OCR Text |
Show Car Baseball Butch and Fenn Stories 81 "Have there been any cars?" "None." "Are we still playing?" But Butch and Fenn are gone, running on a stationwagon, and I follow them to a single. The three trails from our bags to the swings are distinct in the small strange gray light. After that, it picks up. We run on several people we know who are going to work. We run on the garbage truck, though it feels unfair, because we know where it's going, and it goes real slow. Across the way, the fire swells into a yellow blossom as big as a milk truck. And in front of it, passing through from time to time is the wavering little silhouette of Mr. Wilkes. Outlines of the wrecks in the weed field are rising through the new light. And a general friction is rising in the air as well, the sound of traffic pressing around and through the neighborhood. The fire rips straight up, and for the first time ever we can hear it roaring over there. I'm on my hands and knees, staring. Fenn has collapsed against the fence, his fingers in the links, staring. Butch stands at the end of his bag, hands on his hips, eyes lost in the fire. "How many runs?" I ask him. "Sixty-three, man on second. Isn't that what you've got?" "Yeah, but man on first." |