“Okay, Jamie,” Coach says. “Four more pitches, and then I’ll have you try for a hit off the tee.”
I sit in the shade of a twisted old apple tree and watch my chubby, clumsy son struggle at the plate. My nail polish is chipped, my bare legs need a razor, and my bra squeezes a reminder that I’m 10 pounds too many.
It’s the third practice for 1st grade, coach-pitch, Little League baseball. So far everyone but Jamie has eked out a hit, a pitched hit. Even the one girl on Jamie’s 13-player team.
Coach pitches. Jamie swings and slams nothing but air. “Nice swing, bud!” Coach cheers.
Coach pitches. Jamie’s slow, wobbly bat nips a bit of the ball. A couple of boys in the dugout laugh.…
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I can see him clearly from my window, standing tall in the arena with his bodyguards, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Whatever it was, it excited a wild roar from the audience that boomed up through the loudspeakers to the 20th floor.
I knew why they were cheering. He was one of us. He cared. He saw we had nothing.
The crowd knew that. And they liked entertainment, accepting whatever gift he offered, even a shrug of his shoulders, his fingers pointing up as he illustrated some principle that others had forgotten. It didn’t matter what he was saying. The arena could have been full of slaves battling against beasts and they would have cheered with him. Because he knew what people liked.…
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Amos rang the doorbell and stepped back over the “Llama let you in” doormat. He wrung his hands. The porch light cast his shadow over the llama’s shades. He had shades like that, looked better on the llama though. The gentle thud of socked feet approached the far side of the door. Now would be the time to run, make it all a ~totally sick prank~. Perry opened the door.
“Why’d you ring the doorbell?”
“Your parents aren’t home, so I figured… um.”
“Just knock, normal people knock, Amos.”
She was smiling, her hazel eyes glittered in the porch light. A moth bumped into her face. She flinched as though punched, sending her straightened hair into a crown around her head. It smelled nice, sweet, and floral.…
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He makes love to her wondering if it will be the last time. He walks out afterward, but not in a cruel way. He’d held her, run his fingers through her dark hair, massaged her scalp with his fingertips, looked into her brown eyes and told her he loved her. He leaves knowing he had told her the truth.
He drives away trying not to think about her tears or her confusion as to why. He was terrible at trying to explain why; to her, to his parents. All he knows for sure is that something inside—his heart, or conscience, or spirit, or whatever the fuck, is pulling him away from everything familiar. He has to leave. No forwarding address, no plan, no idea where he’s going.…
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Charlotte was to the manor born, lived that way until her father gambled the family down from mansion to middle-income home to shanty, until her third marriage was to a poor dirt farmer and factory worker. But Charlotte knew her mother was frugal and crafty, so figured her mother had squirreled away as much or more than what her father had squandered. All she had to do was wait for her mother to die, and she would inherit the hidden fortune. Such hope kept her alive, but not long enough
On her deathbed, Charlotte asked her mother how much she would have inherited should she have outlived her mother. Her mother told her “millions”. And next Saturday, Charlotte’s mother went to confession, asked the priest to grant her absolution for having lied to her daughter on the daughter’s deathbed.…
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I kept my head on straight and my eyes forward as the march began. My friends and family I left behind, for they were much stronger than I. They could remain rooted to this town, like things that had been planted and had the power to stand on their own means. I was more like the chaff left behind in the fields, never meant to stay on the thing which grew it. I pretended like I left on my own will, but this was a front.
There was no vehicle to draw me forwards, for this was not a time in which such a thing was readily available. Not even the beasts had fallen to the sway of man yet, so I walked alone and long.…
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There. There it is. I see it. There’s the mist, blowing left to right. It drifts over the ground near the huts. The four soldiers emerge from the mist like ghosts, their rifles ready. The villagers stay inside their huts even though they’re on the same side. They’re scared. No, why? Why are they scared? The wind blows. A soldier whistles. An old man and woman come out of a hut. A spooked and nervous soldier shoots them. No, why? Other villagers come outside. The soldiers shoot all of them except for the children. The soldiers set the huts on fire and take the children into the bushes. No. Another patrol comes along, sees what the soldiers are doing and shoots them. No, that’s not right.…
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