David’s dead mom whacks him with her chancla, but her chancla died with her so it’s not a big deal. At least not a big enough deal it keeps us from telling yo mama jokes—

Yo mama’s so old her first drawing’s on a cave wall.

Yo mama’s so stupid she asked if her pregnancy test would be open book.

Yo mama’s so busted she’s legally obligated to wear an Under Construction sign on a necklace.

We go ooooooooooooooooohh while David’s dead mom takes another swing at his temple. It passes through him without displacing a single strand of his long black hair.

David used to cut his hair short but hasn’t been to the barber since she died. She was the only thing keeping their lives together. He said so one day when we were fucking around in the alleyway, right before he vaporized an empty beer bottle with a baseball bat.

The funny thing is she’s around more than ever now that she’s dead. Except she’s more window reflection than human. Her shout comes out silence. Even her stare, which used to shake us in our kicks, moves nothing in us now.

It's been like this for months. Her following us wherever we go. Like when we stole 40s of Olde E from the corner store. Or the time we spray-painted the garages with our tags—NUTZ, BLOB, BLAZE, BLUNT—until our heads buzzed from the fumes. There was also one night when we nearly got to second base with the D’Amato triplets from 3C, but she showed up and spooked them straight back to Jesus. Made them collect their clothing from the floor in shamed snaps, holding the clothes to their bodies like Eve with her leaves after getting ejected from the Garden of Eden.

We hoped tonight would be one of the nights she haunts David’s dad instead. Because Junior stole a pack of cigarettes from his brother’s work jeans. The plan is to smoke them in the handball courts. We’ve been trading squints. Waiting for a signal to ditch her. And in a moment communicated through a tongue click, we’re off, jetting across 20th Avenue. We don’t wait for a green light. And we look back at David’s dead mom trying but failing to keep up. In a blink, a Lincoln Town Car pummels her, vaporizes her just like that beer bottle. Splitting her into the tiniest particles, a mist even, and the last bit of sun shines through her, turning the evening aglitter.

After, David is all celebratory. He lights up the first smoke and inhales until laughs burst out in coughs. He spits on the handball court while declaring his freedom. Says now he can get naked with the prettiest D’Amato triplet without his dead mom cockblocking again. And we smoke the bitter cigarette without talking. Without so much as acknowledging each other’s existence. And it doesn’t take long to hear David crying. The way he chokes on his tears worse than the smoke. Normally, we’d make fun of him. Call him a fucking pussy—like that time when his alive mom dressed him in a lavender shirt for his confirmation. But we don’t do that now. We say nothing. Because his feelings laid bare are a reminder of how many we have inside us too, and if he needs to cry, then we could be next.

I can’t take his whimpering much longer, so I say, Yo mama’s so dead, her farts go BOO!

No one laughs. But David stops crying long enough to snort his sadness into the back of his throat. We all take turns slapping him on the back, harder than we should, until he turns into the David we’re used to, the one who now double dares us to smoke the whole pack before the sun goes all the way down past the horizon, which is a dumb way to put it because even if there is a horizon, there’s no way to see it from here.