Page 42 of Two Marlboros

“You’ve dressed up, I see.”

“What do you think these parties are for? Hi, by the way.”

He adjusted his belt and we drove off.

“Hi,” I replied.

He was silent for a moment and snorted.

“The usual cheerfulness, huh? Let’s see how we can make it more exciting.”

“By doing a U-turn, for example.”

He mocked me with a fake laugh. I heard a click: he had opened the glove box in front of him. With one eye, I peeked at what he was doing. He was putting his hands where Oliver had put them. One eye on the road, one eye on him. He was erasing Oliver’s fingerprints, overwriting them with his own, touching the records that had belonged to him; he was leaving his mark on them, as he did wherever he passed.

“There’s nothing interesting in there,” I said laconically.

He closed it again without making too much fuss. Oliver was back in his shell, stained but intact. Something about him was still safe, inviolate, secure from the outside world.

“I saw. How is it possible that you don’t listen to music? How boring.”

“I listen to it, I just don’t feel like it these days.”

Another annoyed snort.

“Oh yeah? And what genre do you like? Gregorian chants? Sacred music?”

He had a certain way of saying things, a tone capable of making you feel ridiculous all at once, so much that you could laugh at yourself.

“I appreciate the attempt to appear cultured, but no, I’m pretty sure it’s music that came out in the new millennium.”

He crossed his arms and wore a mocking smile.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Her name is Enya. She does new age music, Celtic, you know.”

I didn’t have time to finish the sentence that he burst into thunderous laughter, so much so that he had to hold his stomach to hold back the tears that flowed nonstop. I did not understand why he laughed so much, but it was impossible not to be infected; in fact, I went back to laughing at myself for no reason. After a while he wiped away his tears, letting the last sobs fade away.

“Oh God, sorry. Celtic music I didn’t expect that at all. Although it kind of suits you, with those depressing bagpipes in the background...”

“It doesn’t!”

“It’s certainly not a cheerful instrument.”

“I like it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright. You win.”

I stopped to a red light and turned to him, to see what the expression of defeat was, because, for the first time, I had had the last word in an argument. Alas, it was the semi-seriousexpression he always sported. I shrugged: at least I had taken that satisfaction.

“And you, young man, on the other hand, what music do you listen to?”, I asked.

“Me?” He turned to me with an excited smile on his face, his eyes twinkling. “I’m the number one fan of the Backstreet Boys!”

“What?”

Yet another snort of dissatisfaction, a reaction he would rifle at anyone not tuned into Planet Nathan through and through.

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