2wo Shots

Joel never was the best baseball player. He struck out more often than he even tapped the pitch, he couldn’t catch, and he ran, as his teammates described it, ‘like a girl.’ None of this mattered, Joel hated baseball and everything about it.

Now Joel was up to bat. Practice always sucked, having the players run, throw, catch, and hit. None of them ever got any better. Joel slid his red cap onto his head, forcing brown hairs into his eyes. He reached the batter’s box and prepared to strike out. The coach whispered something into his pitcher’s ear, but Joel heard it anyway, “Throw the ball soft.”

The pitch came. It was slow, slower than usual. No, actually the ball stopped right in front of Joel. He saw his coach standing still, the pitcher frozen in his final pitching stance. All right! Joel focused, pulled back, and swung his aluminum bat as hard as he could. “Strike one!”

What? But everything was set up perfectly. Joel was supposed to hit a home run! The pitcher threw a second pitch. Joel began a slow, meager swing. The ball connected with the bat and flew out of the park. The rest of the team stood in shock and confusion. The coach pondered for a moment until finally proclaiming, “Nice angle Joel, now go get that ball!”

Joel jogged out to where his ball had flown, toting his bat along with him. It must have been a lucky bat, black with red letters spelling out ‘STRIKEMASTER’ and splattered with dirt clumps. It had on it a superimposed autograph in white, completely unreadable due to its sloppiness. “Yo, bitch,” a familiar, heavily accented voice seemed to threaten, “this shit yours?”

It was Tyrone Tsetsomona, an asian kid from Joel’s school. Tyrone was asian, but did his best to sound and act black. He was standing in the middle of the street, allowing cars to take turns blaring their horns and going around him. “That’s a nice tee you got on, a nice forest green color. And what’s that it says? [sHi]? What’s that stand for? ‘Stupid... honkey... um... idiot?’”

“It stands for ‘give me the ball back or I’ll break your legs with this bat.’” Joel suggested, resting the thick striking end of the bat in his left hand and still grasping the handle with his right.

“You? Break me? Damn, nigga,” Tyrone looked around cautiously, “nigga you crazy!”

“Hey, I’m not the goddamn asshole standing out in the middle of the goddamn street!”

“Oh really?” Tyrone snickered.

Joel fell into the street, shoved by Derek. Although he fell face-first, Joel maintained a grip on his bat. Derek beamed a humongous smile. Tyrone laughed hysterically, “Yeah Derek, you show that faggot! Show him not to mess with the west side!”

Derek crossed his middle and ring fingers to form a ‘W’ on his hand and shouted, “West side!” with his tongue hanging out.

The ground rumbled, something none of the three boys had ever experienced before. Joel rose to his feet, the entire area still trembling. “Tyrone!” he yelled, both angered and enthused, “I’m gonna...”

Wait, Tyrone was gone. A dark shadow rose from Joel’s feet and continued until the whole street became dark. He turned around. Where Derek once stood there was now nothing but green. The grass was growing, and continued to grow and shoot into the sky. The pavement cracked and opened in narrow streams toward him, small plants sprouting from the gapes. A deep crimson liquid rained down in spurts, Derek’s decapitated head slamming into the ground. Oh well, he was a fag. Disregarding Derek’s former fagginess, Joel’s face distorted in agony and fear. He turned around slowly and began to run.