Saunas, blizzards, and cigarettes

A little slice of the day

The room was sweltering. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was yelling for someone to turn off the car heater, but we weren’t in a car, we were in my apartment in the middle, dead part of winter.

“Can’t you do something about this f*****g heat?” Joe wined.

“I don’t have any power over it dude,” I said laying perfectly still as if the heat couldn’t find me if I didn’t move “the heat gets turned on automatically once it gets past a certain date and runs full blast until some time in may.”

“Well can’t you at least get them to turn it down?” Zack said lazily from the couch. “It’s hot as balls in here.”

“I know, but apparently the boiler has to get hot enough to heat up an entire block of apartments, and they just pump it through one after the other. Guess which building they pump it into first?”

“The one next to you?” Joe lit up a cigarette and groaned. “F**k that would mean that there’s someplace hotter than this, it’s gotta come here first.”

“Yeah,” I said lighting up a cigarette of my own. “I hear there’s this nice place called Hell that’s actually a little bit colder than this, I’m thinking about seeing if they have any nice two bedrooms.”

“Rent’s a lot cheaper, but the neighborhood sucks. Somebody bum me a cig.” Zack said holding out his hand.

“Here,” I offered him my pack, removing one for my self and lighting it.

“Holy s**t are these Salem black labels?”

“Yeah, I got them down at the rite aid by CJ’s.”

“Let me see,” Joe said moving his chair closer to the couch, almost crunching my hand beneath his chair leg.

“How do they taste?” Zack pulled a cigarette out of the pack before handing it to Joe for closer examination.

I shrugged or did my best to shrug from the floor.

“They’re kinda like camel no. 9’s but if they were menthol.”

“Oooh.” Zack sounded excited.

“This box is sick.” Joe said flipping it over. “I might start smoking these just cause the of the box.”

I laughed easily.

“I’m not even gonna lie I bought them for three reasons, one they’re called Salem black labels, how sick of a name is that? Two I heard that they stopped making them so I wanted to try them out, and three just look at that, I couldn’t pass it up.”

“I like how the box works, you push in the side and the other side pops open, it’s like a soft pack but in a box.” Joe said pushing the box open and closed repeatedly.

“Did you notice the lucky?” I asked as I expelled a cloud of cigarette smoke.

“Yeah I did it’s got a green filter, I love that.” Zack said smiling.

“What?” Joe pushed the pack open yet again. “Holy s**t you’re right that’s really f*****g cool! How many more packs did they have?”

“Dunno, five maybe six?” I replied. “Why do you wanna buy a pack?”

“Joe wants a pack. Admit it dude you totally want a pack.” Zack said laughing. He somehow managed to find genuine humor in some of the simplest things and sometimes I envied him for it.

“I’m not gonna lie, I totally do want one.” Joe said idly twirling the pack around in his hands.

“You wanna go buy a pack? Is that what you want?” Zack was teasing Joe, egging him on and both he and I knew it, and only Joe didn’t seem to understand.

“Why not it’s only like a block and a half away we can walk that in ten minutes easy.” Joe had that twinkle in his eye that twinkle that normally spelled trouble but that meant that Joe thought we should go on an adventure.

“Actually it’s three blocks, and it takes fifteen minutes down and fifteen minutes back on foot.”

“Why the f**k would we walk?” Joe started to do his alpha male thing, that he did when he thought anyone was trying to play with him or belittle his intelligence.

“How did you get here?” I asked, stubbing out my cigarette in the ashtray.

“I walked from CJ’s.”

“And how did Zack get here?”

Joe looked at Zack.

“You drove right?” he asked, as reality caught up with him.

Zack shook his head slowly.

“Nope, Margot dropped me off.”

“Fine then, we’ll walk it. It’s not that bad out” the alpha male thing was back.

“Alright, I’m down.” Zack was the one person I knew who would never turn down an adventure and even Joe had the sense to pick his battles.

Zack and Joe both stood up and began to tack stock of everything they’d brought with them, keys, cell phone, wallet, lighter.

“I’m fine right here. You guys forget I’ve already got a pack.” I had every intention of going I just thought it would be fun to dick them around.

“Well, bleh, fine Mr. I’ve-already-got-a-pack. Stay here.”

“Alright Mr. I-swallowed-a-quarter go on.”

“Shut up Mr. I-can-totally-handle-more-beer-than-you.”

The game was an old one, stretching back as long as the three of us had known each other, old names based on stupid things we’d done or said or been through together.

“Now ladies.” Zack said trying to calm us down.

“Shut up Mr. I-can’t-find-wood-in-a-forest” I shot back.

“Yeah Mr. I-had-a-political-conversation-with-a-drunk-girl-for-an-hour-before-I-relised-she-was-drunk.”

“Shut up.” Zack said with a smile pointing to Joe.

“You wanna go? We’ll go right here, right now.” Joe said waving his fists around like a drunken sailor “I’ll kick your f*****g a*s!”

We all just laughed and grabbed our coats putting on heavy wool & thick gloves.

“You guys ready?” I asked hand on the knob certain that despite the time it took them to get ready that someone had left something behind.

“Just open the f*****g door!” Joe said trying to push past me. “I can’t stand it in here without my coat it’s a goddamned sauna in here!”

“Alright.” I said opening the door with a flourish. I’d meant to say away we go as I opened the door but what lay on the other side was a complete surprise and completely unwanted. Snow.

“F**k,” I said.

“S**t,” Zack said.

“When the f**k did it start snowing?” Joe asked.

“No f*****g idea, it must have started right after you guys got here there are already three or four inches on the ground.” I said dumbfounded.

The snow was coming down heavy. Big, thick clump of flakes that didn’t so much as fall from the sky as they did bombard the ground, covering it think & deep beneath them.

“You guys still wanna walk all the f*****g way to rite aid?” I asked.

Zack looked to Joe and Joe looked to Zack then they both turned to look at me.

“Nope.” Zack said

“I’m still down, it’s just snow.” Joe replied.

“There is a seven eleven just a block that way” I waved my in the general direction I knew it to be even though I couldn’t see very far through the heavy snow.

“Do they have black labels?” Joe asked.

“No, they just have the usual assortment.” I replied, certain that Joe was going to drag us great distances though cold wet snow, for a pack of cigarettes he was only buying because the box looked cool.

“Yeah but they’re cheaper, and closer.” Zack said.

“But do they have black labels?”

“No, but-” Zack began.

“Come on don’t be a p***y.” Joe pulled out his pack and lit another cigarette.

“They’re really not that special, it’s just that box that sick as s**t.” I tried to reason with Joe.

“So? I don’t give a s**t.” Joe said taking a heavy drag from his cigarette.

“Look if you want them so bad just walk to seven eleven and buy a pack of the regular Salem’s & I’ll give you my box, and then you’ll have you black labels.”

“Yeah I’m with Peter on this one dude, I really don’t feel like walking that far in this weather. It’s cold as s**t out here.”

“Fine if you two want to be p*****s then fine we’ll just go back inside.” Joe sounded let down, not because he didn’t get his adventure or even because he didn’t get his cigarettes but rather because no one wanted to back him up. I knew it but I also knew he wouldn’t even remember in fifteen minutes and I really didn’t want to go trekking through the snow.

I unlocked the door and we all piled back into the living room, taking our usual places scattered about.

“Can’t you do something about this f*****g heat?” Joe wined.