10: Andy

“What’s up, Junior?” He pinches his unfiltered cigarette with his thumb and index finger from between his taunt lips. His other hand takes its usual position, casually hooked inside the front pocket in his jeans. But the fact that he can’t fit his swollen hand down into this too small compartment coupled with his unwillingness to let his arm fold at the elbow causes his shoulder to jut up toward his ear. He balances on one foot as he knocks his free heal on the steel toe of the boot planted on the ground. I’ve observed this habitual series of movements each time I walk outside on him taking a smoke.
“Nothin’” I walk toward him, yet I keep my distance from his self-made clouds of toxins.
“Nothin’? What’s wrong with you? Got nothin’ to do?” He waits a second after my lethargic shoulder shrug.
“What are you doing?” Neither of us is too keen on getting the conversation rolling and relies on the same, tired small talk we’ve used my entire life to get our feet wet.
“Smokin’” He points out the obvious and shoots me a shit-eating, half smile meant to taunt me—a warm-up to his routine teasing. He barely turns his head away from me, sticks out just the tip of his tongue, and then immediately recoils it back into his mouth against the spitting force of a small exhale: some dried tobacco found its way from between the rolling paper into his mouth and is now shooting from between his lips.
“Attractive.” I offer the same esteem building observation every time.
He cocks his head to glare at me from a different angle, relaxes his straightened elbow, allowing his shoulder to drop, and refocuses his rigidity by pressing his lips together. It looks as if he’s getting ready to tear me a new one; and maybe if I weren’t his sister he’d tell me how it’s “Nunya….Nunya business” in a tone he saw fitting to the stature of the wise-guy. But as it was, he slaps me with some tough-love warning, “I’ll kick yer ass if you ever thunk about smoking, Sam. A mean it, Boomer, I’ll k i c k y e r a s s.” He breaks eye contact as he looks out into the quiet, residential street and takes another drag from between his two pinched fingers. He squints as if he’s looking for some insightful last liner, but as an alternative he allows a fog of stress-relieving transparent white escape his lungs through the different holes in the front of his face: once again, an attractive look against his rugged dark features.
With the haze lingering around his head, he can barely make out the navy Chevy Suburban pulling in across the street. “She-iit: Holly’s home.” The fact that he curses makes him initially sound like he’s annoyed with his neighbor’s arrival, but his leisurely tone and reluctance to rush inside the sanctuary of his private bachelor pad speaks louder than his words. Holly is just his type.