The Young Artist

There are twenty cigarettes in a full pack. Twenty five if it is Marlboro. This pack contains nineteen. This could be a clue. It could mean 1920 or 1925. I have to ask myself what happened in those five years that would be of significance to me? Perhaps I am looking too much into this discarded pack of cigarettes. Just then I feel a feel a pebble hit my right shoulder. Someone is watching me. I look directly over head and I see a boy glaring at me from his fire escape balcony. " Get your hands off my smokes." He shouts to me. "What are you, ten?" "I'm fifteen, and what do you care?"  I shake my head. "Number one, you're only fifteen and are putting disgusting toxins into your body. And number two, this may be a clue."  "A clue? What the fuck are you talking about?" I try to tell him my theory about the nineteen remaining cigarettes. How it could be symbolic of the years 1920 or 1925. He laughs at me and says. "You're crazy. You need sleep." "You could be right." The kid rolls his eyes. "Are you gonna give me my cigarettes?" He asks. "No, they mean something." "It means I didn't want my mom to find my smokes, so I hid them in the alley." "What? That's even more disgusting. " "Why?"  "Because besides from the initial toxins that you are putting into your body, you are also leaving it out in the open air for all sorts of germs and God only knows what." "Are you gonna give me a health lecture?" "I don't want to." I reply. At this point he is livid. "Are you gonna give me my smokes or what?" "No." The kid smirks.  "You want me to come down there and kick your ass?"  "I seriously doubt you could."  "Maybe not, but either way it's not gonna look good for you.  I mean I win, then you got beat up by a kid. But if you win, then it just means you beat up a kid." Unfortunately, I realize how right he is. I attempt to toss the pack up to him, but it hits the balcony bars and ricochets off.  "Really?" he says to me, with a look of disdain on his face. "I never played sports." I try and tell him. "I never played sports either, but I can throw a pack of cigarettes a few feet into the air." I pick the cigarettes off the ground and begin to throw again. He stops me. "No, its ok. I'll come down and get them." The kid lowers the fire escape ladder and climbs down. I notice that there is a huge gap between where the ladder ends and the pavement. I offer my assistance, saying that he can jump into my arms. Instead he leaps off the ladder, and like a gymnast he hits the pavement and does a somersault.  My mouth is open wide. I am in absolute awe. He casually walks over to me and snags the cigarettes out of my hand. "It was nothing." He insists.
I watch him light a cigarette and puff away. "Did you do that sketch?" I ask, pointing to the silhouette of a cowboy smoking. "You a cop?" He asks defensively. "Do I look like a cop?" He doesn't even have to examine me. He knows the answer. "Yeah, I did that." "What made you choose that image?" "I don't know, I thought it looked cool." "No other reason?  You don't see yourself as this cowboy character?" The kid scratches his head.  "What the fuck is this? Where am I right now?" "Look, you did that image chances are you did other images too-"  "So what if I did?" "All I'm saying is that all these images might have hidden meanings that you might now even know the meaning of."  The kid takes a long drag. "What are you? Freud or some shit?"  "No. But I know that you probably hear a lot and see a lot. And you can't quite express it all in words so it comes out in these little images." The kid exhales a huge cloud of smoke. "Wow, that's some deep shit." I shake my head. There is a long silence. "Have you ever heard of the Angelic Order of Brotherly Love?" I ask him. He shrugs. "I might have heard of it somewhere." The kid peeks at his wristwatch. "I gotta go my mom is gonna be home any minute."  I wave goodbye. "My names's Trevor by the way."  "Trevor, do you have more work up elsewhere?" "All over the place, but I'll leave my calling card so you know it's me." Trevor smiles and holds up one of his cigarettes. I nod my head and we take off on our separate ways.