They all glance at one another. Sure, we’ve had some BS with Joey Rosa kids over the years, always getting into fights whenever they invite themselves over to our block, but I can tell Thomas isn’t like them.
Skinny-Dave doesn’t care about the rivalry. “You know Troy? He still with Veronica?”
“I know him, but I don’t like him,” Thomas answers. “My neighbor Andre was pissed at Troy for some reason and I overheard him asking Veronica what she saw in him and she had no idea what he was talking about.”
“YES!” Skinny-Dave jumps. “I knew that fucker was lying. I should go call her.”
Thomas scratches his head. “I hate to break it to you, but she’s seeing Andre now.” We all laugh at Skinny-Dave who falls back into his seat.
“How’d the rest of the manhunt game go?” he asks me. “You win?”
“I got caught ten minutes later,” I say. I sit back down with Genevieve and hold her hand. She pulls away—and then I see why: she’s holding out her palm as a landing place for a firefly. It’s easy to forget it’s there when it’s not glowing, until all of a sudden it comes back and surprises you; it reminds me of grief.
“Did you know fireflies glow for mating purposes?” Thomas says.
“Nope,” I say. “I mean, I believe you, I just didn’t know that.”
“Imagine if we could glow to attract a mate instead of spraying on cologne that chokes everyone in a fifty-foot radius,” he says, which is weird since I don’t think his cologne smells all that bad.
“Aaron and Genevieve know enough about mating,” Nolan throws out.
Genevieve flips Nolan off, again. “Did you all know fireflies also glow to lure prey? It’s basically the equivalent of a girl who gets you to follow her into an alley with her great ass, and then eats you.”
“What a crazy fun fact.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders in the hopes she’ll never eat my head off in an alley because I never realized girlfriends existed in the same predatory universe as hungry fireflies.
Me-Crazy bullies Baby Freddy into going to Good Food’s to buy another handball since he knocked the other onto the roof earlier during the baseball match. They go back and forth for a while until Thomas reaches into his pocket, pulls out a dollar, and hands it to Me-Crazy. It’s a thank-you to everyone for letting him crash Family Day. Me-Crazy nods, doesn’t thank him, and hands it to Baby Freddy—who sucks his teeth, victorious enough that he didn’t have to buy another ball with his own money, but still enough of a loser that he has to go get it. When he returns from Good Food’s, he bounces the handball over to Me-Crazy.
“Now what?”
“Suicide,” Me-Crazy says in a low growl, which sounds fucking crazy even without the growl, but he’s not actually suggesting we all somehow use this handball to kill ourselves because that would be a) insensitive to me—not that he cares, I guess—and b) impossible.
Genevieve looks up at me as if we’re all some cult run by Me-Crazy.
“It’s a game,” I tell her.
How to Play Suicide: It’s every man for himself. Someone throws a handball against the wall, it bounces back, and if that ball touches the ground, someone else throws it. But if someone catches it, the original thrower has to race to the wall and shout “Suicide!” before anyone has a chance to bean them.
“ . . . and the game goes on until you’re the last one standing,” Brendan explains to Genevieve.
“Sounds barbaric,” she says.
“You can opt out of a beaning,” Baby Freddy says.
He’s right. There’s a rule we reserve for girls and younger kids, where instead of hitting them with the ball you try and throw the ball against the wall before they reach it and eliminate them that way.
“Or you can not play at all,” I offer. I don’t want to see what happens when she’s running to the wall when Me-Crazy is armed.
“I can handle it,” she says.
“You ever play this?” I ask Thomas.
“Been a few years.”
We walk over to the wall under my window. There’s a white residue fogging up one panel because of our shitty air conditioner or something. You can see a couple of my sketchbooks sitting on top of a pile of comics next to my dad’s trophies.
Me-Crazy throws the ball first. It’s possible no one caught it on purpose in case you hit him too hard and he flips out. Nolan throws the ball next and Brendan and Baby Freddy bump into each other trying to catch it while both making contact with the ball. Nolan is safe whereas Brendan and Baby Freddy book it to the wall. I quickly snatch up the ball and bean Baby Freddy.
He’s out.
Brendan shouts “Suicide!” before someone else can sweep up the ball and hit him too. But shouting “Suicide!” on Family Day is a poor move. Everyone, especially my mom and brother, are instantly hyperalert as to whether or not I’ve you-know-what’d myself. It takes a moment for them to realize we’re playing a game they’ve begged us to rename over and over through the years.
The game goes on. Fat-Dave manages to eliminate Nolan, Deon, and Skinny-Dave because, overweight or not, he has a pitcher’s aim. He throws the ball and Genevieve catches it.
“Don’t miss,” I beg her.
Genevieve throws the ball, and, well, it’s good to know if we ever get into a big fight where she’s threatening to throw a knife at me I won’t have to move a single muscle.