CONT'D: A Big Deal | Page 1, 2, 3

Giving him a dirty look, the first student got out of the car and looked cautiously around him as he went inside.

About five minutes later, he came out with a small brown bag, and got in the car. Looking around he said, "All set, let's get out of here." As the car drove off, he followed the second student's lead and put the shades back up. He turned on the radio and flipped through the stations until an old school Motown R & B song came on. They both intuitively leaned further back in their seats, more relaxed, and slightly bobbed and tapped their fingers to the music. It was a pleasant syncopation of life. It felt as if they were in a movie, if their lives were a movie, and they knew it, playing the part of two cool guys in slick leather car coats, driving home in their old beat up brown Buick, satisfied after a successful errand.

At the end of the song the first student sat up a little and turned down the volume and asked, "Who is this? Sounds like something between Marvin Gaye and Clarence Carter."

"I don't know. Its the kind of song where you don't have a clue on to how find it in a store, but its great when it comes on the radio."

"Is it Al Greene?"

"I suppose it could be on one of those Sounds of the 70's, only on TV offers."

"God who is this? Can't be Barry White, the voice is too high."

"James Brown."

"No..."

"Sly Stone."

"No it's not him either."

"Did you once know who it was? I mean have you just forgotten about it?" the second student asked.

"No, but it sounds like somebody I know."

"I don't know. Give it up. It's not like then you're going to remember it at three o'clock in the morning."

"Hey, but some of the greatest epiphanies come right in the middle of the night," the first student added, "Like the other night I came to a sort of enlightenment… like if everything we said, every word we said, had the same and exact meaning for everybody… how fatal that would be. Think about, huh, I guess me being ambiguous isn't only good for sounding smart." Grinning and now animating his gestures, he continued, "All this from listening to my roommate talk in his sleep. He was mumbling something about Alice his girlfriend, but really I think he was talking about Alice in Wonderland, though all I could think of was food at Alice's Restaurant…. Anyway, back to my point, not everything has to be about remembering."

"What are you talking about?"

The two students looked at each other and paused. The moment wasn't funny just yet.

"I don't know. I forget," the first student said, comically throwing his hands up in the air. "It was supposed to be connected with Aretha Franklin or something." Giving up and laughing at himself, the first student turned the volume back up and looked out onto his fading reflection in the window.

A mother and her two children, one in a rickety stroller, walked past the car with a hurried pace. It was getting dark now and their quick steps showed the difference.

"How come no one ever sees street lights turn on at night?" the second student asked.

The first student didn't answer. "I suppose it's less than a second to turn on though."

The first student quietly shrugged his shoulders.

The city, trees, and hills were all made into a silhouette, and behind it was the deep and dark blue sky. The street gutters were filled with rainwater trembling under orange lights which manmoths fumbled and fell from.

"I used to wonder as a kid why butterflies never tried to fly to the sun, when moths were constantly searching for the light of the moon," said the first student.

"Isn't that fuckin sweet and profound," the second student jeered through a puppy dogface.

The first student quietly responded by scratching his nose with his middle finger. His friend wryly smiled back.

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