The day I made a fat kid cry...

Taka and I were sitting with our backs against the chain link fence which bordered the tennis court in my apartment complex. Marc and Tobias were whacking the tennis ball back and forth with skill nearing that of Agassi and Sampras. Marc and Tobias were both excellent tennis players. This was due, no doubt, to the professional tennis lessons of their youth (spoiled European kids).

Taka flicked me one of his Kool Menthol cigarettes and we proceeded to watch Marc run Tobias all over the court. Soon Marc would show Tobias who his daddy was and then it would be mine and Taka's turn. Though Taka and I weren't hotshots like Marc and Tobias, more like Rosanne Barr in a match against Christopher Reeve (God, I'm awful!).

I took a long drag off my cigarette and glanced at my pathetic racket with peeling handle grip tape. Taka cringed as Tobias ran into the fence, the tennis ball bouncing under the fence and rolling into the parking lot.

Tobias cursed in a thick German accent and headed toward the gate to fetch the ball. But just as Tobias rounded the corner, a chubby kid, soaked from pool water, splashed over and scooped the ball up. After several failed attempts to toss the ball over the fence, the kid clumped over and handed the ball to Tobias, a large grin on his pumpkin face. I'm horrible at deciding a kid's age but he was somewhere between too-young-to-smoke and too-old-to-wear-diapers. But what I do remember is that he was big--like double D Kool-Aid big. And instead of heading back to the pool, the kid slapped down on the pavement between Taka and I. Hanging with the older kids now.

There were lots of pebbles on the edge of the court, kicked in from the flowerbed. Taka was tossing them up into the air, then catching them again, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Soon the fat kid made a game of snatching the pebbles out of the air before they could be recaptured by Taka.

I joined in the tossing game, and the fat kid giggled as he bounced between Taka and I, fists clasping airborne pebbles, while Marc made a mockery of Tobias in the background. The smoke from my cigarette was getting in my eye and the ash fell from the shrinking butt.

That's when I got the idea. The horrible and nasty spur of the moment trick to toss my dying cigarette into the air with a handful of pebbles. Of course, I did. And of course the fat kid caught it.

It took a good half second before the kid grasped why the palm of his hand felt like a burning coal; but when he did he tossed the pebbles, with cigarette butt, at the fence and shot me the foulest, most hurt-filled glare.

"I hate you!" were the only words that stumbled from his trembling mouth as he blubbered and stomped away.

Taka gave me a wide-eyed stare and then laughed in his squeaky, too-many-beers-in-one-lifetime laugh. I laughed too. But I felt like a big jerk. I stopped smoking six years later. But I still feel sort of bad for making a fat kid cry.