It’s always weird to be there, but I can’t resist the lure of girls enveloped in cigarette smoke. Behind Waffle House I always find myself staring at a miniature wasteland of hypodermic needles and used condoms, looking upward from time to time to acknowledge someone else or steal a glance at a pretty girl. I was pondering a needle enveloped in a condom when someone bumped into me.

“Sorry.” I said.

“Why are you apologizing?” She smiled a sly smile. “It was my dumb ass.”

I shrugged. “It happens.”

Someone began laughing loudly and I glanced at my friends, sitting on a Volvo while arguing about musical taste. Someone bumped into me again; the girl from before hadn’t walked away.

“Sorry.”

“I might know you.” She kept smiling. She pulled out a cigarette and started digging into a large canvas bag that was substituting for her purse. I held up my lighter to offer her and she brushed it away and moved in close to my face to monkey butt a cigarette; we touched tobacco.

“You’re a virgin.”