What appeared to be a man, hovered over a smoldering fire smoking a cigarette. His bony purple fingers tightly gripping a rectangular bottle.

The bell jingled over the door. Frankie looked up. His apron stained with dried blood. A cleaver in his right hand and the limp leg of a of a recently slaughtered lamb in his other.

It’d been 5 days since the assembly fuck-up. The house was like a morgue. Nobody’d talked to nobody. I worked as much overtime as they threw at me just to stay away.

He blinked again. His cheek no longer soothed by the wooden floor beneath it. A wisp of intrusive dust drifted towards him, settling on his lashes. A laborious blink, his only remedy, then another, the particle unmoving.

His mother worked two jobs. One was good, and one was bad. The good one, she said, was good because people left her alone.

“Change the goddamn ballet recital just for you?” Her voice rose. She thrust her hip sideways and firmly planted a hand on it. “Johnny, that’s how you operate! Change it for me.” Melinda turned and walked out of the room. “Jesus Christ.” The door slammed behind her.

At first the team was just a bunch of burnt-out baseball guys looking for a reason to get out of the house. Then it got serious. The trophies, the fights, the bets. Sixteen-inch no-mitt softball became an obsession. Nothing got in the way. That’s how it went when guys had too much of what they didn’t want in life.

He awoke in a panic with a piss boner bursting through his boxers. He sprung from his bed, legs crossed, praying to God to help him make it in time.

“My father, he’s from the old country. He can be a pain in the ass, but he’s harmless. He doesn’t know…” Roberto shook his head. “He doesn’t know what…” he choked on his words. “My mother, she died, and now he’s alone. He tries, but,” Roberto glanced back at his father, now sitting stoically on the seat, puffing his cigar. “I’m sorry Officer.”

Eddie played short. He had what the scouts called the quick twitch. It made him a natural. He could pick anything behind the bag, go deep in the hole, jump turn and throw mid-air to first, in a freakin’ blur. On a pop fly, he’d go out hard, back to the infield, make the grab over the shoulder–no problem.