"Do you smoke?"
The old man lowers his pipe and raises a fuzzy eyebrow at his companion.
"No. Just like the feel of holdin' it in my mouth."
"That's weird."
The old man chuckles.
"Nah. Reckon it makes me look sophisticated."
"Not to me. I don't think so."
"Boy – your feet don't even touch the ground. How do you know what's sophisticated, and what ain't?"
He replaces the pipe between his teeth and leans back.
"My mom says it's bad to smoke."
"I told you – I ain't smokin'."
"But you look like you are. You're setting a bad example."
Now the old man laughs outright.
"You already know I ain't smokin'. And you're the only one I'd have a care over influencin' 'round here."
"Do you live here, too?"
He snorts.
"Why, do you live here?"
"My grandpa does."
"Who's your grandpa?"
The boy points across the lawn.
"That one."
The old man squints through his cataracts into the sunlight.
"Which one?"
"In the wheelchair."
"Ah. Ol' Arthur Wilson."
"Yeah."
"That yer mom 'n' dad with 'im?"
"Yeah."
"Well, why ain'cha over there?"
The boy doesn't answer.
"I asked you, why ain't you over there?"
The old man growls at the silence.
"D'you forget how to talk?"
The boy growls back.
"He doesn't remember me."
He clenches his fists and turns away.
"...That don't matter."
The boy gasps.
"Huh?"
The old man shifts his old weight. He really looks at the boy, until the boy looks at him back. He says,
"He don't remember you. But you remember him."
His words linger for a while.
Soon, the boy hops to his feet. The old man chuckles again.
"What?"
"I haven't moved that quick in twenty years."
The boy gives him a longsuffering look.
"That's cuz you smoke."
And he dashes across the lawn toward old Arthur Wilson.
The old man shakes his head.
"Good Lord," he mutters to himself, grinning like a fool, "You'd think I'd killed a man."