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Norm Jenson
Home Run
Ten years old, the three of us, snowballs in hand. It comes naturally—arc, distance, and time, all calculated on the fly.
Plunk!
Thud!
Crack!
Our “ha ha ha” cut short by the screech of tires.
His door opens. He shouts, “I’ll get you little fuckers!”
He’s across the street in seconds, a track star in cowboy boots. Maybe he’ll trip on the ha ha we’ve left behind.
We turn and run a path we know well, past the baseball diamond covered with snow; it’s our neighborhood.
Hits.
Runs.
Outs.
Running like in a steeplechase, we cross the irrigation ditch, and close behind we hear a splash. We giggle, but our nemesis is gaining ground. We duck under Johnny’s maple tree.
One.
Two.
Three.
He’s nearly on us, his boots filled with anger. He doesn’t duck.
Whack.
A blow from Casey at the bat—solid maple. He should have stayed in his car.
Headlights coming around the corner almost spot us. We run to the darkness—soon, blocks away, we rest. The night is quiet. The snow is falling again. Our worried laughs are soft like the falling flakes.
Morning comes. We walk to school past the place where snowballs rained.
His car is still there.
The door is still open.
About the writer:
Norm Jenson does his writing in Sandy, Utah. He’s retired and when he’s not reading or writing he is out birding with his sweetheart.
Image: Woods by Simon Kozhin (1979- ). Oil on canvas. 47.2 x 65.3 inches. 2003. By free license.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprint Buttonhook Press, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation supporting writers and artists worldwide.
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