It took months to recover. I always noticed in movies that when someone gets their ass kicked, two hours later they are fine. Couldn’t be any less true. You have to take ice baths for days to properly recover from an old-fashioned ass whipping.

I could still feel pain in my nose six months later when I finally started my first real job. Making subs at Jimmy John’s wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as putting fake tough guys in their place, but it also didn’t lead to broken noses, glued-open eyes, and kidnappings. At least as far as I could tell.

The sandwich job was actually just starting to feel normal when things started to get weird.

The first off-kilter incident I noticed was a crispy dollar bill which showed up in the tip jar with my name on it – literally. My co-worker walked it over to me and flicked the little, yellow Post-It with Adam written on it in pen before she handed it over.

“Someone has a secret admirer,” she quipped as she stuck the bill into my front pocket and I noticed a couple of peculiar things about the dollar.

It had a bronze-tinted smear in the corner, and smelled like coconut.