A Million Stories

[ a million stories ]

Sure, you might have kept your sock on during the Philly Naked Bike Ride, Mr. Busy Eyes — but the chilly autumn breeze that night blew straight through your lonely heart. So you went on Craigslist. We know. Following the Philly Naked Bike Ride, the "Missed Connections" section was chock-full of messages, posted by men and women alike, seeking out the naked love that just-quite-didn't.

We want to help.

Hey "cute boy on a fixie wearing a leopard print thong" — someone wants to "do some naked bike riding" of her own with you. Hey chick with the two red hearts on your "little pink panties" — there's a man who has proposed (drum roll please) a bike ride.

Redheaded dude in the bike helmet and blue underwear: A guy who painted "Homo" across his chest was afraid of giggling too much if he talked to you. Just imagine.

Commercial lawyer with the green underwear — the girl in the white hat liked you and, apparently, the fact that you're a commercial lawyer, because she mentioned it twice.

Girl on purple fixie, a guy thinks he made eye contact "a time or two," and wants you to describe his bike back to him — if you even saw him. Yeesh.

Finally, you, lame-o who didn't go — even for you, there is love to be had. "I'm a guy that missed the ride," wrote a fellow lame-o somewhat desperately. "We can try and find a similar event or make our own."

- Isaiah Thompson

A few weeks ago, one Warren Floyd, 52, stabbed three men in a boarding house near 61st and Ludlow streets in West Philadelphia, killing 45-year-old Brian Sutton and injuring the two others. Floyd was charged with murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, simple assault and possession of an instrument of crime. Except for a brief mention in The Daily News and a lurid headline on Fox News, the stabbing went largely unnoticed.

Not, though, for Al For, a Philly events photographer who had moved out of that house — and out of the murdered man's bedroom — just a month before.

For describes the house as a kind of unofficial transitional house for men low on cash and in need of somewhere quiet to hole up: "The denizens of the night, I call them," he says. "People who are single, and just can't quite adjust to normal society."

Rooms were about $400 a month, he says. "Every room in the house had a lock on it — you could equate it to dormitory life — but no learning. ... Everybody was dying to move out, but they were just stuck there."

For says he knew Floyd was mentally disturbed and that he wasn't receiving proper treatment. After losing his job — after losing his girlfriend —Floyd's mental state deteriorated and he began using drugs in the house. It was around that time that For moved out.

The two weren't exactly friends, For says, but they used to talk. Floyd would sometimes pace up and down the halls, waiting for For to emerge, so he'd have someone to talk to. "I would sit and listen to him talk all the time about the 'good old days,'" For recalls, "which for him was prison."

- Isaiah Thompson