“Don’t say I didn’t offer,” Fellis said. He then tried to give it to me, but I flashed him my pint and then took a small burning swig.

Fellis drank the tall boy and then he shone the phone’s light in Meekew’s face. He squinted, and like the squirrel he was named after, Meekew had no indent between the bridge of his nose up to his brow.

“Let me get a gram,” Fellis said. “Sixty, right?”

“I’m not selling grams right now,” Meekew said. “Only balls. You were the last person I sold grams to.”

Fellis set his beer against a tree. “Is that why the bag was a little light?” he said.

I pulled from the pint.

“What are you saying?” Meekew said.

“I bet you don’t rip white boys off,” Fellis said.

Meekew waved a hand and turned to leave.

“I’m messing with you,” Fellis said, and I started laughing. Fellis was full of shit.

“Find me another time,” Meekew said.

“Just wait,” Fellis said. He reached into his pocket and took out his money. “Dee, front me some cash.”

“I’m out,” I said. “Spent the rest on your beers.”

Fellis counted what he had. Meekew waited between two crooked pines. “Here,” Fellis said. “I got seventy-one. I have more at my place and I can get it to you tomorrow.”

“I don’t sell that way,” Meekew said. “You know that.”

Fellis stepped toward him. “Take it,” he said. He stuffed the money into Meekew’s pockets, and when Meekew took it out Fellis wouldn’t take it back. I sipped the Smirnoff.

“Here,” Meekew said.

Fellis backed up. “No.”

Meekew threw the bills in Fellis’s face, and Fellis jumped forward and grabbed him by the arms. Back and forth, their bodies rocked and smacked together. Punches flew one after the other. Fellis fell down and picked up a stick and swung, but Meekew dodged and rammed his shoulder into Fellis’s stomach and lifted him into the air and slammed him down so hard that all the air in Fellis shot out. Meekew turned to leave, but Fellis wasn’t done. He kicked Meekew’s knees and he buckled. Fellis was tired—his punches were slow and had no power. Meekew wasn’t, and with great ease he grabbed Fellis, turned him around, and held him in a headlock.

I was about ready to step in, but I wanted to see Fellis get his ass kicked. Fellis’s phone had landed in the mud, but the light pointed away and shined on the wet trees so it was difficult to make him out. I could see that Fellis was on his knees, hands trying to peel Meekew’s forearm from his throat. Meekew stood strong behind him, and he kept squeezing. Fellis was talking shit—“fucking white boy, fucking punk”—so he must have had his chin tucked down good, preventing a sleeper.

I was laughing, sipping my pint. In the semi-dark, Meekew pulled his fist back and drove hammer-handed into Fellis’s thigh. Fellis let out a horrendous, high-pitched scream that muffled the rushing river.