The library was built in the brutalist 1970s, and is quiet in a hushed, reserved teacher's pet kind of way. An unshowered, hunchbacked kid hovers in the corner, scribbling furiously in pencil. He's talking fast, sketching faster on a piece of ruled notebook paper.
"This is the car, this is the window. Here's the beach where I lived all summer. I'd get up in the morning and swim in the ocean, then I'd.."
"Where did you shower?"
"I didn't. I went swimming. Like, as much as necessary. Sometimes kayaking. Once I saw a circle of sharks around me. But also, this is the way the sunlight looked at dawn," more mechanical pencil on paper. "It was even better at dusk. And,"
"Did you bring girls back here?"
"Oh no, Alicia didn't like how it smelled. I didn't go home for laundry because, like, how good does ocean salt smell a week later? But there was a Dunkin' Doughnuts nearby, and there is nothing better than warm coffee on a cold, rainy summer morning on a deserted beach and this was how my sleeping bag was and.." More scratching, more shushing from uptight students in the library.
I have that drawing somewhere in a wine crate with old love letters and found notes I picked off of the street.
This is my first memory of Bobby.
YOU ARE READING
Bobby Likes A Lot of Things
No FicciónA guide to being young, broke, handsome, and excited about life.
