A Conversation With Miles

sorry, sorry, now I'm weeks behind. I am trying diligently to get everyone caught up, I swear!

OK, so, after I kicked Miles's ass at Scrabble, I was feeling pretty mellow. He took his loss well - he's a good loser. He said some crap about just enjoying the game and not being particularly concerned about whether he wins or not, but I wasn't really listening.

After Scrabble, we went down to the DVD collection and picked out a movie to watch on the big-screen TV in the Young Adult section. I really really hate picking movies. "What do you want to watch?" "I don't know, what do you want to watch?" "How about The Terminator?" "No, that's stupid. How about Pride and Prejudice?" argh.

Finally I just blindfolded Miles and turned him loose on the DVDs and told him to pick one. I couldn't stand it any more. He didn't mind; he's actually turning out to be pretty easy to get along with.

So that's how Miles and I ended up watching The Breakfast Club.

And you know what? It was pretty fun. That night might be the first time that I really relaxed since the night the monkeys came.

About halfway through, Miles got out one of his special cigarettes. He offered to share it with me. At first I said no, no, I've got my gin, but I have to admit, I was curious.

I'm not very good at smoking. I don't think it had much of an effect on me. But HOLY CRAP, The Breakfast Club is fucking HILARIOUS. We just laughed and laughed and laughed. I'm not sure I even heard much of the dialog because we were laughing so hard. I mean, Molly Ringwald! ahahahahahahahahahaha! And the party! ahahahahahahaha!

After the movie was over, we were pretty hungry, so I opened up a can of peaches. PEACHES! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And the can opener! HA! Miles says, dude! It opens! The cans! and I just laughed and laughed and laughed.

We ate that whole can of peaches, and then we started talking. I told Miles all about the night the monkeys came, and what it was like to live in the basement, and about Derek and Gretchen and how much I miss them, and about that buddhist nun, whatever her name was.

And he told me about his life BM, as he calls it - Before Monkeys. That set him off laughing for another 20 minutes but he told me about how he grew up in Chicago, and then came out to this state to do some environmental work with a hemp advocacy group, and all about biodiesel and the Grateful Dead and peace marches and all that crap. He gave me another one of his special cigarettes about then so I just sort of let him talk. The laser rifle was on another floor, anyway, so I am not sure how I would have been able to shut him up.

The day the monkeys came, he'd been in the microfiche room reading old newspapers and magazines. He was researching something about how the government was supposedly suppressing alternative fuel research or some crap like that, I don't know, who listens? That's where he was when the monkeys came. He heard the shooting and the screaming and he hid. He was lucky that monkeys don't read microfiche.

Once it was all quiet, he came out - and, well, you know what the aftermath of a monkey attack was. He smoked several of his cigarettes, and then, slowly, he cleaned up the library. He cleaned up the whole damn library. It was a Saturday afternoon and it was a popular place on Saturdays - but Miles cleaned up the whole damn thing.

I didn't say anything for a little while. I kind of felt bad about how he annoyed the crap out of me. He really was a good person, and had lost just as much as I had.

After a while he just sort of shook himself. He smiled at me, and then he said, "so, you're like this total badass monkey-fighter. Why haven't you gone to Atlanta to join Jimmy Carter's army?"

I just took another drag on that special cigarette. I laughed and laughed and laughed.