“So you’re studying…openness and…listening?” V said, straight-faced. “Fkn hell ya,” turning his body towards the ocean, to lead the way.

“Nah, not just that though,” lil bro said, tapping the cashed bowl out and slamming the door closed. “Like, there’s a method to this shit…” running to catch up to V.

I made sure I had all my shit on me.

Cigs. Water.

Before letting them walk ahead bc the thing about that summer was despite everything that had happened with lil sis how wild things got V and I kept going in hitting the bars still over guitars but now layering 808s hi hats over them on GarageBand V all fucked up about lil sis me about that camp counselor bae I’d been tryna get at all summer who for sure wanted it but had that bitch-ass boyfriend she wasn’t tryna leave this part of the beach a vast flat expanse unlike higher up the coast where the cliffs jutted down to narrow, hidden, nook-like sand patches down here there was plenty room to park, roller-bladers and cruiser-bikers and Bird scooterers scooting along this bike path I paused at to let one pass but us over here doing diss tracks at camp counselor bae’s mans I barely knew and V didn’t know at all lol the paper towels lining my ’stocks just pus-soaked smelly yellowish wet, seeing how far ahead they’d gotten, lil bro gesticulating tryna convince V of his Special Major’s central point till the summer ended the season shifted we both went east into the cold V to college to start his rap group the Feminists with the homie A how well-intentioned and funny the Feminists’ mission initially You know tryna ramp up the misogyny of the bars to an absurd degree to make us aware of the more subtle and so accepted elements of misogyny that pervaded rap or popular music generally like we hear the misogyny but it no longer affects us we don’t even realize it the Feminists were here to make it affect you make you realize it realizing they were gonna try to walk out to the water so picking up the pace to catch up to tell em I couldn’t that the cuts were open and would get sand in em if I did like OK their mission was a lil silly lil condescending maybe but harmless till it stopped being harmless till the school took it as real and spazzed out doing the roundtable discussions the protests the op-eds students venting to the admins their concerns till they got blackballed pushed out V dropping out with a year to go, right after that Lil B show—

“Yo,” I called out. “Hold up!”

V and lil bro stopped at the edge of the sand pier and turned back, hand-visoring their eyes.

“I can’t go that far!”

“Why not?” said V.