New Years & My American Spirits
(Excerpt from the Winter on Cape Ann and Other Stories / Go West.)
More cigarettes were consumed after my last twelve Camels and they were still considered my last twelve for at least a little while after the last Twenty-Seven I smoked with Matthew and they were special for a different reason and it had something to do with the ability to consume in moderation and something to do with Amanda’s permission on the eve of the new year when we were sitting in Lauren, Devon, and Allison’s apartment drinking sparkling wine and eating mediocre Italian-American food catered from the pizza place around the corner from Drew’s and my old Warren Street apartment and we had lived there when we first moved to Boston before we both smoked cigarettes and we lived there still when we began to smoke them in our own ways and neither of us had a big problem with it at the time. I hadn’t spoken to Drew much in the days when I quit smoking and if I really think hard and remember well I don’t think we ever talked seriously about our addictions and desires and we didn’t talk much about cigarettes. It seemed to be how it went with some things and it was a bit of nonsense for it to be that way.
