contact as performance, and the one address stepped over — "chanting softly what Lenz could hear…"
chanting softly what Lenz could hear as he stepped gingerly over the rot-smelling legs as 'Pretty, pretty, pretty.' Lenz whispered to himself 'Jesus what a lot of fucked-up ass-eating fucking losers.'
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]