Bob sits down slowly, like an old man, in the low easy chair opposite the sofa. “Got a cigarette? I left mine in the car. Or home.”
“Sure.” She tosses him a pack of Marlboro Lights. “You okay? You’re looking kind of strung out. Want a joint?”
“A joint? Okay, sure.”
“Right there, in the box on the table next to you,” she says, going back to her painting.
Bob lifts the cover of the small brass box, takes out a joint and lights it up, inhaling deeply. “Nice.”
“Sure.”
They are silent for a few moments while Bob smokes and Honduras paints, until finally she sticks her bare legs out in front of her and admires the maroon nails from a distance.
Bob says, “Want some?” and he extends the butt end of the joint to her.
“Thanks.” She plucks it from his fingertips and finishes it off.
“So, big man, what’s up? You are a big man, you know that?”
“Yeah.” He’s silent for a second, and then says, “Well, I’m kinda curious. How do you get this stuff? I might like some for myself. You know?”
Honduras tosses her head back and laughs, and here things start happening too fast for Bob later to recall clearly and in order. It’s not that he’s not paying attention (if anything, he’s paying too much attention). It’s that he has no conscious plan, no intent — which is to say that he’s got no connection between his past and his future, none in mind, that is. When one gives oneself over to forces larger than one’s self, like history, say, or God, or the unconscious, it’s easy to lose track of the sequence of events. One’s narrative life disappears.
