“She was doing Jonesy last year, but then they broke up and she threw a rock through his window and he took a dump on her front step and then they dated again and then more stuff got broken and I think she hit him? And I think he hit her back, and then she started hanging out less with us and more with the trash up on Grainger . . .”

A shape moves past the phone booth. Like a polar bear swimming past the glass in a zoo enclosure.

“Good story,” Atlanta mumbles. “I’ll call you back.”

“Wait, where are you—”

She hangs up the phone and watches Tressa “the Cooch” Kucharski go into the U.S. Gas.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

First she thinks, I’ll go in after her. Baton-whip the candy bar or whatever she’s buying out of her hand, knock her teeth down her throat, make a real scene. But there might be cameras in there. She can’t see any out here, so she decides to wait instead, standing next to the phone booth, anxiously extending and collapsing her baton.

Tressa’s in there for five minutes, but it feels like five hours.

When she comes out, girl’s got a pack of American Spirit cigarettes in one hand and a Monster energy drink in the other, with what looks like a big bundle of Slim Jims under one arm. The Cooch checks her cell phone, pops it into her back pocket, then begins tapping the cigarette pack before sliding one out and screwing it between her dark, sluggy lips. Thumb on lighter. Flick. Flick. Flick.

Atlanta steps up, pokes her in the back with the baton.

Tressa wheels, dropping her Bic in the process. The unlit cigarette hangs from her mouth, stuck to the inside of her lip the way a kid’s tongue might get stuck to a frozen goalpost.

They stand that way for a while. In silence. Atlanta pointing the baton at her like it’s a gun.

Tressa speaks first, and when she does, the cigarette falls and cartwheels into a puddle. “Oh. Hey, Atlanta.”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“What’s your deal?” Tressa swallows hard. Looks left, looks right. Finger tapping and scratching the top of the energy-drink can. “I don’t mess with your shit.”

“No, but I’m about to mess with yours. Lemme ask you—you like torturing animals? You one of those fucked-up people who likes to burn ants with match tips or stick firecrackers up a cat’s ass? Make you feel all big and powerful when in reality you’re just small and sad?”

“It’s not like that.”

“So tell me what it’s like.”

“I don’t torture the dogs. It’s not a . . . torture thing.”

“Sure it ain’t.” She steps forward, lifts the baton under Tressa’s chin.