It was so many years later and yet she’d still appear in my dreams as a savior, rescuing me from quicksand or a tidal wave and in that I was never a good swimmer, never caught the rhythm of a stroke, not even doggy paddling, I figured it a good idea to find her number and call her, just to see how she was doing but all I could find was an address so I sent her a letter. She was a writer, mostly plays and poetry. My letter went something like this… Dear Brandy, I hate starting a letter with “Dear” but I’m nervous.. it’s been many years but just wanted to once again apologize for the way things ..read more

It was like no other year because there was talk about Milwaukee Brewer’s shortstop Pat Listach winning the rookie of the year and the Brewers had never had a rookie of the year before. It was still only August, 1992 but Brewers fans couldn’t help thinking back to first kisses and first drunk nights and in the case of Johnnie Raddle, a first homerun he hit over his little league fence. He was 48 years old when he hit it, yes 48 and no he wasn’t pretending to be Satchel Paige and play forever. He had hit one on a bounce to the fence when he was 12, but never over that fence so he recruited one ..read more

his parents and grandparents and just about everyone in the family believed in psychiatrists and for christmas they bought each other psychiatrist coupons. One kid they had in the family was named Harry and he became a fan of baseball when he was really young and no one knew how or why because no one in the family liked baseball, but Harry did and he knew all the teams and all the players and he had favorites and not favorites and he delivered newspapers for a living and lived at home with his parents so he didn’t have to make too much money and so he had season tickets to all 81 games and tha ..read more

Ahhhh, good ol’ Mr. and Mrs. Spore, Bible beaters, espousing the sorrows of Job and King David. They never took to baseball, never talked much either and no one knew where they came from or where they got all their money, but they bought the house across the street from Gould’s Cemetery and would sit on the front porch every dusk to dole out change to beggars and watch the sun set. Their youngest son Benoit joined them, refusing to socialize with kids his own age. Mr. Spore set up a lawn chair for him, but then somewhere around his 16th birthday, he pointed towards Audie Langdon Park, beside t ..read more

Ally McCallister was ready to make the move into a full blown religious life, to be appointed a husband and have children and hopefully give birth to a new kind of messiah. A used mini van would follow to portage the children across bridges, to open fields, to contemplation the unknown. But something held Ally back… She sat at a table of the local library, as she did every Tuesday morning, to discuss the day’s news with strangers, but a distraction set in – a man outside, staring through the window at Ally or that’s what she perceived anyway and to confirm her hunch she waved and the man, stif ..read more

Harry Stagginovitz took a long look in his sister’s eyes and despised the mascara so he turned away, turned away from the world, but then he turned back because it was the day their grandfather was to be buried and he needed to be there according to his mom even though he didn’t know his grandpa too well, just the legend, that during his last three years when delirium and depression and paranoia ruined his logical explanations of things, he still knew that old baseball games could bring him back to some semblance of himself – to Leonard Stagginovitz and he had hundreds and hundreds of baseball ..read more

My name is Sammy and I am a despicable creature, no more important than a mouse or a mosquito, a good for nothing snot, no better than a scrap around the rim of a toilet bowl that refuses to flush. The only human being I talk to is Harold the crossing guard and just the other day, he moved to Oregon. I think Harold moving is why I grabbed the glass turtle beside my bed and considered throwing it against the wall for a little smashed glass good luck, but before I could carry out my grandpa’s ancient practice, I walked outside and spotted a crow, hopping on weak feet, eager to pounce on road kil ..read more

If we’re all born as five tool prospects, then what the hell happens? wondered Rooftop Larry as he put his beer down and walked to the river, under the Powell Street Overpass. He knew the crowd there – Hillbilly, Cat Eyes, Jupiter Tom, and the rest of the BooBah gang….BooBah because it reminder them of their childhood monsters and nightmares and that it could always be worse. Rooftop Larry had earned his nickname the hard way, for wanting to jump off buildings and end his life, but there was always some ember that kept him alive. He played independent baseball league and brought anecdotes and ..read more

I heard about her from a mutual friend. He said she had “European habits” which I later found out meant that she didn’t shave her armpits. I met her at school in a class called the Arab/Israeli conflict. We sat in the back of the room. Neither one of us ever raised our hands to ask or answer questions. I was excited to find out that she was the one my friend had told me about, not because of her armpits but because she always wore a green army jacket which might seem superficial, to be interested in someone because of their jacket, but I had another class that year about Asian Religions and th ..read more

Sewer Cap Johnnie spotted her leaning against the front door of the Rosicrucian center. He watched as she flipped a cigarette onto the sidewalk and stomped it. Such a waste of fire, thought Sewer Cap Johnnie. If she would have let the damn cherry fade on its own, he would have scooped it up and smoked like it was the first cigarette of his life. The lady looked down at her red Chuck Taylor high tops and marched towards Boomer’s saloon, on a mission, a drinking one, a parched damsel in need of a glass of beer many drunk, thought Sewer Cap Johnnie, still under the influence of reading a western ..read more