"Money isn't real and tomorrow doesn’t exist"...but I don’t own anything expensive. 2008

     "Three dollars for lunch tomorrow. Five dolars for supper." We were preparing for a Night. "Four for cigarettes and ten for gas." He laid each dollar bill down on the coffee table beside the pipe as he figured each expense. He was high and still able to count. He was high as hell and still able to know that there was a tomorrow and that he needed to budget for it. He would put each dollar bill down as he counted them out loud. Then he sat a lighter on top of the pile. Those dollars were for tomorrow and the rest went back in his pocket of his his $300 dollars jeans. The rest in his pocket was for the night. And we spent it well. We bought nights of pleasure. Jesus, we enjoyed it.

     He always left one cigarette for the morning. That morning cigarette. I was never able to do that. That is why he lives in the fifth largest city by population in the United States. That is why he owns shit in the fifth largest city in the United States. That is why he is suing his employer because they lowered his bonus. I think about him every night when I am smoking my last cigarette. I think of him every morning when I am wishing that I saved that last cigarette. And I think of him on the rare morning that I wake up with cigarettes. I make coffee and smoke that first one and think of him and of Ashley sitting on her porch in C.R. smoking that first cigarette of the day. Then I shit; and drink more coffee. When my stomache starts to pang I am ready for the new day. I am ready for the overbearing brightness. I'm ready for the sharp immediacy. If it's a good day my stomache pangs all day. It's a good day and I forget to eat.

Fuck. I just smoked my last cigarette. And I spent my last dollar.