“How much are cigarettes?”
“What kind?”
“Does it make a difference?” Pete asks.
“Name brands are $2.26, generics are… what, $1.75?”
“Gimme a pack of Camels.” He leans across the counter and reaches past me into the cigarette rack overhead. His body smells like you’d expect from the body of a man who sleeps in the woods and drinks too much and smokes a lot of pot and doesn’t take many showers, and I lean away as his wiry arm waves around like a blind eyestalk hunting down Camels by sight.
“You gonna pay for them tonight?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Can I borrow $2.26?”
“It’s not borrowing if you don’t pay it back.”
“What do you care?”
“It comes out of my paycheck, Pete!”
“So shut up and give me your paycheck.”
“Here’s your Camels,” I sigh, sliding the pack across the glass. “You need matches?”
“No!” he says, indignant. “I have my own matches!”