Page 158 of What We Burn

“I was broadening our field of influence.”

“The man on rink three nearly tripped over it.”

“He lacked situational awareness. That’s not my fault.”

Sage lifts one pink bowl out of her bag. “What about Eli?”

I glance at my notes.

“Eli is having a difficult relationship with the concept of bias.”

“There’s a pull,” Eli says.

“There’s supposed to be a pull,” I tell him. “The bowl is designed to curve.”

“Not that much.”

“You keep holding it with the bias facing the wrong way.”

“I corrected that.”

“You changed hands. That isn’t the same thing.”

“I’m adapting.”

“You’ve adapted yourself into the ditch seven times.”

Eli looks across the green with the quiet resignation of a man who has accepted that lawn bowls is simply not his gift.

“I still think the rink is graded incorrectly.”

“It was built before color television,” I say. “At this point, the grading is historic.”

Holden delivers a clean draw, and his bowl curves neatly around one of Pen-15’s guards before coming to rest less than a foot from the jack.

He doesn’t celebrate because Holden doesn’t celebrate things. He walks back to us, accepts the beer Micah holds out, and takes a sip with the energy of a man completing mandatory paperwork.

Holden insists bowls is “an individual discipline performed within a team structure” and therefore our group doesn’t need a strategy beyond each of us “not being shit.”

As team captain, morale officer, and primary snack coordinator, I find this attitude deeply unhelpful.

Headband steps onto the mat.

He approaches every delivery with the swagger of a man who has been lawn bowling since birth and wants everyone at Glenview to know it. He rolls his shoulders. Adjusts his wristband. Takes two practice swings. Then he releases with a little flourish. The bowl curves around Holden’s and settles neatly against the jack. Headband turns to his team with both arms raised.

“Did he just dab?” Knox asks.

“He dabbed,” I confirm.

“In this current century.”

“At lawn bowls.”

“What a fucking dick.” Knox picks up one of his bowls.

“Knox,” Micah warns mildly.

“What?”