2 - Ishkode (Fire)
We’d left the woods and walked onto a strip of beach about 20 feet by 20 feet. In the center of this area was the fire struggling to stay lit. A ring of blackened rocks, stained by earlier fires, surrounded the pitiful little flames the two guys had built.
Derek and James were puffing on their cigarettes. They offered to share with John Ray but he turned them down. And then I remembered—John Ray doesn’t smoke.
“I like doing sports, guys, and Coach would kill me if he knew I’d been doing that stuff,” I had overheard him tell his buddies in the school hallway. Everybody at school knew John Ray trained all year and between track and basketball, football, soccer and boxing, he didn’t have much time to fool around. The other boys admired him but they’d never admit it.
I d
