Moseying Around By Starlight

I'm a bit tired right now, so forgive me if I seem incoherent. I need to get these thoughts down as soon as possible before they vanish and fly away from me! 

You are sitting in a chair at your house waiting for people to text you back. They don't. You check Facebook and they aren't on there, either. Someone finally sends you a message but he says he doesn't want to go clubbing, which is exactly what you wanted to do. He wants to see a movie you have already seen. You compromise and decide to use another friend's Xbox to play Halo while that kid is out with someone else. You pick up the kid, let's call him Austin or something, and you start driving. 

Friendly chatter about roads and routes, laughing. More laughing. Amiable talk. You get to the other kid's house and you say, "You know, there's a sewer system we could check out instead." And this kid, Austin, he says, "Sure, let's do it. I don't care." 

So you pull into reverse and you head back the way you came. Up the hill on Utica, left on 42, left onto Burnsville Parkway, stop at the strip mall. You go and look at the sewer, it's a storm sewer. It's too high. You go climb up the back of the strip mall instead. Up a pipe mounted on the wall. He doesn't want to come up, afraid of heights. You realize that getting back down is frightening. You find another way down, and it's also an easy way up. He comes up. You walk around on the gravel topped roof and look at the stars and talk about light pollution. You wish you could see a shooting star. 

You decide it's time to get off the roof. You know you can go down the easy way but you want to go down the hard way. You sit with your legs dangling off the roof with your hands ready to grab onto the pipe and hold securely while you slide down onto the concrete. It's too scary. You eventually do it, but not in the way you imagined yourself doing it. It doesn't look like a stunt from an action movie, but you got down. You walk up and down the strip mall and talk about a book he read for AP English, "Into Thin Air." It's about climbing Mt. Everest. He says the last thing the author talks about is how he got naked, got high, masturbated, and ate an apple in his hotel room. I'll have to check to make sure that's legitimate. 

You drive back to that one other kid's house. You're talking in the car but you don't go inside and play Halo. You say, "You know what I've never done? Laid on the hood of my car at night and looked at the stars while I talked. Let's go do that." So you do. Get on the hood of the car and it has dust that gets on your clothes. When you get on the hood it makes sounds like you're bending the metal. Whatever. 

You talk about the Sims, and how you locked a kid in a cell for 40 Sims years and fed him a bowl of rice every day. You talk about how you removed all the doors leading into your house so the IRS couldn't steal your stuff if you evaded taxes. You talk about how you had a neighbor come over before removing the doors so he never got out of the house and was constantly passed out and smelling horrible. You talk about how your brother built a Nazi house in the shape of a swastika, and had an adult named Adolf and a dozen Nazi children. The Sims was fun.

You say you want to sell your car, and he says he might buy it. But he doesn't know how to drive a manual, and you say "Let's go to the high school and I'll show you." "Right now?" "Yeah." "Sweet. Let's do it." 

You drive. You get there and the lights are off and it's completely black. You realize that the first time someone drives a stick they grind the gears and kill the engine a bunch of times. You don't want to show him how to drive stick, even though this car isn't a nice one. You say "Oh my god, we need to go and hang out on the bleachers." You point at the fenced-in football field. 

You both get out of the car and start walking. The gate is locked and you climb over. You pass a water fountain and take a drink because you're thirsty. You say "If you were a girl, I would totally go make out with you up on those bleachers." He laughs. You climb the bleachers and get to the building thing at the top, where a guy talks with a microphone and tries to get people to buy things at the games, and announces scores and whatever. You climb up on that; stand on a waist-high fence and climb up the horizontal pipes like a ladder. Getting down is easy. You make a note of the place for a cool spot to take a date or to listen to music some night. 

You both go and sit at the very top of the bleachers with your feet propped up on the seats in front of you. Hood up and hands in your pockets you are still a little cold. You don't know how the conversation starts but you talk about philosophy. He talks about how there are really big, unanswered questions like the meaning of life, morality, the beginning of life, etc. His view reminds you a lot of what went on in your head every day a few years ago. You say these questions are impossible to answer because humans do not have the information to decisively answer them. There will always be doubt in the minds of most people about the Big Bang or the nonexistence of gods. 

He says that humans and their minds could not have just happened for no reason. He says that some kind of god must have made us. He says that the creation of the universe is too complex and magnificent of a thing that a god must have done it. You say that simply because science cannot answer these questions right now does not mean that science will never be able to answer them. You say that people have always pointed at the unexplained mysteries of the world as proof of God, and, one by one, these proofs have been knocked down the accumulation of intelligence by humans. 

He isn't convinced. 

He brings up how everything is one giant hypocrisy. 

He says that people focus too much on the negative stories of religion, like crazed fanatics, and ignore the good stories of religion. Like when the pope shook hands with a Muslim guy and said, "I love you like I would any other." Or something like that. 

He says that he is so disgusted by people and the things they do. 

The discussion is riddled with interruptions and misunderstandings. It is a friendly discussion nonetheless. 

You climb down the bleachers and hop back over the fence. You notice how cold it is once you are done talking. You both hurry to the car and blast the heat at maximum capacity. It's loud and sounds funny and you both laugh at it. You are surprised how quickly it warms up. Maybe it won't be so bad in the winter. You both agree that putting your cold hands under your thighs is the best way to warm them up if the car is cold. Or if your seats are heated, you should heat the seats and put a blanket over your lap so it traps the heat in. 

You are sitting in the car talking about petty things in comparison to the discussion you had on the bleachers. You see to your left two other cars pulling in and heading towards you. They are the only vehicles in the parking lot. 

"We should probably get out of here." he says. 

"Yeah, probably. Are we going to get in a car chase?" 

You drive the car out of the parking lot and keep looking back at the cars. They are still heading towards you. 

"I think we're going to get in a car chase." 

"Turn left up here." 

"Okay." 

They stop following and you say you are both happy and disappointed at the same time that they didn't follow you.

"They were probably there to race. Or fight. Or sell weed. Or vodka."

"That sounds about right for Prior Lake."

"I have no idea where we are."

"You've never taken this route?"

"Nope."

"That's alright, I know exactly where we are."

"Cool."

"That's Nate's house right there."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"Oh yeah, I remember. I went to a party there, once."

Drive home and open the front door quietly because mom is asleep and hears everything. Dad is working on his laptop and you say hi. 

"Let's make hot chocolate." 

You take a mug that you will use to drink the hot chocolate and fill it up with milk three times so you know you will have enough. You poor it into the pot and start heating it. While you're waiting you get a glass of water for both of you. You show him the posters you got from Crimethinc. You show him the book "Art of Nonconformity." He wants to borrow it and use it for his nonfiction book report. You ask dad and he says it's okay. 

The milk is warm and you stir in the chocolate mix, add a tiny bit of vanilla. When it's done it's just alright. Dad makes it better. You both sit at the table and drink the yummy beverage while each reading something. Eventually he says he should head back to his house. 

You sit at your computer and write this.