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3:50 a.m. / April 09, 2005 - - smoke 'em if you got 'em for tomorrow i work

we'll call tonight chain smoke-a-thon 2005, on aaron's insistence. started out getting off of work early, what a lease on life. showered, changed, drove to a parking lot and sat with a girl. our frozen charles, laying on our backs looking at the stars, our faces illuminated ocassionally by the glow of a flame or flashlight, holding eachother so tightly that we break our backs together. and i remembered why i love kissing so much, tonight. the soft lips and trying to predict the other person's movements and their thoughts, trying to find the right moment. perfect in wristbands, thrift-store white castle shirt, long hair in our eyes, she's terrified of being found, our secret uncovered. we should have brought the oujia board, a ring of lit cigarettes, the ones we keep smoking because fuck, just lungs, just longevity, let's live now and think later. my head is buzzing from the nicotine or maybe it's just the lack of oxygen to my brain, i'm dizzy and on my back, gravel stuck to my hands and shirts, the cool night air breathing gently with me, and it really was exactly where i wanted to be. all through high school this was all i could think about, and now that i'm out it's happening left and right. thereafter drove her to a road behind her house, watched her run across a yard before i left, driving, no destination, unfamiliar streets blur together, i end up with the trip odometer reading thirty miles, forty miles, forty-five; i reset it. by the end of the night it reaches forty-five again. end up in a town i've heard the name of before, follow the signs; lofton avenue, olinda trail north, highway ninety-five. i start to recognize where i am, even though i was content being lost, just driving, listening to the hum of the engine and the bumps beneath my tires. drive over to aaron's house, high school friend, current friend. the one with the insane mother, incredibly intelligent boy, incredibly depressed boy. his father, well, alcoholic, depressed man. we know the story well. flipped his garbage truck while drunk, he's in jail now, aaron hasn't told anyone else. he's telling me this while we're sitting in the basement of his house, he has just smoked some marijuana, i've been chain smoking whatever cigarettes i have, there's music in the background. he tells me that, he won't be able to go to college again fall semester, that all of the money him and his brother's make is going to his mother now, that they'll have to sell the house, that all he can do is imagine how his father feels and all i can think while he's saying this is how perfect it all is. just work, no college. life changes, all we can do is go along with it and hope that we make it through stronger than we were before. better. more durable, harder to knock down.

really dizzy, driving back home with him in my car; he's spending the night here, on a couch in my basement. i work tomorrow, will have to drive him home before then. i tell him, the point of my driving alone at night is that i can't help it. all i want is to see something unfamiliar, more creepy dirt roads and other drivers. i tell him, i secretly want to be pulled over by a police officer so that i have someone new to talk to. the cop, he'd say, where are you going tonight and i wouldn't be able to tell him, i'd have to say, i don't know, officer, but it sure is lovely out, isn't it?

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