Turn 99 of 233

Invite Aleki over tonight. Both of us eat a lot before the main activity. Have a fart contest as well. I win

Lena texts Aleki at six. *Balcony tonight. Bring food.* He texts back a single word — *How much.* She texts back: *All of it.*

He arrives at seven with two grocery bags and a twelve-pack of beer. His truck parks at the curb and the suspension lifts when he steps out and he carries the bags one-handed the way Lena carries two-by-tens — effortless, the weight not registering. He climbs the stairs to the second floor and the staircase groans under him and he fills the doorframe and Lena is already on the balcony with the barbell rack behind her and the concrete warm from the day's sun and the city below.

They eat on the floor. Lena has ordered Thai — four entrees, three rices, two curries, pad see ew, spring rolls, the works — and Aleki has brought a rotisserie chicken, a slab of ribs from the Portuguese place on Fifth, two bags of chips, and a container of raw tuna the size of a shoebox that he eats with his hands. They sit cross-legged on the concrete — three hundred and thirty-five pounds and three hundred and ninety pounds, six-three and six-six — and the food is spread between them like a jobsite lunch, containers open, sauces pooling, the smell of garlic and chili and roasted meat mixing with the warm night air.

Lena eats the way she eats on site — fast, deliberate, the belly resting on her thigh, one container draining into the next. Aleki eats the way he works freight — steady, massive, the volume enormous, the jaw working through chicken bones and rib meat and fistfuls of tuna without pausing. They don't talk much. The eating is the conversation. She finishes two curries and the pad see ew and the spring rolls and half the third entree and leans back against the railing and the belly is full and tight and the baseline is humming.

Aleki leans back too. He's finished the chicken and the ribs and the tuna and the chips and he's working on his second beer. The silence between them is full and warm and then his stomach makes a sound — not a growl, a deeper sound, a shifting, the sound of a body processing a volume of food that would stop a smaller man. He looks at her. She looks at him.

"You ready?" he says.

"For what."

He lifts one cheek and lets go a fart that rolls across the balcony like distant thunder — low, long, resonant, the kind that vibrates the concrete. Six seconds. He looks at her with one eyebrow raised. The challenge is clear.

Lena shifts her weight forward. The belly settles. She feels the pressure build — the Thai and the beer and the volume of food stacked in her gut — and she lets go. The fart is longer than his. Deeper. The sound starts low and stays low and the vibration travels through the concrete and into the railing and the frequency is the kind you feel in your teeth. Eight seconds. Nine. She holds it and the sound drops a register and keeps going. Ten seconds. Then silence.

"That's not fair," Aleki says. "You've been practicing."

"I don't practice. I just eat."

He laughs. The real laugh — the one that moves his whole belly, the one that shakes the containers still on the floor. She grins. The grin is the full grin, the one that changes her whole face, the one that Aleki has seen four times now and each time it's bigger. He shifts and tries again — another thunder roll, seven seconds, impressive but not ten. Lena waits. Lets the pressure rebuild. Drops another one — nine seconds, different pitch, the sound of a system that runs at three hundred and thirty-five pounds and processes fuel at a rate the body was designed to process it.

Three rounds. She wins all three. Aleki shakes his head and drains his beer and the night is warm and the food is gone and the baseline is spiking and she stands and offers her hand and he takes it and the blanket he brought is on the concrete and the city is below them and the stars are faint and the balcony holds.

Afterward the fan turns above them and the concrete is warm where their bodies have worn it warm and Aleki's breathing is deep and slow and Lena lies with one arm behind her head and the tribal ink sharp on both legs and the piercings catching the faint glow and the baseline has settled to its floor — the constant hum, always there, the body running at the frequency that three hundred and thirty-five pounds runs at. She doesn't tell him to leave. He doesn't ask to stay. They lie there and the night presses down and the food is gone and the farts are gone and the silence is full and warm and she is comfortable.