Doug shakes his head in mock-frustration. “Shit, you suburban kids lead sheltered lives. Haven’t You ever seen a skin mag?”
“Well, I did but I didn’t. When you’re with a friend, you’re paging through while trying to spot his old man is coming home, you can’t focus.”
He laughs. “Focus! Good word. You always need to concentrate on porn.” He changes gears on the car and the subject. “Hey, sorry about him starting to talk about dope. You don’t need to hear that shit. He thinks everyone smokes weed.” He turns up the radio. “Very appropriate song.”
Looking out at the barren white fields of blah……”I’ll try it someday, I’m sure.”
He’s pondering; did I step out of line? “Take your time. It’ll happen. Don’t let me hear about it. Allie doesn’t need to do weed, either.”
I have an opening to shift things. “I saw this crushed out cigarette in his ashtray….didn’t have a filter.”
Doug shakes his head. “Stupid bastard, leaving a roach lying around like that.”
“A what?”
A sigh, another shake of the head. His naive ‘younger brother’ is so out of it. “The butt end of a joint–please tell me you know what a fucking joint is–“
I nod. Thanks to our vice-principal I do.
“The end of the joint is called a roach. And DON”T ask where it came from. He should smoke the damn roach.”
“You’d burn your fingers, Wouldn’t you?”
“Heh. When I was your age, I thought the same thing. My grandfather used to smoke these godawful Camels that had no filter and he had marks on his fingers all the time. No, some enterprising soul thought of a little clip like a pliers so you could get every last loving puff. That is a ‘roach clip’.”
I swear, Doug is better than any 5 teachers in school. “Hey, turn into this church a minute.”
“What’s here?”
“Drive to the back. When you’re back there, the church blocks the street. In case you ever need, you know, privacy.”
He scans the lot, then smiles benignly. I think I got an A Today.