JB

His jungle green Civic has been in my driveway for five days now, with its right side still wounded from a previous excursion with a parked car (he was petting a dog in the passenger seat). There is no possible way I can get my car out of my driveway. My Toyota Yaris is a very small car, but the driveway’s narrow waist and the broken down Honda prevent any possible escape route. He says it’s his clutch, and this wouldn’t surprise me as he’s already managed to break four clutches in three years. J.B. begins walking down the orange, muddy driveway before taking a long, final drag off of his Marlboro Menthol. He flicks the butt high into the air; its arc taking it all but a few feet from the street curb, the gold chain around his neck swinging violently.

It’s okay though, he says he’s quitting again. We exchanged our teenage boy handshakes and I open the creaking door to my house. He asks me what’s up, addressing me as kid, despite being seven months his senior. There was a lingering stench of beer and spaghetti on his breath, meatless sauce. He says he only had one beer before coming over, though the mutual laughter suggests we both know this is far from the truth. J.B. drove drunk with a scary frequency. His driving habits were dictated by the philosophy that “if it was his time to go, it was his time to go”. He hated when I resisted this logic, insisting that God made seat belts for a damn good reason.

I ask him what he did today, and he rattles on, blurring days together like words on a wet newspaper. He finally stops rambling and his excited mouth stops while forming an O. He pulls out a new book from his backpack, unwrinkled spine and all. The title reads: How to Hide You’re a$$et$, repeating three of J.B.’s favorite signs, which are likely what caught his attention in the first place. The book claims that it can answer pressing questions like whether it’s better to hold funds in Switzerland or Bermuda, and what customs officials are likely to watch out for at borders. He says the Good Will has a plethora of real good books for real cheap. He almost bought a book on Economics, just to read it, he says. This attempt was a few years too late, since he took Economics years ago and read nothing for it.

This might actually improve his handling of money, I thought to myself. How many times just this past month has he gone to the Monticello dog track to play poker. His confidence never ceased, and he would always challenge me to a game of heads-up poker. Despite his four time losing streak against me, J.B. was always down, as he says, for some gambling. Why get it if not to spend it, he would tell me. Spending money is definitely a talent for J.B., though it’s unfortunate that acquiring money is not. He looked weird in a collared uniform. His constantly shaved head looked big under the conglomerate hats atop his head. Maybe his sense of fashion forces him to quit the minimum-wage jobs he is always applying at. The last visit to Zaxby’s ended with him asking for an application, one he would never turn in again, if it wasn’t lost in the graveyard of his backseat.

I have to drive J.B. back to his house now, still not quite knowing how he got to my own. A friend or brother likely dropped him off, but it didn’t matter- he was always floating around. We push his car forward, putting the lumbering beast in neutral. He lights a new cigarette, noting that he has to finish his fresh pack so he can finally quit, and rolls down the window to my white car, a plume of white smog erupting from his mouth.