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Show Why We Cry Butch and Fenn Stories 121 would be better," he says. "But file the ends of this." While I'm filing the pipe, Butch bores a small hole across the fat top of the bat. "Hurt or scared," he says. "That's all there is." "What is?" I hand him the smooth pipe. "Why people cry. I got it. You see Fenn?" He lowers the metal pipe into the bat; it fits exactly, and when he drops it, it disappears. Next he clips the head off a ten penny nail using his wire cutters, and he inserts the nail in the little hole as a cross bar. He tips the bat upside down, the pipe slips-tink!-against the nail, a puff of powder emerges, and Butch smiles. "People get hurt or scared and they cry. I've got that. Why they don't do something else, I don't know, and," he adds, grabbing the putty, "I don't care." He takes his pocket knife and covers the nail hole with putty. We glue the wooden cap back on the end of the bat with too much Elmer's glue, wipe it off, and Butch holds it up in the light. It looks just like a bat again. 8 After our last All Star practice, I jog out and join Fenn. We lean against the Maltair Bowling Lanes sign on the homerun fence. He's taken the goggles off and they've left perfect sharp red circles around his eyes. |