e.         My neighbors coached the team. A pair of brothers. Jose and Abe. Members of the high school baseball team. Brash. They prodded us about girls we liked. They talked about weekend parties, and they smoked cigarettes by their cars at the end of practice.

f.          One morning Jose gave us a pep talk. We sat in the shadows of the dugout. Smell of sweat and dust. The dugout floor was filthy with spit-out wads of pink gum, husks from sunflower seeds, dust and mud. Jose wore a white tank top. And I was twelve years old with an erection in the dugout. Up like a rooster at dawn. And Jose was the cause.

e.         The heat built up and built up that summer, and it broke late. Jose and Abe stood on either side of home plate, hitting fly balls into the outfield. A storm was in the air. Rumors of lightning. Thunder in the distance. They hit until the thunder grew too close. They laughed as they left the field, but I didn’t. They had held lightning rods to the sky. And lightning, when drawn, is helpless.

f.          Jose paced in the dugout. I squirmed and crossed my legs. It was as if the whole world had tilted away from me. Downhill toward him. I thought of the girl next door and her sandy hair. I thought of her jeans on the wire.

g.         Twelve is the summertime of youth. Anything seems possible. But the hobgoblin company of unsimple life crouches at the doorway. An easy time to be confused.

g.         But when are people not confused?