I ran out of toilet paper and started using my personal library. I finished off Victor Hugo and was moving into “Great Expectations.” My diet was 100% Dollar Menu, and everything got tender. I searched job boards the way astrologers search for a sign, but all my lucky stars were falling, and my planet was in retrograde.
My friend Jerome lived in Detroit. He rented a room in a house that was $500 to own. He came to visit me and bought a fur coat at Macy’s. He was trying to make Visa think his card got stolen.
We talked about the old times, because there was nothing to talk about in the now. When we were kids he won coloring contests monthly. The trick was sharpening the crayons like a knife. The last prize he won was at age nine, for coloring a tie-dye Simba. It was a ten dollar gift card to Toys ‘R’ Us which could only buy a Barbie without a theme. We spent it on sour straws for candy casserole, and trashed his step mom’s microwave.
The best gift card Jerome received lately was to Walgreens. We were stroking the fur coat on our laps when he told me to reach in the pocket. We bought Listerine and caffeinated alcohol, and did things that we wanted to do as kids but were too content to try.
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