Fireball by Tyler Keevil Page A

can’t be good at something you hate. If he wanted to, he could have practised frisbee for a week and he’d have been better than anybody. He didn’t bother, though. Just looking at a frisbee made him want to fight somebody. So what we did at the beach was the same as what we did at the river: we lazed around. We’d find a sunny spot on the grass and put on our shades and light up.
    â€˜Man, what a scorcher.’ Jules took off his hat to wipe his forehead. Underneath his hair was all wet and spiky, like a baby chicken’s. ‘How’s that bowl coming, Chris?’
    â€˜It’s coming in your mouth.’
    The sun had stopped dead, directly overhead, like a white-hot nail pounded into the sky. Light smashed down against the water, shattering into these blinding shards. Stepping onto the sand was like sticking your foot into a pit of coals. That’s how hot it was – too hot to move, too hot to doze, too hot to do anything but lie there and get ridiculously stoned.
    â€˜Hit this, Razor. It’s blazing.’
    Chris handed me his pipe – one of those glass pipes with psychedelic patterns in it. I sucked hard on the mouthpiece. Smoke scalded along my throat and filled my lungs. I didn’t exhale. I just sat there with a tingling tightness in my chest as the pipe passed from me to Julian to Chris. When it came back to me, I coughed up smoke and took another hoot, and another, holding it in longer each time. After the next one my head rush didn’t wear off. I knew what that meant.
    â€˜Razor?’
    Chris offered me the pipe. It had come full circle again.
    I shook my head. ‘I’m good, man.’
    My skull had gone all light, like a balloon. At any second it was going to lift clear of my shoulders and float straight up, leaving the grass and sand and surf miles below. Chris and Julian kept smoking. I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the strands all damp and stringy with sweat. I began to notice things. I noticed the seaweed smell of low tide and the reek of food frying at the concession. I noticed the lazy burr of mosquitoes and the lap of sea on sand. I noticed the total still­ness of the day – the way the heat seemed to stifle everything.
    And I noticed that car.
    It was long and low and ancient – some kind of old-school sedan. It cruised along like a glossy-black landshark, coming down the road that connects Dollarton to the parking lot. Sunlight flashed off the chrome and windshield, as if the whole cab was glowing.
    At that point, you couldn’t see the driver.
    â€˜Hey,’ I said.
    Chris and Julian looked at me.
    â€˜They’re going too fast.’
    We were sitting next to the boat launch so we saw exactly how it happened. There was no wild swerving or braking or honking. That’s what some people said but they were lying. When I’m baked I remember things way better so I’m sure about this. The car just kept going, picking up speed. It flew past the parking lot and headed straight towards the boat launch. There was this moment when I thought to myself, It’s not going to stop . And it didn’t. It rolled down the ramp and slipped into the ocean, smooth as a submarine.
    Chris said, ‘Shit.’
    The three of us stood up together to watch. The car cleared the ramp and floated about ten feet further. Bubbles boiled up around the doors and bumpers and steam started hissing out from under the hood. Now we could see the driver at the wheel, just sitting there.
    Someone on the beach screamed, ‘Oh my God!’
    Then everybody started shouting and running around. It reminded me of that saying: like a chicken with its head cut off. There were about six hundred chickens on the beach that day and they’d all had their heads cut off. I guess one of them had the sense to call for help, since Bates turned up a little bit later, but other than that they were pretty much useless. They were great at tossing frisbees