The Smoking Section Outside AA

Outside the church on L'Assomption there's a strip of asphalt between the door and the fence where the smokers stand, close enough in to hear the urn going.

You're new. You hold the coffee with both hands and you stand in the light that comes out of the vestibule, and you keep looking at the door like it might shut.

"First meeting?"

"Troisième." Third. Your lighter takes four tries.

We don't get into why. You say you quit on a Sunday because Sundays were already ruined. I say I quit on a Tuesday, which is worse, because Tuesdays were fine.

Inside, somebody starts the Serenity Prayer. Every cigarette on the asphalt goes down at once, six of them, a small synchronized ending nobody planned.

You put a hand on my shoulder on the way in. Not that. Just a hand.

"On y va?"

"On y va."

Every Tuesday after that, ten minutes. We never trade names. I don't know what you do, whether you have kids, whether the shaking stopped. I know you take it black and always leave half an inch in the cup, and I have never once asked why.

Somebody sweeps the asphalt Wednesday mornings. By the next Tuesday it's full again.