Memory

Jim drew on his Marlboro 100. The gold pack. Fuck those kids who smoked the reds. He wanted the full 100mm of nicotine, and he was going to get it.

The sound of the wind coming through a quarter inch of open window annoyed him, but it was the only way to keep the kids quiet. Two girls and a boy. Whose idea was that anyway?

“Smoking gives you cancer,” the older girl said. “Yeah,” the boy said. “It gives you cancer.”

The youngest girl said nothing, but she marveled at how smart her older sister and brother were. Someday, she thought, she’d be as old as them, and she’d understand what was going on. But for now, it was a circus.

Cancer was the last thing on his mind.

Jim was making good time. That made him happy. He was driving to the North Pole, a tacky little amusement park in the middle of Colorado. What the fuck was he doing in Colorado anyway?

All along the road, they had seen cyclists pedaling up Pikes Peak. One time, when they stopped to get gas, Jim went up to one of the cyclists. He came back to the gold Bonneville and told the kids what he learned from the cyclist. The kids were not interested. What they were interested in was that their father had walked up to a stranger and talked to him.