Orion

              Mitchell was the latest “daddy” to sit across from me over a late summer dinner in 1968, quiet except for the clinking of silverware against china, the passing of bowls, pouring of tea and clearing of throats. I pushed speckled butter beans around my plate and into a mountain of mashed potatoes. Momma got the plates from my grandmomma when she died, and each plate had a different scene of a family from long ago. On one plate the children would be around the fireplace and the father in a big chair smoking a pipe while the mother sat on the couch knitting or sewing. Another had a scene of the family in a horse and buggy out for a ride, the dogs chasing close behind the wheels. My favorite was a picnic where the mother and little girl sat under a tree on a blanket while the father, his long sleeves rolled up, stood next to a lake, smiling, looking at the fish the little boy had just pulled from the water. On this Friday night I moved the beans around enough to uncover the father, beaming, with his hands on his hips. Although Momma put out the plates however they came out of the cabinet, she and I always had the same seats at the table. For the most part, she served the same things for dinner, fried chicken or fried pork chops, whipped or fried potatoes and some kind of beans, or peas. Maybe some dark turnip greens. There was always tea, sweet as syrup, in a clear pitcher on the corner of the table.

              There had been others who’d sat in the daddy chair – Steve (a plumber who wore stained, holey t-shirts), Randall (a carpenter who Momma made go outside to smoke), two Johns (first and second John as Momma later recalled them) and Michael (the car mechanic who kept our Buick going). They all sat there pretty much the same, arms on the table protecting their plates, heads down. Although I didn’t like it, in a way, calling all of them “Daddy” made it easier on me. At least I didn’t worry about slipping up and calling them the wrong name because they all had a lot in common. None of them lasted very long. They all worked hard for Momma while they were here, doing what they were good at around the house. All of them eventually left me and my dogs, Chief and Major, alone. And none of those daddies ever told me good-bye.

              I looked outside the kitchen window and watched Major and Chief jump and play. Major had been with us for a long time and was my best friend. He was a black lab and hung with me no matter where I went. Chief was not much more than a puppy. Mom says that he was a mutt, but probably had some Golden in him. He was wild and tore up things, which made Momma furious. She threatened to have him put down more than once, but never did. Mitchell and my dogs took right to each other. He said that dogs had the right idea. Sleep, eat and play. Said we could learn a lot from them.

              Mitchell put down sod, and Momma said that meant he made good money most of the year even if he couldn’t fix things around the house. He was about as tall as Momma, his arms and chest thick, like two hams sticking out from a barrel. His fingers always looked dark and dirty, no matter how many times he washed them, and he always smelled like a freshly mowed yard. Sometimes I’d walk by him just to get a smell of outside. He was good to Momma even when she wasn’t good to him. But when she mouthed off to him, he gave as good as he got. He got home late in the evenings, about the time I headed to bed, and so I often laid there, curled up with my earplug to my radio tuned to the Braves game. I’d turn it up, trying to drown out their arguing. And they’d be yelling over the sound of the television news. I’d been better off listening to music because baseball is a slow game, especially on the radio. A pitch and then a strike or a ball. Sometimes a hit would cause the announcers to talk for a bit, but then they’d settle down waiting for the next batter.

              It’s a perfect night for baseball here in L. A. and the Braves will send Jackson, Millan and Aaron to the plate against Drysdale.

              “Why can’t you get home at a decent hour? What exactly are you doing at ten o’clock at night?” Momma would yell.

              And the first pitch is a fastball, right down the middle, and this game is underway.

              “Maybe if you were a little less of a bitch, I might just be in a bigger hurry to come home.” That made her madder.

              Their arguments were punctuated that spring and summer by the late night news the television brought into the house and into my bedroom. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed a week before opening day and people marched and burned cities. Bobby Kennedy was killed in San Francisco while the Braves were on a road trip to Cincinnati. There was gunfire from Vietnam and beatings from Chicago, and I kept the radio turned up as loud as I could.  But like bounding balls between short and third the world kept coming at me.

              And there’s a drive, way back. Willie Davis gives it a look but this one is………….. outta here!

              She complained that Mitchell looked like a slob. He reminded her he spent his time making money she used to help keep her house. He also reminded her that at least he was still there, which was more than he could say for her real husband. As best as I could tell my real daddy was what Momma called a “rounder.” She said he made the rounds, at home some, in and out of jail. He’d take off and come back a few weeks later with no explanation. One day when he started out, she told him not to come back, and he never did.

              My real daddy was kinda like the tooth fairy. I never remembered seeing him, but every now and then a little money would appear that let us know he existed. I didn’t think about it too much, like the leather baseball glove or the new bike I didn’t have. You just put them out of your mind so you don’t miss them so much.

