A coming of age story about two teenage boys looking for trouble during the dull summer.
Every afternoon started with the same conversation.
“What do you wanna do?”
“I dunno, you?
“I don’t know.”
Nate and Luke slouched against the trunk of the biggest tree in their neighborhood park, seeking refuge from the sweltering heat. The excitement of Summer had faded and all that remained was a simple tolerance of the days that blended together.
Nate slumped even further down into the soil of the park and reached for his baseball. Grasping it tight in his hand, inspecting the red stitching of the ball, he sighed and tossed it back to the ground. Luke stuck his hands in his basketball shorts and twisted the pocket lint in between his thumb and pointer finger.
“Dude let’s do something.”
“Nah, it’s too hot to move,” Nate brushed off the idea and pulled out his LG Dare he had gotten for his birthday two months before. He pressed the home button, hoping anybody still in town had texted him back, but all that stared back at him was his Mariners logo home screen. He tucked his phone back into the pocket of his shorts and began fondling a bark chip by his side.
Luke stood up and pushed the tree branches to the side to get a good look of the park. A few kids, much younger than them bravely tried to conquer the boiling play structure, but besides them the park remained relatively empty. It was Labor Day Weekend, and most of their friends had been shuffled away into forced family road trips. Luke and Nate were the only two from the neighborhood whose parents knew better than to try to drag them into some lame family fun fest anymore. They were about to be 8th graders, and the idea of being caught dead with their families for a whole weekend made both of them physically ill.
“C’mon my mom gave me five bucks, let’s go get some Slurpees.”
Nate rolled his eyes and did as he was told. He stood up and wiped the dirt from his short and followed Luke out of their lair.
The 7/11 was just a block or two from the park, but the walk there was sluggish and dreary. The pavement cracked and cried with each step they took, roasting and wheezing in misery. Nate wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his Griffey Jr. jersey. The parking lot of the market was just as dead as the park. Nate jogged for a few steps to catch up with Luke, who was at the door waiting for him to catch up.
They were welcomed by the sound of the door bell and the blast from the cool fluorescent air. Both boys took a deep sigh of relief now that they were in an air conditioned building. The man behind the counter stood their cutting his fingernails into a trash can. He didn’t look up when they entered, nor did he acknowledge when they walked past his register. Without one word, Nate and Luke made their way through the labyrinth of snacks, passed the oasis of refreshments, and turned left at the mecca of munchies. Finally, they reached the fountain of youth, the holy land of high fructose corn syrup. The blue raspberry flavor was out of service, which left them only with three options: cherry, coke, and watermelon. Without discussion, they both reached for the psychedelic designed cups. Luke went straight for the cherry without any hesitation. One pour, and he was done. Nate, on the other hand, believed in strategy.
“Bro, you gotta put the lid on first, that way you can maximize your quantity.”
“I don’t know, I’m thinking 48 oz. is enough on its own, but you do you kid,” piercing his refreshment with a bright pink straw that doubled as a shovel.
Nate went with a graveyard, a little bit of everything, switching in between pulling levers every few seconds. He believed in the craft of a good Slurpee.
They strolled to the register, lallygagging through the aisles, pointing out their favorite candies and chip combos. Nate made a mental note to try putting potato chips in chocolate ice cream like Luke recommended. The man behind the counter, now on the phone, turned his back to the store and gazed out the window into the parking lot. At the same moment, Luke elbowed Nate in the kidney to get his attention to show him what was in his hand. It was a green circular tin that fit perfectly in Luke’s palm. The gold words on the face of the tin read “Premium Wintergreen Grizzly” but what really caught Nate’s eye was the big writing in all caps that read “WARNING: SMOKELESS TOBACCO IS ADDICTIVE”. Before Nate could react Luke pocketed the tin and continued his walk to the front counter.
Nate stood there for a moment, processing what had just occurred, piecing together Luke’s intentions. Sure, they had stolen plenty of things from markets before, but those boxes of candy and bags of chips felt minuscule to what Luke had just taken. Nate placed his drink upon the glass counter, and stared below at the lottery tickets. The man rang them up, still on the phone, and sent them off with their receipt that read $4.05. They walked to the front door and heard the bell as they exited. They walked through the parking lot in silence, the only sounds was the stirring of Luke’s straw through the icy abyss of his Slurpee. Nate thought back to that video that they watched back in sixth grade health class, the one that showed the long term effects of addiction. He remembered the lady who had to talk through the hole in her neck, the man who smoked 11 packs a day and had broken lungs, and the other man whose teeth were rotting from his tobacco habit. But if anything, those antidotes only made him more curious to try it. If all these people in the world are addicted to something, then there must be some sort of hype, right? And there was no way he was going to risk chickening out in front of Luke, he would never hear the end of it.
“Dude, nice lick,” Nate tried to play his delivery cool, but on the inside he was trying to budget his potential 11 pack a day habit, when his only source of income was when his mom would give him twenty bucks a month for doing his chores.
“This is the brand my brother told me about, he says it gives the best head rush,” Luke pulled it out of his pocket and examined the sides and the back as they crossed the street back to their tree cove. Nate began to anticipate his new found manhood, and wondered how long it would take from first taste for his chest hair to come in.
The boys arrived back at the base of their tree and sat down facing each other. Luke unscrewed the cap and tossed it to the side. They both looked down at the cap-less4 tin and stared at the brown gunk for a few moments of silence.
“Now what?” Nate asked looking up at Luke.
“I think we just grab it by the balls and go for it.” Luke dug his fingers into the can and felt around for what he thought was the perfect amount to grab.
Luke pulled his fingers out from the tin with a full pinch of tobacco. Nate followed suit and grabbed as much as he thought felt right. “Cheers,” Luke and Nate bumped knuckles and lodged the goop into their mouths. Nate remembered from the school video that one of the men mentioned something about a lip. He decided to shove any and every last strain into his bottom gums, not because he knew what he was doing, but because the taste was so revolting, it was the farthest he could manage to get it to his tastebuds without spitting it out into his lap. But he thought about his biggest mentors, all his baseball cards that sat at home were painted with his heroes, who all dipped all the time. If they could do it, Nate should do it. It was cool in his eyes.
After a few moments of fidgeting and poking his mouth with his tongue, he managed to pack the dip into a compressed glob. He quivered at the taste, wondering exactly how a human being could be capable of enjoying something that tasted like absolute ass. He studied the clump for a few more moments and looked up at Luke.
“This shit is gnarly,” Nate searched Luke’s face for any kind of reaction, but he looked blankly at the ground. He looked spacey, and now that Nate noticed, a little green. “Dude, you good? You look like shit.” Nate tried to emulate what he had seen his whole life out on the fields, and hocked a massive wad of brown spit to the left of them. It wasn’t as smooth as the way the players did it in between plays, but at least he didn’t look like Luke.
Luke sat their frozen, palms gripping onto the dirt below him, like he might blow away if he let go. Suddenly, he looked up from the ground, looked at Nate for a split second, and began to vomit bright red cherry Slurpee into his own lap. Nate rubbed his buddies back as he unloaded all 48 ounces of red regret onto the ground, all over their lair. While trying to hold in all kinds of laughter Nate smiled at the opportunity he was given, which was to never let Luke live down the time he threw up cherry Slurpee all over himself from swallowing chewing tobacco.
