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you should take this guy. He can’t even breathe.”
    Stan started the truck and jammed it into gear. “Whoever’s coming, come now,” he said.
    “Really?” Lilly mimed to me.
    Pauly had no such hesitation. He was already on board and digging around in a cooler.
    I went up to her. “You nervous, going with Pauly?”
    She shook her head. “Nope. You think he’s okay. So he must be okay.”
    “Yup,” I said quietly. “You’re gonna love him.”
    So they saddled up and headed out. I walked along, in the scorching summer sun, enjoying the toasted feeling coming over my face. I closed my eyes to it, continued walking, and listened to the goofy tinkling Good Humor music. I wondered what I had just done.
    “Cast thy bread upon the waters …” an old comforting voice came back to me.
    Until half a block away, Stan skidded to a halt. Out popped Lilly. Walking back my way and waving over her shoulder at the truck. But no Pauly. The rat.
    Until one hundred feet further … another skidding stop. The rat.
    And then there were three.

Horse
    W HEN WE WERE KIDS at this school,
    we were famous for this,
    me and Pauly.
    We stunk the joint out
    every time we took to the court,
    and in spite of that,
    we took to the court
    every chance we got.
    Crowds would gather.
    We’d go an hour
    without either of us sinking a shot.
    Still all true.
    Clang , my shot goes off the rim.
    Points were never the point
    of shooting.
    Clang .
    ’Tsamatter with you? Pauly.
    Pauly knows, because he knows me,
    and he knows stuff ,
    and he knows the world,
    and he has this keen perception thing going,
    the way maniac people do.
    He’s not nuts, however.
    But I don’t want him to know.
    Nothing, I tell him.
    I lie because I’m afraid he might help.
    The Lilly is the death flower did you know that,
    Oakley?
    It is Saturday morning,
    sun shining,
    air biting in a nice
    October morning kind of a way,
    and we are shooting
    baskets in the school yard
    of Edna St. Vincent Millay
    Middle School,
    which we attended as kids.
    Vince,
    we called it then and now.
    Lilly’s the death flower, well, yes,
    I suppose I did know that. That is,
    I knew the lilly showed up at funerals a lot.
    I walk behind the basket, and attempt a shot
    right over the backboard.
    It’s a game of horse.
    A twelve-year-long
    game of horse.
    I think we’re on
    the letter O. Possibly I have an R.
    Ever seen one of them? he asks.
    Those funerals where they’re all
    deadly dramatic
    and put a lilly flower
    in the dead guy’s
    hands?
    Ever seen one of them?
    He is not within range of the basket.
    He has to throw the ball
    like a football for it to even come close.
    He does,
    and it doesn’t.
    You went out without me, he says,
    watching me retrieve and square
    up for another shot.
    His hands are on his hips, and he walks
    toward me without any sense
    of purpose at all.
    Defense is not really an issue with us.
    You know I hate that, when you go out without
    me.
    I know you do, I say, and throw the ball
    clean over the backboard.
    And still, you do it anyway, he says,
    in such a sincere voice
    I could laugh or bow my head
    in shame.
    As a compromise
    I bow my head
    and laugh.
    Unamused,
    arms akimbo,
    he lets me chase
    my own miss.
    I pick up the ball, rest it on my hip,
    and look back across to where my friend waits.
    He stares at me,
    I stare at him.
    I sit on the curb.
    He sits on the court.
    Time
    out.
    To think about what I’ve done.
    Or to think about what I haven’t.
    This is what he wants. My all.
    Because that is what he donates. His all.
    Time out.
    I don’t need a lot.
    I get back up and walk over.
    No Pauly, I say, I have never seen one of those
    funerals
    deadly dramatic
    where they place in lilly-white hands
    a bone-white lilly.
    And neither have you.
    Okay I haven’t, he says, but I have thought
    plenty
    about being buried with Lilly.
    Christ Pauly,
    is all I say
    and all I should have to say.
    Even he should know.
    We have set up about ten feet apart, and are
    just