Free Kids of Appetite by David Arnold Page B

last time he’d had a customer.
    The sky was still that cold gray, the color of a slow death, but at least it had stopped snowing for a beat. I lit another cigarette just as Harry Connick Jr., Jr., reappeared, floating the other way now. “You taking shortcuts, Junior?”
    â€œWho are you talking to?”
    â€œShit!” I dropped my lighter in a narrow gap between two beams of the bridge, heard it plop into the stream below. “
Dude
.”
    â€œSorry,” said Vic, sitting next to me, his bloody jeans wadded in his lap. “You shouldn’t smoke anyway. It gives you cancer.”
    I smoke-glared at him as I took the next drag. Hold, exhale, keep up the glare. “Lots of things give you cancer.”
    â€œTrue. But some things do so with a much higher rate of efficiency than others.”
    â€œWhat would you know about it?”
    He looked down at the stream when I noticed what he’d changed into: blue sweatpants. They had a Mets logo on the right thigh and elastic bands around his ankles that made the fabric bunch up like a bouquet around his lace-up boots.
    â€œThey’re my Metpants,” he said.
    I laughed a little puff of smoke. “Your what?”
    â€œMetpants.”
    There was just something so patently awesome about Vic wearing these pants, as if he’d glimpsed the world’s stockpile of ammunition against him, shrugged, and tossed an extra crossbow onto the heap for good measure.
    Metpants
. Vic’s double-bird to the world. I loved it.
    And just then I wished I’d given each of those kids on the bridge a swift kick in the junk.
    He rolled his eyes around for a second, but only up and down, not side to side. I’d seen him do this a few times now, but it still took me off guard.
    â€œWho’s
Junior
?” he asked.
    As if summoned by the god of goldfish himself, Harry Connick Jr., Jr., appeared below our feet.
    â€œ
That
,” I said, “is Junior. He’s our goldfish. I named him Harry Connick Jr., Jr.”
    â€œAfter the singer?”
    â€œYep. And actor. That guy does not quit. He’s everywhere, especially during the holidays. Anyway, this summer there were dozens of goldfish, now this is the only one. Here, look.” I pointed about twenty feet upstream to a red object that resembled an upside-down salad bowl floating in the water. “That’s a de-icer. It keeps the water at a high enough temperature to not freeze over. The thing is Gunther only put in one de-icer this year, which isn’t nearly enough. So one by one the fish started dying until it was less Channel àla Goldfish and more Plague à la Goldfish. They just couldn’t survive.”
    â€œExcept Harry Connick Jr., Jr.”
    I nodded. “The fish who does not quit.”
    Drag.
    Blow.
    Calm.
    â€œI like your greenhouse,” said Vic.
    â€œIt’s weird, I know.”
    â€œNot that weird.”
    I gave him a classic
Are you kidding me?
look.
    â€œOkay.” He nodded. “It’s pretty weird. But cool.”
    â€œAnyway, it’s not permanent—just until we can afford better.”
    Drag.
    Blow.
    Calm.
    â€œI used to stare at this place,” whispered Vic. He pointed across the street. “I sat right there on that stone wall and stared at this orchard.”
    â€œReally? You ever see us?”
    He shook his head. “It was a while back. My grandparents used to live in this neighborhood, but they’re—” He stopped abruptly, looked down at the stream. “Anyway. I thought it was kind of a weird bump.”
    â€œBump?”
    â€œCoincidence.”
    Vic pulled out his handkerchief, wiped the bottom corner of his mouth, and that was when I saw the scabs on his right wrist. There were five or six, varying in length, but all very thin. They weren’t scars like the one on my head. And I had a friend in high school who cut herself regularly—this wasn’t that either. These