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demanded two things: that I drive them somewhere else where they could roll and smoke another of their ridiculous joints, and that the night could not end until they’d fired off the green smoke grenade in the water of the David H. Wilson Senior High School swimming pool.
    *   *   *
    Wilson was completely dark when we got there. On the drive, Bosten kept playing around with Paul’s smoke grenade, just to annoy me. It wasn’t a good idea because I drove the front wheels into the curb twice, which made Paul spill some of his pot down onto the plastic floor mats of my parents’ car.
    â€œJesus. Isn’t the street wide enough for you, Stick?” Paul complained.
    And from the backseat, Bosten kept goading, “I wonder what would happen if I pulled this ring out while we were still driving?”
    â€œWe would all die. That’s what,” I said.
    Swerve.
    â€œBut         it            would look bitchin’, I bet,” he answered.
    â€œDid it!” Paul proudly held up a crooked and spit-sogged joint.
    The second joint didn’t make them as stupid as the first. Maybe they were getting numb, I thought. I knew I was. My hands were frozen stiff while I stood with Bosten and Paul out in the field behind the pool. I shoved them so far down into the cross-pocket of my sweatshirt that my fingers cupped beneath my crotch.
    I didn’t watch the boys while they smoked their weed, but I couldn’t help being irritated by the annoying smell and the sounds of their strained and slobbered sucking on the joint. I kept my eyes on the pool. Even without any lights on at all, I could see the foggy gray steam from the water rising up above the top of the spiked iron fence that enclosed the swimming and diving arena.
    I thought a warm bath would have been really nice at that moment.
    â€œTime to go,” Paul said.
    He held the grenade in his right hand, cocked like a spring behind him, as my brother followed him to the edge of the fence. They must have choreographed this ahead of time, I thought, because while Paul held the canister at the ready, Bosten poked his finger through the wire ring.
    Bosten said, “Ready?”
    â€œGo!”
    Bosten pulled the wire.
    Smoke instantly swallowed Paul’s hand.
    He hurled the grenade up into the night.
    It hit the top of the fence, with a sound like dink!
    Hissing and spewing, it bounced back and landed in the grass between the three of us.
    The last thing I clearly saw was Bosten, falling down in a heap of laughter. As the world disappeared into a noxious green haze, I could hear my brother giggling.
    â€œGoddamn basketball player who throws like a girl!”
    And Paul, laughing equally hard. “Shut up! That thing              fucking scared me,             and it’s heavier than shit!”
    I crawled out from the smoke on my hands and knees, crouching when I finally found my way into a patch of clear air.
    â€œYou guys are both so stupid. Can we please go home now?”
    But Paul and Bosten just rolled around in the dark greenness, laughing like they’d never stop.

DAD AND MOM
    It was just a few minutes before midnight when Bosten and I got home.
    Dad and Mom were waiting for us.
    They didn’t see that it wasn’t Bosten at the wheel, parking the car in its spot next to Dad’s Pontiac. There was no way they’d know about how I snaked my hand up behind the dashboard and reconnected the wire to the odometer, or that I’d carefully shaken out the floor mats of all the marijuana Paul had spilled while trying to spastically craft a joint.
    They didn’t need to know any of that, because they knew enough already.
    Maybe once per week things exactly like this happened in our house.
    Dad had his belt off, folded in his fist, before we even came in from the mudroom.