Upon hearing my words, he stopped retreating but still kept a safe distance between us.
"What do you want? Why did you come up to me?"
I got straight to the point.
"What about the residents here?" I asked.
I gave him a slow scan from head to toe. Then I averted my gaze.
"You might not look sick," I said, "but who knows what's going on inside. You should stop smoking that tobacco. Otherwise, your lungs might give out."
He squinted at me like I had just told him the sky was green. "What do you know about tobacco? Lungs, huh? Kid, that nonsense might work on someone else, but not me. You just had to say it to me of all people."
He held up the half-burned roll with a kind of reverence, almost like worshipping it.
