts about the wisdom of the hiding places I'd told him about, and I guess he was right. Funny that the one I'd forgotten to mention to him hadn't been touched. Maybe if he'd known about that one, he wouldn't have been so skeptical.

But mostly, I guess what I remember best about Joseph was the look on his face when I turned up at his doorstep three years later, and the way his face turned red with rage and the veins seemed to pop from his taut skin as he knocked me to the ground and stepped on my neck and told me to never, NEVER darken his door again.

That, and his exquisite taste in carpeting.