Smoking and Driving...4
Instead of turning around and driving another hour back to C-town Kevin and I decided to go on into 5 points and check out the bookstores that we’d originally planned on going to and have a cup of coffee at the little hole in the wall place in the Gregory L. Davis Plaza that serves some of the best lattes you could ever imagine. Not to mention some of the best chicken salad you’ve ever put in your mouth. All the time I kept going back to “I’ve got a feeling that it might be your little brother” and thinking of how that could be.
We’d been to a used bookstore near the tattoo parlor where I got my first artwork done nearly 5 years ago, there I picked up a worn copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, because I can’t get enough of his stuff lately. Kevin hadn’t bought anything and I knew he most likely wouldn’t. He has been working two jobs for the past few weeks just to make ends meet. I on the other hand managed to blow $40 on books and another $10 on a caramel latte and one of those amazingly delicious chicken salad croissants.
As I sat there eating my sandwich I might as well have been alone. I took each bite like it was my last and savored the flavor of the homemade chicken salad like it was the first time I’d ever had it. My mind was racing around in circles between what my dad had said, my girlfriend Christy back in Carrollton, and the events of the last year. During all this Kevin speaks up, breaking my concentration and pulling me away from my thoughts. “What does Joey have to do with anything anyway? He’s just a kid, only 20 years old.”
“Huh? What’d you say? Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
He repeated what he has said and just as he finished my cell phone began to ring. Before I even pulled it out of my pocket I knew exactly who it was. My sister’s ring one is personalized so I know when she’s calling.
“Hey, What’s up sis?”
She doesn’t immediately respond, but I can hear her trying to hold back tears or dry up tears. I’m not sure which. I’ve heard phone calls like this before and it always takes her a minute to answer me. Most of the time it has something to do with her long time boyfriend Jason, who is also one of my best friends from high school.
We’d been to a used bookstore near the tattoo parlor where I got my first artwork done nearly 5 years ago, there I picked up a worn copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, because I can’t get enough of his stuff lately. Kevin hadn’t bought anything and I knew he most likely wouldn’t. He has been working two jobs for the past few weeks just to make ends meet. I on the other hand managed to blow $40 on books and another $10 on a caramel latte and one of those amazingly delicious chicken salad croissants.
As I sat there eating my sandwich I might as well have been alone. I took each bite like it was my last and savored the flavor of the homemade chicken salad like it was the first time I’d ever had it. My mind was racing around in circles between what my dad had said, my girlfriend Christy back in Carrollton, and the events of the last year. During all this Kevin speaks up, breaking my concentration and pulling me away from my thoughts. “What does Joey have to do with anything anyway? He’s just a kid, only 20 years old.”
“Huh? What’d you say? Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
He repeated what he has said and just as he finished my cell phone began to ring. Before I even pulled it out of my pocket I knew exactly who it was. My sister’s ring one is personalized so I know when she’s calling.
“Hey, What’s up sis?”
She doesn’t immediately respond, but I can hear her trying to hold back tears or dry up tears. I’m not sure which. I’ve heard phone calls like this before and it always takes her a minute to answer me. Most of the time it has something to do with her long time boyfriend Jason, who is also one of my best friends from high school.