Adventureland » jalph

Chapter 7

Jack popped a tape into the radio as he drove, keeping his eyes on the road. "Don't Want To Know If You're Lonely" by Husker Du began to play loudly through the speakers of the car.

Jack ran his fingers through his curly hair and continued looking at the road, while Ralph slowly nodded his head to the music.

They turned to each other for a moment and smiled, and Jack began to nod.

Ralph reached his hand to the radio knob and turned it up a bit. They sat in silence and Jack licked his own lips and nibbled at them.

Once they got to Ralph's house, the car stopped.

"Here, have some rum," Jack said.

"Thanks."

Ralph then noticed his mother peaking through the window.

"Oh, shit, sorry, my mother. She's– she's very nosy."

Ralph and Jack looked out the car window at his mother. Ralph raised his eyebrows and waved to her.

"Yeah, she used to read my journals," Ralph said as he still looked out the window. "I had to start writing them in Italian." He looked at Jack. "I took Italian for a year . I went through an opera— okay she's gone," he quickly lifted up the bottle of rum and drank some. He sighed and handed the bottle back to Jack, who chuckled.

Jack stared down. "So Piggy told me that you're gonna go to Columbia," he raised his eyebrows for a moment. "Grad school."

"Yeah," Ralph nodded.

"Wow. I'm at NYU right now," Jack said.

"Oh really? Oh, that's cool. Maybe I'll run into you on the streets of NYC," Ralph chuckled and then looked out the window.

"What are you studying?"

"Journalism," Ralph said. "Yeah, I want to be, like, a travel essayist. But I want to report on the real state of the world. You know, like Charles Dickens, for example, wrote what you might call travel books, but he visited prisons and mental asylums."

They both laughed.

"That's cool," Jack smiled brightly as he took a sip of rum.

"Yeah, is it?"

"Yeah," Jack nodded.

"Okay."

"No, it is, it's.." Jack cleared his throat. "But why do you have to go to grad school for that?"

"No, that's a– a valid question, but actually, Journalism is kind of like this old boys' network still. You need the right connects, it's very ivy league, very exclusive." Ralph shook his head, "It's stupid.. I think my mother would rather I intern at some fortune 500 company or something like that. "

"Oh, fuck that, right?" Jack glanced out the window.

"Yeah. Yeah," he nodded slowly and looked at Jack.

"Uh, I got to go. I have to meet a friend," Jack looked down.

"Okay. Yeah, thanks for the ride."

"Sure," Jack said.

Ralph opened the car door and watched as Jack drove away. He then walked back into his house.

Jack picked at his lip nervously as he began driving to a place called "Stardust" which served alcohol and a band usually played there.

The next day at Adventureland

Ralph stood at one of the games, leaning against the counter as he watched Connell fixing something.