Page 125 of Two Marlboros

“The problem is that I haven’t known him long enough to do anything crazy in a situation like this, but also I’ve known him long enough to not let it all go.”

He crossed his arms and nodded as he stared at the asphalt. His head kept bobbing in assent, but finally he stopped it and looked at me with the eyes of someone who had an idea.

“You won’t like it.”

I looked at him dejectedly. The fact that he was taking the situation lightly also heartened me, making me think that perhaps it wasn’t all lost.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Invite him somewhere. Out to dinner, for example.”

For a moment I could even imagine it. Me and him, alone, eating something in a restaurant. And I almost forgot that he would feel his pockets and breathe a sigh of relief at feeling histreasureon him; and that we would go in ten minutes late because he had to calm his perpetual anxiety, that he would throw smoke at me, and laugh about it.

“It would look like a date. He might misunderstand.”

Ash shrugged and looked at me. “Maybe.”

Yeah, maybe. Could I ask Nathan out on a date without him catching a glimpse of an ulterior motive? Maybe. Two people who go out together don’t always do it for sentimental reasons, after all.

In the end, I told him I would think about it. Nathan would be happy about it, and I would get rid of that terrible guilt. I thanked Ash for the advice and started toward the car. I rolled down the window, set off and let the wind stir my thoughts.

The notes of the radio teased my memory, with that melody I had heard before, but could not remember where. Suddenly, the voices of that song were overlaid by Nathan’s singing at the top of his lungs; that voice scratched my memories, so much so that it prompted me to turn off the radio forcefully, as the last excerpts of the melody faded from my ears.

The situation was serious; and no, I was not thinking about our discussion. What was bothering me were my reactions, each time more incisive, and my mind always focused on him, almost distracted.

I stopped at a traffic light.

The line to my left scrolled by, and I thought I could smell Nathan even in traffic. When I turned around, however, there was just a guy in a Chevrolet and a cigarette in his hand, and as soon as I spotted the red outline of the Marlboro pack on the dashboard, I began to think I had a problem.

Nathan was important to me, because he had filled a void, but things would have been very different if we had met at another time or on another occasion. Our meeting was what could be called an unrepeatable moment, a set of junctures that, in another situation, or in another place, would not have evolved in the same way; perhaps they would not even have existed.

Nathan was my unrepeatable moment, and our lives had dovetailed into each other with pinpoint precision. Perhaps I would never experience anything like that again in my entire life, and it was that impression, with the taste of certainty, that made me desist from blowing it all.

I thought back to Oliver and wondered what would have happened if he had not died. I tried hard to think of him, of his features, of the sound of his voice, but he was no longer as I remembered him, and I didn’t even want to force myself to do so. I had flipped through our photo albums, a few too many lonely evenings: and as I scrolled through our memories, I also looked at my image in the mirror and noticed that expression line that, on the photo, was not there yet.

He was always the same. He would be forever.

I could try to imagine him a little older, with his voice a little rougher and the pangs of age, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that for much longer, because the truth was that Oliver was becoming more and more blurry, and soon he would make space to someone else, who was beginning to have a form.

The sun set behind the buildings. Petals deflected their flight toward the windshield, then resumed hovering toward the sky, away from the chaos of humanity. I felt a touch on my thigh and looked down: there was a wet patch on my pants.

It was rain, for sure.

Yet it was summer.

23

Scorched Earth

(?*NSYNC - Bye bye bye)

Polymeric materials have modest mechanical strength at high temperatures, so much so that only some can be used at temperatures higher than 250°. They are poorly soluble and have a modest density...

Asshole.

...They are poorly soluble and have a modest density, generally below 1.5 g/cm3, rarely below 1 g/cm3; only polytetrafluoroethylene, commonly called Teflon, has a density above 2 g/cm3.

I had done the right thing.

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