The Book of Joe

indecipherable storm cloud.
    The night before our freshman year, Wayne and I had broken into the fire stairs that ran down the back side of Bush Falls High and climbed up to the roof. We’d sat together, perched on the large white cupola that looked out over the front lawn of the school, smoked a pack of Dunhills, and meditated on the upcoming school year. That evening evolved into an annual ritual for us, modified only slightly the night before our junior year started, when Wayne replaced our customary Dunhills with a bag of marijuana purchased from the stuttering pump jockey at the Sunoco station. This proved to be an almost fatal lapse in judgment, when Wayne nearly toppled off the cupola, pulling me with him, our collective balance impaired by the weed.
    We ended up sitting there into the wee hours, clinging fearfully to the smooth plaster walls of the cupola until the stars above us stopped flitting around like a galaxy in desperate need of Ritalin. Afterward, we agreed that next year we would go back to using regular cigarettes.
    I didn’t expect Wayne to join me for our annual smoke, but that Labor Day, a deep melancholy having to do with the vague notion of time’s racing ahead unchecked compelled me to climb up there on my own. Once safely ensconced on top of the cupola, I lit a cigarette and looked out thoughtfully over the town. Despite the addition of Sammy to my pitiful roster of friends, I was feeling more alone than ever. I leaned back, studied the stars and thought about my mother, wondered if she was looking down at me, and felt bad about her seeing me in such a sad and lonely state, if she was.
    There was a light scuffing sound of fabric against stone, and Wayne heaved himself up next to me with a light gasp.
    “What the fuck, man?” he said, breathing heavily, his blond hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. “You couldn’t wait an extra ten minutes for me?”
    I smiled, and lit him a cigarette from my own. “I didn’t think you were coming,” I said.
    “Well, you’re an asshole,” Wayne said, accepting the cigarette. “Tradition is my middle name.”
    “I thought it was Howard.”
    “Remarks like that could lead to a nasty fall, if you catch my drift.”
    “Sorry.”
    “So,” he said, holding up his cigarette in a toast. “Senior year.”
    “Senior year,” I said, remarkably glad that Wayne had come, that we were hanging out again like the old days. It somehow made it seem possible that as weird as things had gotten, everything could still return to normal.
    Wayne took a long drag on his cigarette and appeared to consider me thoughtfully for a few moments. “Joe,” he finally said. “You’re still my best friend.”
    “I know.”
    “Good.”
    We sat in companionable silence, looking up at the night sky, the abundance of unsaid things floating in the smoke-filled air between us. If there was ever going to be a time to discuss everything, this was it. “Wayne,” I said tentatively.
    “Don’t say anything, man,” he said, smiling sadly. “I’m fucked up enough as it is. If I have to talk about it, I think I’ll go insane.”
    “Okay,” I said, and then performed a loud, hyperbolic sigh of relief that made us both laugh. Below us, a plump skunk appeared on the school lawn, scurrying around with its nose to the ground as if searching for a contact lens. I followed the skunk’s movements while Wayne lit two more cigarettes for us.
    “Our last year of high school,” he said, inhaling from both cigarettes at once before handing me mine. “It’s all downhill from here.”
    “If this is as good as it gets, kill me now,” I said.
    Wayne grinned. “You should ask out that girl, Joe.”
    “What girl?”
    “That Carly what’s-her-face.”
    “Carly Diamond,” I said. I’d been nursing a quiet crush on her for the last half of our junior year, something I’d confided to Wayne on more than one occasion.
    “She’s cute,” Wayne said. “You should go for it.”
    “Maybe.”
    “What’s the problem?”
    “We’ve only talked once or twice,” I said. “How do you go from a few casual conversations to suddenly asking someone out?”
    “But that’s exactly when you have to do it.”
    “I feel like we should know each other a little better first, so it’s not, like, out of the blue.”
    “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” Wayne said. “This very time, when you know each other but your relationship hasn’t been defined, is your window of opportunity. Girls