Pals and butts
Schlepping along I ran into pals with whom I went to kindergarten through junior high. Almost always someone wanted a smoke, if I didn’t have any, one of them would offer one, and we shared the poison.
Adults, cops, nobody said anything. For three years, it was our morning ritual on the way to school. We walked to the train, smoked, talked about girls, and sports, mostly the Yanks. Once in a while somebody remembered what happened to Joe on account of James being so dumb, and we would all crack up.
“Whoooo whoooo hooooo!” it was a riot.
“What a Jones that dumb mofo had on that chickie, uh!”
“He heee heee!” It’s funny man, ya na. He was so damned afwaid ta tawk ta haw, ya na. She made me noivous he sed tamee once!” One kid said.
Looking back it was hilarious. Humor and tobacco being the two greatest healers of teen angst in our time, we were just oh so cool. Methinks sometimes maybe fate has something to do with it. Sometime during those high school years, Joe became a junky, he got addicted to heroin. Maybe if he had hooked up with her, he would have ruined her life. Then again, maybe he became a junky because of it. You just can’t really put it all together, and say for certain that one thing happened or didn’t happen because of something that did happen. Her family moved out of the nabe, to Jersey sometime during those high school years, and we never saw them again.
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