Part 7 (2/2)
”You want to shoot with me?” For a quick second I thought he --1 meant guns, but he held the basketball up with the invite.
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”Really?” I didn't know if my apprehension was because I hated sports or I didn't want to look stupid in front of him.
”Yeah. It's fun to play here because the baskets are so low. It makes me feel like a giant.”
”You are a giant,” I noted.
”Get out of the car already,” he commanded. I obeyed.
This close, our height diff erence was noticeable. I had to look up to talk to him. I was glad it wasn't the other way around because that would make me on constant booger alert.
We walked together to the nearby basketball court, and he was right: It was knid of fun to feel superior to the baskets.
”This almost makes me want to join a basketball team,” I told him as we lay down on a gra.s.sy berm for a rest. ”Like, one for six- year- olds.”
Leo laughed a small, inward laugh and pulled out a pack of ciga- rettes from his jacket pocket. He held the pack out to me as an off er.
I hesitated. ”When in Rome.” I shrugged. ”Or an elementary school parking lot.”
He put both cigarettes in his mouth, lighting them at the same time. He pa.s.sed one over to me, and I held it between my fi ngers. I never imagined a cigarette would feel so light and insignifi cant. It seemed like such a constant crutch in so many lives, I thought it would have more substance to it. I gingerly held the cigarette up to my lips, as it had been to Leo's, and took a tentative inhale. Then I coughed like the inexperienced a.s.shole I was. ”d.a.m.n. Why do you bother with this? My mouth tastes like I just sucked on a t.u.r.d.”
He laughed his quiet laugh again and said, ”It gets better once -1- you get used to it.”
0- ”That's stupid. That's like when someone tells you, 'He seems
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like a p.r.i.c.k at fi rst, but he's really nice once you get to know him.'
Why bother?”
”I guess because it also gets addictive once you get used to it.”
”What about”- I wished I didn't say it-”cancer?”
”It's just death, man. Cancer or not, I'll die.” He lay back into the gra.s.s and puff ed smoke into the sky.
I lay down next to him, my arm touching his jacket sleeve. I won- dered if he could feel it. ”I don't want to talk about death right now,”
I told him.
”What do you want to talk about?”
I kept the cigarette in my hand and tried fl icking off the ashes as they burned in the wind. I didn't smoke any more of it.
”Did you go to school here?” I asked Leo.
”No. We moved away before and after grade school. My older brother, Jason, went here, though.”
”He's in Af ghan i stan, right?” I asked, the not- so- subtle stalker.
”How'd you know?” he asked. When I paused to answer, he continued, ”I don't want to talk about him right now.”
”So what do you want to talk about?”
”You like horror movies, right?” Smoke wafted out of Leo's mouth as he spoke.
”Yeah. How'd you know?” Welcome to the mutual stalkers society.
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