If I never knew her, it would be too soon. Wait. Scratch that. If I only met her once, it would be more than a lifetime. No no, that’s not right. Let me start again.

She called herself Jilly, which I thought was a peculiar name to begin with, and certainly something strange to be so proud of. It sounds like a 6 year old’s name for a doll or something. Or some kind of sea creature. Jilly would kill me if she read this, actually. She wasn’t particularly introspective. Retrospective? Introspective. What I’m trying to say is, Jilly didn’t spend too much time reflecting on the world around her. Full pedal to the floor, gas your ass straight ahead cowboy style was the way Jilly liked things. She threw an ashtray at me the first time I met her.

But things calmed down after that, as much as anything with Jilly could be considered calm. She was like a drummer lazily slapping a snare drum 15 seconds after a song had ended. Like in rehearsal. Sorry, “practice” — my bandmates always hated when I called it rehearsal. But you know what I’m talking about, right? The whole band has stopped the song, it’s over, but the drummer is just slapping that snare still. Pounding in your ear, but you barely hear it because it’s quiet compared to the cacophony that preceded it. Jilly is like that. Like you look around 3 weeks later, and why is she still spending nights on your couch. Weirdo. We would hook up and then she would go sleep on the couch, as if that was a very Christian thing to do. Like we weren’t really sleeping together, ha ha, nudge wink as she lit up another cigarette.

I only started smoking because Jilly liked to do it and I figured I might not mind smelling it all over her if I was doing it myself.