Free Flings by Justin Taylor

all the rules we had to follow were stupid, and every last one of our wards was a head case, doomed to fail at life.
    â€œWell, there’s Alana at least,” I said. “In that bathing suit.”
    â€œFuck that,” Isaac said. “Fuck that bitch and her fucking attitude.” He was mad because she’d banned him from picking up the kids’ afternoon snack from the commissary. This was a job he loved doing—the only job he loved doing, indeed the only job he did—because it meant he could swing by the pay phone in the lobby and call back whoever had beeped him since lunch; plus it meant he got to choose the snack. Isaac picked Nutty Bars every time. Nutty Bars were kind of like giant Kit Kat bars crossed with some Reese’s knockoff you’d find at Dollar Tree. Alana hated Nutty Bars. She described them, with uncharacteristic candor, as packing foam filled with imitation peanut butter and slathered in genuine dog shit. Isaac refused to take Alana’s preference into account, so she had decreed that picking up afternoon snack was my job now. Personally, I didn’t care what the snack was because I didn’t eat it. I brought clementines from home and ate those. Which reminded me—I still had one left! I took it out of my pocket and stuck my thumb into the rind and unraveled it in a long thin spiral, unbroken, while Isaac loaded us up a new bowl with weed from the bag he’d just sold me. We sat there passing the bowl back and forth, the only sounds the flick of the lighter, the low whistle of the carb, and the buzz of the woods: dragonflies, birds, and mosquitoes; squirrels scrambling through the carpet of fallen leaves. We never once talked about his brother, or the fact that we had used to be friends.
    The next day was a Friday and Isaac was absent from camp. I couldn’t believe how much better the day went. Alana and I made a good team—no, a great one. I did whatever she asked me to and made her laugh. When I picked up the snack I got her favorite: those chocolate cupcakes with white frosting in the center and the curlicue of icing across the top.
    Benjamin Schneer came up to me holding a big piece of green construction paper covered in close-set curving purple lines, like something halfway between Arab calligraphy and a pile of intestines. It was one of his mazes. He held the paper flat on the palm of one hand like a tiny waiter; in his other hand was a yellow crayon for me to use. “I forgot to make an exit on this one,” he said solemnly, “but you can still try.” So I sat there and worked my way through his sealed maze while he watched me, making all the wrong turns and hitting all the dead ends until every purple pathway was filled with a yellow line. I put the crayon down. He took the paper back and walked away without saying another word.
    Before we knew it Alana and I had strapped our last kid into her car seat and were walking together through the parking lot. I asked her if she wanted to get high and her eyes lit up. She asked if there was somewhere we could go. I told her there was and she said she’d follow me.
    I didn’t want to go to the park in case Isaac was there, so I decided to bring Alana to my spot under the road. I had never shown it to anyone before and felt like this made our outing into a kind of adventure. We parked our cars at my house and walked down the block. I went down the embankment first, offering my hand to her to help her down, and we continued to hold hands as I showed her the skinny oak that made the mirror tree, then led her around the corner and onto the concrete ledge. We sat with our legs hanging out over the water and our backs against the curved stone wall, which felt cool through my shirt even though it was a hot day. Naturally, I gave her greens.
    â€œOh, wow,” she said, coughing out a thick cloud of smoke. “This shit is great. I thought you were never going to ask