contact as performance, and the one address stepped over
He locked eyes with Lenz's left eye, made a gun of his thin hand, pretended to draw a slow bead. Like performing for the others. Lenz walked by with urban dignity, like he both saw them and didn't.
Context
Every exchange in the alley is angled sideways: a twelve-year-old's finger-gun is aimed at Lenz but performed for his friends, and Lenz answers by walking through "like he both saw them and didn't," seeing kept strictly peripheral. The one genuinely direct address he gets — a supine figure chanting "Pretty, pretty, pretty" straight up at him — is exactly the thing he can't bear, so he steps over the legs and answers the whole street, himself included though he'd never say so, with a muttered "losers." [sweep · shared-ground addiction-recovery]