Free Bad Haircut by Tom Perrotta Page B

grinning like a maniac, still wearing the nose and glasses.
    “Yeah,” said Cockroach. “We walk into McDonald's, and guess who's there?”
    The lifeguard stared at me, pleading with his blue eyes. I felt like I'd stepped outside the boundaries of my own life and would never be allowed back in.
    “Please don't hurt him,” I said.
    Danny's smile disappeared. The lifeguard shut his eyes, bracing himself for pain. I saw myself at the supper table with my parents, trying to explain my innocence.
    “Let him go,” said Zirko.
    The lifeguard opened his eyes. Danny squinted through the fake glasses.
    “Really?”
    Zirko nodded. There was an odd look on his face, like he was disgusted by his own decision.
    Danny withdrew the knife. Without removing the tape from his mouth, the lifeguard got out of the car and stood politely by the curb in his blood-stained coat.
    I watched him out the back window as we drove away. He didn't move a muscle, and I couldn't help thinking how sorry he must have been for what he called me.
    * * *
     
    Neil was still at the playground when Cockroach dropped me off He didn't bother to acknowledge me as I trudged across the snowy field to join him.
    He didn't seem to be having much fun. He'd shoveled off half a court, but it was really too cold to be shooting hoops. His hands were pink and stiff, nearly frozen.
    I grabbed a rebound and threw him a bounce pass. His baseline jumper was short; the whole backboard shivered when the ball struck the rim. I shot a layup with my mitten, then fed him another pass. He caught the ball and held it.
    “That was Zirko, wasn't it?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I thought he was in reform school.”
    “I guess they let him out.”
    “Did you find the kid?”
    “No,” I lied.
    Neil's next shot was an air ball, way too long. It arced past the basket, right into my hands.
    “I wanted to hit him,” he said, “but I couldn't do it.”
    “It's okay. I bled all over his coat.”
    Neil smiled. “That was pretty cool.”
    He tried to spin the ball Globetrotter-style on his fingertip, but it slid right off.
    “Your ball sucks,” he told me.
    “It's not mine. I stole it from a black kid.”
    “Why'd you do that?”
    I shrugged. “Mike Caravello sort of made me.”
    Neil made a face and put up another air ball. He missed his next shot and the one after that. I know I'm wrong, but in my memory it seems like he lost his touch forever on that freezing afternoon. For all his talent, he never made it to national television; he never even made the varsity team at Harding. He's a landscaper now. When I'm home in Darwin I see him driving through town sometimes, towing a trailer full of lawn mowers.
    I never became the football hero I expected to be either. I lasted just one more season, got tired of it, and drifted on to other things. I never saw the lifeguard again, or Danny, or Chucky, or his mother. I did run into Cockroach at a bar once. He was with a girl and asked me to please call him Frank. As for Zirko, there's not a lot to tell. He dropped out of high school and joined the navy, floating far away from Darwin.
    But all that was the future, and the future didn't exist for Neil and me as we tried to salvage the remainder of that freezing Saturday with a game of one on one. The score was 5-3, his favor, when we stopped for a breather at the top of the key.
    “Hey Neil,” I said, “do you have a dog?”
    “Yeah. German shepherd.”
    “Boy or girl?”
    “Girl. Sheba.”
    I bounced the ball a couple of times, searching for a way to phrase my next question. There was a big knot inside of me I was hoping to untangle.
    “Do you like her? Would you be really sad if she died?”
    His gaze traveled up from the ball to my face. He looked hurt.
    “She's only seven.”
    His answer must have satisfied me. I tossed him the ball.
    “Check,” he said, bouncing it right back.
    I gave a pump fake and took it to the hoop.

Forgiveness
     
    F ifteen minutes before the opening kickoff of