Another snippet from a longer piece. Hope you enjoy.

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She only let him roll his window down so far. It was just enough to get fresh air, though, and to keep his mother’s cigarette smoke streaming in a straight line above his head and out through the crack.

“You have a good time at Grandma’s?” she asked.

Johnny nodded.

“Speak up,” she said. “I can’t hear the rocks rattling inside your head.”

Johnny glanced over at her. She wasn’t looking back. Her eyes were squinted against the cigarette hanging from her lips. Her pocked, thin arms stretched out and clenched the steering wheel tight, like it might escape her grip. Rabbit ears of white linen from her pockets flitted below the ragged bottom edge of her jean shorts. The AC/DC concert tee-shirt she wore was too baggy and cut off at the sleeves and when they hit a bump in the road the car bounced on worn shocks and Johnny caught a glimpse of the side of her boob. His face burned. His bowels clenched. “Yes, I had a good time,” he said.

“Month in the country sure beats battling the cockroaches for dinner, huh?”

“I guess.”

“You guess,” she said and stubbed out the cigarette in the car ashtray. “Make any friends?”

“One.”

“Only one?”

“Yeah.”

“What was his name?”

“I can’t remember,” Johnny said.

She dipped her head and rolled her eyes upward at him. “You can’t remember your friend’s name?”

Johnny looked away. “Debbie,” he said.

She giggled. “How did Dad like that?”

“You mean Papa?”

“Who else would I mean, dummy?”

“He didn’t.”

“More things change . . .”

“What?”

“Never mind. Did you kiss her?”

Sitting by the lake. Waiting for her. Waiting and waiting and waiting until the sun went down, orange ball vanishing behind the hill, cranberry sky rising in its wake, fireflies appearing in concert with crickets, night blooming jasmine on the breeze, then waiting, just a little while longer until she came, she’d come, he knew she’d come. “Of course not,” Johnny said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” she said. A minute later, “Dad take you fishing?”

“Not this time,” he answered.

She snorted.

“He was really busy,” Johnny said. “He said he wanted to, but he couldn’t.”

“We all want to do something, don’t we?”

Johnny crossed his arms. “Like you want to quit smoking?”

She turned away from him and looked out her side window for a long moment, long enough for Johnny to worry if she was paying attention to the road. “Not even ten minutes,” she mumbled.

Neither of them spoke for eight miles, and then, “Close your window. I’m cold,” she said, and then lit another cigarette. She shoved an eight-track into the dashboard deck and sang at the top of her lungs the rest of the way home.

We all want something.

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