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Show Car Baseball Butch and Fenn Stories 62 "Pretty much." "Where at?" "Down at Butch's." "Did they ever fix that hole in Karen's room?" "Not yet." I am not surprised anymore when my parents read my mind. I expect a rock fight question at any minute. "Wouldn't take much to fix that," my father says, and I can see he's already thinking about the whole thing. It comes up once a week: the neighborhood. "There's another car dumped in front of Harper's," he says, looking out the window. Without moving his head he can see three abandoned vehicles: two in the vacant lot and one behind Wilkes. That one had been in the garage, which is now burning. Throughout the neighborhood, there are dozens of lost cars, most of them right side up, missing wheels, rusting. If you grew up here, as I did, you don't even see them, but once in a while and more frequenlty these days, they are leaping into my father's view. He doesn't want to live in a parking lot for the dead. My father pushes his chair away from the table. Then he frowns and clucks disappointment at the world outside the window. As he rises, my father smiles and leans forward to twist Bob's ear lightly as a joke. Bobby is stirring his ice cream into a creamy paste; it's his favorite way to eat it. My father stands behind me a moment pretending my head is a leaning post. His hand is as big as a baseball mitt. "He could |