“Everyone is doing it!”

Andrew arrived with a smile plastered across his face. He pedaled up to our group on his 10-speed Huffy mountain bike and let us know he had successfully attained the contraband. He revealed a pack of Salem Ultra Light Menthol 100’s to accompany his Cheshire grin. He’d swiped a pack from his mother. We gasped in awe as he fished them out of his pocket. He had a book of matches, too. That was important.

The rest of us hopped on our bikes and pedaled toward Highland Village in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was our favorite stomping ground—a hub of commercial and retail stores built in the 1920s near the Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant in the heart of our neighborhood along the banks of the Mississippi. We could loiter at Cheapo Discs, look at comics and used videocassettes at Half Price Bookstore, cause trouble at one of the area playgrounds, and rent video games and movies from Mr. Movies and Video Update for 49 cents and 99 cents respectively on Tuesdays, depending on availability.

Andrew, Isaac, Steve, and I enthusiastically weaved around each other and giggled as we pedaled toward our destination, the Barnes & Noble bookstore. We swapped tricks and strategies we had learned while playing Twisted Metal on PlayStation and named our favorite Metallica songs on the new Load album. You could hear playful jabs being hurled between us such as “motherfucker” and “fag.” It was another day-in-the-life among the White middle class 13- and 14-year-old clique of boys in the summer of 1996.

We finally arrived at our destination, the alley behind the national bookstore chain. It was a semi-secluded area, but we hid behind a dumpster to be safe. Andrew pulled out the smokes. Isaac and I each took one eagerly.

I apprehensively held the cigarette between my thumb and pointer finger, unsure of the methodology to begin. The matches came my way.

“Which end do you light?” I asked.

“The side where you can see the tobacco. You know, the little brown flecks,” Isaac said.

“Do you put it in your mouth first?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. No one knew.

I lit the cigarette two feet in front of my face. I brought it to my mouth and sucked on the white end like a straw. Minty flavored smoke filled my mouth. I exhaled. It felt right. The rest of the group followed suit.

I rested the cigarette on my lips, took another pull, and sharply closed the V between my pointer and middle fingers upon the butt. I pulled the cigarette away and exhaled. “Check it out,” I said. “I look like John Travolta!”

We took turns copying our favorite Hollywood elites until the bright red cherries lost their glow.

“Alright, later homies,” Andrew said. “I gotta get home.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Steve said. “It’s time for dinner. If I’m late, my mom will be pissed.”

Isaac and I biked toward his house, which was across the street from mine. I was eating dinner at his place. His mother always whipped up epic amounts of food and a huge pitcher of sugary Kool-Aid. Tacos were on the menu tonight.

Afterward, I’d be spending the night. We gotten our hands on the digitally enhanced version of the original Star Wars trilogy. A viewing party was on the menu for dessert. We’d watch late into the following morning.
Before our viewing party began, we grabbed Cherry-flavored Pepsis and snuck into Isaac’s brother’s room. We carefully pried his closet door open. Above the shelf, resting on the clothes rod, sat a variety of liquor bottles filled with mysterious substances we had yet to taste.

He rifled through the bottles and settled on a fruit flavored Schnapps, Peach, if memory recalls correctly. He plucked it from above his head and handed it to me. I carefully poured the contents in a shot glass we acquired from a bedroom shelf, filling it to the brim. I dumped it into a plastic cup. I repeated the action a second time for Isaac. Finally, I poured cherry soda over the booze to put a bow on the drink.

We sipped on the fruity cocktails as we watched rebel forces battle the Empire. Blaster fires vibrated across the room in stunning THX sound. We gasped as the glimmer of digitally enhanced light-saber strikes jumped from the screen.

If this was what it meant to be cool, I was sold. This was the life. It was good.