Smoking Section

a three page essay on why Kristyn is cooler than anyone else I know...

I was 15, frumpy and shy. Kristyn was 16, had dark eyeliner, and a fiery temper. I lead her to a place of innocence she never knew and she allowed me to glimpse a place of “right now” I was too afraid to go into. Her chipped fingernail polish and ring clad finger beckoned me to her in the midst of high school angst all because of a field where a girl spit in a boy’s face. The boy was the reason she called me. She had to know more about him and I was the only one who had the resources. Think of that, something I had that no one else did. The boy became irrelivent as time progressed. We needed each other. I needed the irratic fire and she needed the safety of water near by to put her out when things got a little out of control. She saw herself in me, or perhaps the potential of herself in me and she did not want me to turn out like she had. He biggest fear, she confided to me one night, was that I would make the same mistakes she did.
Nights became filled with jokes, literature, and VCRs. When I turned 16 I got a car for my birthday. I told her this and she yelled at her mother that her UNDERCLASSMEN friend had received a car and, her being a year ahead of me, could be The Walrus but she would still have to bum rides off of people. We were in Algebra 2 class together and made a very famous puppet show of Archemedes and his inventions. We thought ourseleves quite clever with our sock puppets with their taped on hair provided by Kristyn’s recent haircut by my mother. We got a 100 on that project, probably the highest grade either of us had ever received in a math class of any kind. Literary minds do not do well with numbers other than the ones of the telephone variety. She would escape to my house when she could and we would drive around singing the national anthem at the top of our lungs and stay up all night eating blueberry muffins, cold fried chicken, and potato salad. She went to college briefly and by the time I finished high school she figured out, a few breakdowns later, that college was not for her, I on the other hand gone and decided in my freshman stupidity to go to Texas. When I left her whole world flipped upside down. She went crazy for lack of a better explanation. I received mail and postcards and calls and she helped keep me sane in the insane world I had entered into. Many tearful nights later I returned home permanently and she righted herself as much as she could and we were back to Jessica and Kristyn. It was at this point she started teaching me more than she probably knew. She taught me how to express my feelings on paper and to not care what other people think and to stand up for myself and the people that I love.
I became her regular beer wench and she would drink and I kept her company and drove her to the store for more beer and cigarettes or home from this bar or to that bar. She taught me to be bold when it came to guys. I had a fear of rejection, as most people do, but the worst that could happen, she pounded into my head, was that they say no. We were at our favorite bar and this spikey haired dream came in. He was broody and cute and damn I wanted to just talk to him. Kristyn kept telling me to do it, go, go and talk to him. I procrastinated and procrastinated and she finally looked at me and said, “If you don’t, I will,” and she got off her stool.
“No. I’ll go,” and I did and I talked to him and invited him to a poetry reading we were having at the bar later that week and chatted him up. I had never done that before. I didn’t ask him out, I just talked to him and he was receptive. It felt great! She and I to this day have this bond. I can get into her armour when no one else could. I can sit and talk to her for hours while she is on the computer and I am sitting behind her and we both are content to just stay like that until we either fall asleep, run out of cigarettes, or run out of beer. She can call me up and say two words and I know exactly what she is talking about. We can take multiple road trips together and entertain ourselves and not be worn out or tired of each other by the time we reach the destination whether it be Birmingham, AL or Columbus, MS. We have this link, a certain sympatico. I could say that she might know me better than I know myself sometimes. She is the coolest person I know because of all of this and more: her wit, the way her eyes light up when she gets presents, her laugh, and the way she cusses constantly about anything and everything. Kristyn, you are the coolest person I know, and those are the reasons.