fragment one

Following the jump is a piece from my on again, off again work at writing a fictionalized version of our history....this particular bit i wrote last year at the jeep place, and then brushed up a little tonight.

it was an experiment in capturing the pace and atmosphere; i wanted to do a piece where you were just sort of cold dropped right into the non-action. anyway i liked it when i wrote it and i like it even more now; it was the first fragment that i felt contained the voice and pacing nessecary.

keep in mind this a draft, and when i write i have a tendency to be unhappy with the tenses or phrasing and so i'll change it on the fly...sometimes it makes a mess. comment your opinions, i'm thinking of growing this one.



It was only the second week of september, but Peter was already sporting his prematurely worn brown knit sweater. He maintained the fucntion of the garmet was to keep him warm in spite of his cold nature, but this arguement was somewhat undermined by the giant, ragged holes in the knees of his black denim jeans. Later, as we pressed into late october, he took to wearing his pajama bottoms under them, to keep the warm in.

Peter and I had, by this point, become unfazed by long silences while in each others company; these moments could be described as thoughtful, though honestly we were thinking of little. It was mostly a by-product of the drugs, kind weather, and aimless joy. Just a long consideration of his clothing, a simple mintue lazily reclining my head in a fashion that i was certain looked pensive and intellegent . In fact i was doing little more than enjoying newly cool late summer air, watching the leaves in a neighbooring tree slide back and forth from the breeze, in front of each other, the gold southern sun saturating the spaces between.

This was the pace of things, more often than not.

Drawing a slow breath, i looked back across the porch at peter and answered him:

"Shit. I don't have it. But if we could find someone else to throw in, we might be able to drink it all before they realize what's happening."

Peter was drawn by my comment out of intense and totally pointless obervation of a insect carcass. Still looking down at his query, he said, mostly to himself: "this bug only has four legs" and then looked up at me, his eyes growing wider behind his oversized glasses.

"That's not a bad idea. We could get Jesse to throw in, but he'd probably just drive off, like the other night.

"Yeah...fuck that, I gave him ten dollars for that bottle." I was becoming annoyed at my absent cousin.

Peter laughed, a little angrily. This was a reaction we saved for jesse:

"That crazy motherfucker...I gave him ten dollars for that too. He didn't pay for ANY of it."

Jesse's deception had become clear, and for a moment our amusemnt turned to indignation. The breeze picked up a little..the sound of brakes screamed at a distance. Peter continued, the study of the bug now long behind him:

"AND he came by this morning before work- packed himself a bowl out of MY bag." We had discovered the evidence upon waking several hours ago. Jesse had left the blacked pipe laying on it's side, this permitting a small piece of buring marijuna to tumble out, putting a nasty brown hole in peter's makeshift beachtowel tablecloth. next to this smoldering ruin lay jesse's forgetten cell phone... and wallet.

This we realized, about jesse leaving his wallet, and us desperatly needing three dollars, at diffrent times. Peter had smiled and laughed, walking into the house. I had taken an interest in a plastic cap gun, and was momentarily distracted.