Big Mikey reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red and white box. He opened it, tapped it gently with his palm, removed a small white tube with his lips, and stuffed the box back in his shirt. He flipped open a smaller packet that contained small protrusions with red tips. He expertly bent one tip over and scraped it along the base of the packet.
The red tip popped into flame, which startled Taine, who stared with renewed attention as Big Mikey lit the end of the white tube. A cloud of whitish smoke whirled around the cabin, and the air was suddenly perfumed with the surprising odor of this burning stick.
"What is that?!?"
"It's a cigarette. They're pretty stale. You want one?"
"You breathe that smoke?" Taine was incredulous.
"As often as I can." Big Mikey stated with certainty.
"Why?"
Big Mikey turned and lifted his head slightly in a gesture to the rear seat. "Why don't you tell him, Wade?"
"You like sex, kid?" Wade's response was cryptic, and un-useful to Taine.
"I've never had sex. I mean, with someone else. I mean I never met anyone..."
"Well, having a cigarette is like having sex," he continued without waiting for Taine to finish. "The first time is lousy, but it keeps getting better and better."
"I can see we have a lot of work to do here, Wade!" Big Mikey interrupted. "So you want to try one?"
Taine thought for a moment, and decided that the magic was too much for him to experience at once. "I'll wait for another time, but thanks for offering."
"Don't mention it. These smokes are pitiful' bad anyway. They are way old!"
They passed over a small summit, and ahead, the rest of the convoy appeared before them. They had caught up with the long string of trucks at last.
"…And not much farther to the city," Big Mikey announced. Then he went to work with his phone.
With Big Mikey preoccupied, and Wade largely uninterested in talking, Taine turned his attention to the darkening exterior. The occasional ruins outside became more frequent, and now Taine saw some lights of occupied buildings nearby. With the sun now gone, color was disappearing from the ground, and individual plants and rocks were getting hard to see. But a more subtle lighting, independent of the sun's glow, now began to dominate the landscape. Big Mikey turned on the headlights, which brightened a patch of road ahead of the vehicle.
The rest of the vehicles ahead were alight with the speckled glow of small red taillights. The moving display was fascinating to Taine. Ahead, beyond a slight rise, a diffuse reddish glow appeared to challenge the encroaching darkness. Even with the excitement of the display itself, there was a familiarity of that glow that irritated Taine's consciousness much the way a fly would do, buzzing around his head.
"What is that glow?" he wondered aloud.
"You'll see," came the reply from the back seat. As they rounded the last hill in the gathering dusk, the glow ahead suddenly erupted in a frenzied display as the city came into view all at once. The nearest building was still miles away, but a neon sign saying, "Welcome to Las Vegas, Nevada", pulsed before them. Below the large billboard, someone had propped up a smaller sign, that Taine strained to read against the increasing darkness and the brilliant competition above.
"What's that lower one say? 'Abandon hope, all ye…," I can't make it out."
They whipped by, and the sign was gone.
"Who knows. Forget about it!"
Wade worked a cigarette of his own, nursing every last bit of the precious smoke into his lungs.
And the three rode into the city