Free Hot Pink by Adam Levin

connective tissue in their legs, it wouldn’t do any good, cause it would make them pitiful and me this dickhead. I was in love with Jenny Wansie so hard. Still am. It really broke my heart. It breaks my heart. Sometimes I call her on the telephone and she talks to me about boys she likes. She sometimes calls me “So La Ti Do.” I told my ma because I didn’t understand. My ma said it was a term of endearment, but my ma thinks I’m the smartest and the handsomest and she thinks that everyone else thinks so, too.
    But Helio used to steal cigarettes for Franco is why him and Franco were friends, and one time Franco asked him to steal a can of butane, too, and when we brought all that loot back to Franco in his garage, he offered for each of us to take a cigarette, which Helio did and I didn’t do, and that’s maybe when Franco and I started our friendship because, right as soon as I said no to the cigarette, Franco said to me that I was a smart kid. He said, “Smart kid.” But if that’s not when we became friends, it was a couple minutes later, after him and Helio were finished smoking.
    We were all just sitting there on Franco’s brown couch in the garage, listening to Franco III yelp about her chain being too short, and Helio said, “Can I put the butane in your lighter?”
    And Franco said, “I don’t got a butane lighter.”
    â€œOh,” Helio said.
    And Franco looked at Helio like he wanted Helio to ask him a question, but Helio’s not so smart—he’s smarter than Gino, but he’s not very smart, especially about people. One time I called him “Hell-io” by accident because I was yawning while I was trying to say his name, and he thought I was making fun of him, even though I was his best friend. He punched me four times in my back because of it and the next day he called me “fat stuff” in front of Jenny Wansie, which was one of the rare occasions where I really beat him up in a home/away situation.
    I said to Franco, “Why’d we steal you this butane if you don’t got a lighter that needs it?”
    Franco said, “So we could huff it.”
    â€œDrugs?” Helio said.
    â€œIt’s not really drugs. It’s a inhalant,” Franco said.
    â€œYou want us to be huffers with you,” Helio said. “You’re a huffer,” he said. He said it fast and mean, with his lips all twisted. He was scared, and he didn’t want us to know. He’s tricky like that, Helio, dishonest about his feelings.
    Then Franco, who was maybe my friend then, or would be in another couple minutes asked me, “What’s wrong with this kid?” He was talking about Helio. Then he said to Helio, “What’s wrong with you, kid? You sound like health class.”
    â€œI don’t want to be a doper,” Helio said. He cracked his knuckles and made his eyes squinty instead of saying “Period,” like, “I don’t want to be a doper. Period.”
    â€œDon’t be stupid,” I said to Helio. “A doper does drugs. This is a inhalant.” I looked at Franco to make sure I had it right, and Franco shot me with both of his pointer fingers.
    â€œExactly!” Franco said. “Now, you huff this butane with us, or you go away. Period. And don’t you ever say I’m a huffer again. Got it?”
    Helio got it. He hugged himself a little, but he stayed on the couch.
    â€œHere,” Franco said. “This is how you do it.” Then he did it.
    The way you do it is that the butane comes in a long metal can with a straight silver metal tip about three quarters the height of my thumb’s length, but a lot skinnier. Then there’s the white plastic tip shaped like a construction cone that’s about half the height of my thumb’s length. The white plastic tip fits over about two thirds of the silver metal tip. Each tip has a hole at the top. When you put