cause we’re not in Korea or are in Chicago or people are lazy or two of those reasons. Gino’s dad Sun’s the owner of Theo’s, and summer afternoons, he leaves Gino alone there. We went in at three, when the place was the deadest, and Franco said we wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. Right as soon as Gino started making them, though, Franco told him on second thought to make that three sandwiches, so Gino started making a third one too, except then what Franco said was what he’d meant was three apiece, and Gino stopped moving. He was over by the fryer, facing away from us, his hand on the scoop dug into the butter tub. “What,” Franco told him. Gino got back to work. Grabbed bread and cheese from the rack on the counter. “For to go,” Franco said. He lit up a cigarette. I passed him an ashtray. A bunch were stacked up on the garbage cans behind us. “Thanks, yo,” he said. “Hey, check this ashtray. Gino’s dad stole.” That was probably true—all the ashtrays at Theo’s were Burger King ashtrays, the chintzy aluminum kind with crimped edges—and it’s not like I was really that tight with Gino, but we sometimes hung out when no one else was available, and I used to have some classes with him up till last year when we started the seventh and they tracked me into gifted, so I didn’t want to stand there and trash-talk his dad, but you can’t ignore Franco, so I had to do something, so I made a lippy face with my mouth and I shrugged.
