The local convenience store dealers lean on glass windows with ****** pupils scanning the parking lot for any takers. I pump my gas on station four and spy from afar. Don’t make eye contact or that means you’re interested. No buyers yet. What do you suppose is on the menu for today? Judging from the amount of zombies I’ve seen pushing stolen shopping carts a block away from here, I’d say smack. Tar. Black. ******. Whatever they call it where you’re from. Welfare bodies withered down to just flesh hanging from bone, wandering around aimlessly for their next fix. I’ve only ever tried it once; I was curious and sad and it was there—in Violet’s hand and then in my lungs. Do you think my mother would cry out in those disgusting sobs of snot and heaves of not-being-able-to-breathe-tears if she knew? Do you think my sister would look at me with that glare of judgmental disapproval because yet again, here’s an example of why I’m the family ****-up? Do you think my father would smack me upside the head and call me a *******? Probably. And do you think my third and sixth grade teachers who told me I should one day do something with my writing would be gasping in disappointment? Definitely. The gas pump clicks off. A potential customer staggers across asphalt to meet his makers and I am no better than he is at this very moment.