He’d been gone so long. We’d mourned, gathered in dark rooms above kebab shops and dollar stores, drunk gallons of whatever we could get our hands on, chain-smoked, scribbled in our journals, hugged, told stories. Every once and awhile we would laugh when recalling something he’d said. “Did you know what he was talking about?” one of us would ask. “Hell, no!” another would blurt in reply.
