This is the Part Where You Laugh by Peter Brown Hoffmeister Page B

book. Some of your facts are real, right?”
    “All of them are real but the love stuff. The sex stuff. And I try to make those parts ridiculous. I want my guidebook to be disguised history, like a complex basketball play. Entertainment on top, but reality underneath, something about these lives, these women. Complex.”
    “That’s cool,” I say. “I like complex in certain situations. Like basketball.”
    “All right,” Creature says, “like basketball. So give me an example.”
    This is a game we play sometimes. He gives me a challenge, and I have to answer it quickly.
    “All right,” I say. “How about…Let’s see….Set up the high pick like it’s a pick-and-roll for the four and the point. Point baits with a jab step. Roll the four off to the top of the key as the other three run double backdoor cuts. The five screens for the two. The two screens for the three after. So the pick-and-roll is the first bait, and the first backdoor is set up too. Defenders come high and run through. Then the second backdoor is the layin or dunk. Two ball fakes, and the assist comes on a bounce pass or an alley-oop.”
    “Oh, baby.” Creature laughs at me. “You’re as nerdy as I am with writing and Russian history.”
    “Like you always say, Creat, I know what I like.”

MAYBE THIS IS NOTHING?
    The games under the bridge tonight aren’t good, no quality players, and Creature dominates without trying very hard. In one game, the high pick-and-roll fools the other team four times in a row and I hit him for layups and dunks, until it doesn’t fool the other team on the fifth run and I pop a long jumper off the screen.
    Creature shrugs and says, “That kind of night, I guess.”
    There isn’t a single good game.
    Afterward, while we’re unlocking our bikes to go, I see something in the ivy on the lit-up side of the nearby bridge pylon. “Hey, Creat, what is that?”
    He looks. “I don’t know.”
    Something pink. I walk up there. It’s the hood of a jacket. A woman’s jacket. The woman is mostly hidden by the ivy. She’s sloped downhill, her feet high, her head low, and she’s passed out. One sleeve is rolled up and the needle is still in her arm, attached to the syringe.
    Creature says, “Is it her?”
    “No.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yeah.” I kneel down. “What should we do?”
    Creature says, “With a passed-out junkie? Nothing. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”
    “Is she still breathing?”
    “I don’t know,” Creature says. “Come on, baby.”
    I lean in and listen for her breath. Watch her chest to see if it rises and falls, and it does. “She’s still breathing.”
    “Okay, then let’s go. Come on.”
    “No, hold up.” I stand and look at her. Think.
    Creature says, “Look, Travis, I get why you care so much, but really, there’s nothing for us to do here. We can’t fix this or even really help her.”
    I hold up one finger. “Just a minute. I’m gonna turn her right-side up and onto her side.”
    “Why?”
    “So she doesn’t choke if she pukes.”
    “Okay,” Creature says. “Just don’t get poked with that needle or some shit like that, all right? And junkies sometimes have needles in their pockets too.”
    “I know.”
    I take hold of the woman’s ankles and I pull her downhill and rotate her around until her feet are below her head. Then I find an old sweatshirt in the ivy, tilt her on her side, and prop her head up on the sweatshirt. “There,” I say.
    Creature says, “Okay. Now you’re ready to go?”
    “All right.”
    We walk down and get our bikes. Pedal across the river at Maurie Jacobs Park, then over Delta Highway on the Neon Bridge, back to the trailer-park loops.

MISSIONARIES
    I park my bike behind the shed and go inside to make some food. Grandpa’s in the living room watching the game of the night on ESPN. I make a sandwich and go in next to him. Eat and drink a glass of water while the Indians bat during the 7th