The second time you smoked was after the graveyard while we idled in your driveway. You were so freaked out about having to talk your parents about my staying over I thought another hit might take your edge off. In hindsight, that didn’t work out so great. You were a freaking puddle, and you drank half a liter of Coke straight from the bottle, crushed a large bag of potato chips, and then I had to coax you out of spending the night curled up on the floor under the kitchen table. You were using the empty chip bag as a pillow. Crinkly. Then an hour or so later, I woke up with you in my room, leaning against the wall, holding my camera, and snapping a pervy picture of me while I slept on the couch. Then you ran away with it. I mean, what was that all about? You can’t blame all of it on being stoned out of your gourd. So, yeah, shooting that picture was not cool, and it was why I didn’t call you or seek you out until after your back surgery.

The rest of this chapter? Jesus, man. The idea that you were going to sell/publish this as a memoir is batshit insane.

In a memoir the writer finds meaning in the meaningless, purpose within the inexplicable unpredictable machinations of the universe. In addition, within the course of the memoir bad things happen without warning, without provocation, without conforming to narrative structure or arc. To wit, I enjoyed the bit with your parents and the French play is funny and clever, and was very memoiry. But, duuuuude, suspension of disbelief as it pertains to the supernatural isn’t something a memoir is built for, you know?

As a novel, this book can work. Maybe. But fiction isn’t real life and generally must in some way fulfill expectations of rising action and arc and cause and effect and reason and blah, blah, blah. Fiction can’t be too real either, can’t mirror reality’s cruel capriciousness too closely, otherwise most readers won’t buy in.

So right now, you’re stuck with one foot in each form, there, Arty. You should pick and stick with the novel. I will say this is surprisingly well written for someone who didn’t study writing formally. I don’t mean that as a shot, I just didn’t know you had this in you. Whatever this ends up being, at least it won’t have had the life sucked out of it—see what I did there?—by workshops and writing teachers.

A few more observations/questions for you before I take another long walk. And yeah, a smoke, okay?