WAITING FOR ME OUTSIDE

One night when I was 16 I bribed my brother with a joint for a ride across town.

Usually I would have walked, but it was raining, and I had a party I needed to get to, dryly.

“Wait about 20 minutes— I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

So I retreated to my bedroom and started listening to Strange Days.

My brother came into the room right as When the Music’s Over ended. “Come on.”

I rolled off my bed and spun out of my bedroom into the hallway. My brother was blocking the way, so I came to a stop on the clear plastic runner that covered the carpet.

“Don’t you even listen to your own music?” he said.

I paused for a few beats, and then realized that he was telling me to turn off the light in my bedroom (“When the music’s over/Turn out the lights”).

And I fear, my friends, that this was the cleverest thing I ever heard Jeff say...