Youngstown, Part Two

The ride through the old hood continues. I pull up to the Boulevard Tavern on Southern Boulevard. We ate here many times. It was close to the house. They served a fantastic veal parm. It still seems relatively intact. Yet it is almost lunchtime and there is only one car in the parking lot. There used to be this bakery that made excellent pepperoni rolls. Somewhere along the way, the bakery left, and now it is a used car lot. I drove by Lorie's old house. Lorie and I would sit on her porch and play Trivial Pursuit. She'd scheme over beating me at trivia, I'd scheme over how to cop a feel without getting slapped. Her family has long since given up this place, and it never looked like this when I lived there. I was in touch with Lorie just the other day. She is doing fine, and she and her daughter will probably be moving back to Indianapolis. I hope so. I drove by Ally's. It was still there, after all this time. I bought my first cigarettes there when I was twelve or thirteen. No matches at Ally's. They wanted to sell you a lighter. And I was buying. I prefered Scripto, and I knew how to alter them to make a five inch high flame. It was like lighting your smoke with a blow torch. I went from Marlboro to Camel regulars to finally Parliament. I was the only kid I knew who smoked them. Even trying to fit in, I was still uncool as fuck. I pretty much gave up smoking when I turned 16 and left Youngstown to move in with my dad. I didn't think my dad would put up with that shit. Maybe he would have, but it was a part of me that was better left behind.