              Sometimes it was hard, like when I wanted to learn to shoot a BB gun or try-out for a ball team. Momma didn’t like me growing up, didn’t want me venturing out too much. I imagined that if my real daddy was around, he’d let me ride my bike where I wanted or he’d take me to Atlanta to see the Braves play, or maybe she’d just be a little nicer. Would cut me some slack.

              I picked my times when I asked Momma about doing something and over dinner seemed right. When Mitchell asked for more chicken, I grabbed the platter, scooted it across the tablecloth to him and cleared my throat.

              “So,” I said. Momma looked up at me. My eyes went down to my plate as I piddled with the beans. “It’s almost time to go back to school, and I was thinking.” I glanced up to see that she had a smirk on her face.

              “You was thinking,” she said.

              I nodded. “Yes ma’am. I was thinking that I hadn’t done anything this summer that I can write about.”

              She dropped her head a bit and looked up at me, almost through her eyelids. “What are you talking about?”

              “You know. When I get back to school, the teacher will ask us to write a paper on what we did this summer. Well, I haven’t done anything. So to help me with my schooling, I thought that me and Chief and Major might camp out. Maybe tomorrow night. Maybe out in the back lot. And that would give me something to write about.”

              “You’ll have a good time,” Mitchell said.

              “No,” Momma said.

              “But – ”

              “Absolutely not, Matty,” she said. “You’re not old enough.”

              Mitchell looked up at her and smirked. “Goddamn, the boy’s eleven. I’s practically out on my own by then.”

              “Matty’s my boy. I decide when he’s old enough.” She forked her turnip greens so hard that I thought she’d poked a hole in the plate.

              Mitchell put his elbows on the table and poked around at his beans. “What if I went with him?”

              Momma and me both jerked our heads up and stared at him. I didn’t want to go with any grown-up, let alone a daddy. My stomach soured.

              She stared hard. “What business have you got taking Matty out in the woods?”

              I tried to take it back. “It’s…” But Mitchell ignored me and forged ahead.

              “Well, you’re sure as hell not gonna take him, and you’re not gonna let him go alone. Let me take the boy camping.” He straightened up in his chair and looked at her head on.

              Momma spoke slowly as if to make us understand. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

              “Peggy, I’m just going camping with him.”

              At the first pause, I spat the words across the table. “It’s okay. I don’t have to go.”

              “It’d be good for me and the boy to get to know each other.” Mitchell looked at me and winked.

              We were all quiet for a bit, and I could hear Major and Chief barking excitedly. Maybe they’d treed a squirrel or a raccoon.

              Momma finally spoke. “I don’t know.  I just don’t know.”

              “I really don’t have to go,” I said.

              Her fists held fork and knife missile-like on the table.  “Shut up, Matty.”  She stared hard into me until I felt my face get red and hot. I looked back down at the happy family on my plate.  “Don’t you screw this up, Mitch, you hear me?”

              “Hell no, honey.  Me and the boy’ll just have a nice camping trip.  You’ll see.”          

              Things got quiet again. Every now and then I glanced up at Mitchell and tried to figure out what had just happened. 

The next day being Saturday, Momma made me go with her to the grocery store and the beauty shop. I wanted to stay home. We got the groceries, took them home and put them away and headed to get Momma’s hair done. The beautician, Marlene, ran the shop from the basement of her home. I got to watch cartoons on her television and tried to sort out the sounds of the Road Runner and the Coyote from the hair dryers and the talk.

Marlene had a Coke machine in her shop that opened from the top, like a treasure chest, and I so wanted a cold Coke. But every week Momma had a reason why I couldn’t have one.

“It’s too close to lunchtime.” 

“They’re not good for you.” 

“I don’t have any change, Matty.” 

“You don’t need it.”

“You just had something to drink.”  (Which I hadn’t.)

I never argued. I knew better.

Every now and then I lifted the top of the machine and looked at the rows of red bottle caps, the Coca Cola in white script across each, imagined the icy sweetness underneath. I wondered what would happen if I just took one, just one.

The basement had a speckled linoleum floor and pink walls. Four beauty chairs lined the wall, hair dryers mounted on each jutted out like electric chairs, which I guess they were. Marlene swept the cut hair into little piles that looked like toupees whose owners had just sunk through the floor. The air was heavy with the stuff Marlene put on the women’s hair, shampoos and sprays and colors. It smelled like a candy store for ladies.

Momma was different at Marlene’s. She laughed. A lot. She tossed her head back when she laughed and waved her hands as she talked. And pointed and nodded when she agreed with another woman. And she always agreed with the other women, not like at home where me and the daddys couldn’t seem to get her to agree with anything. Every now and again, the women would all lean over and talk low, and nod. One would lean back, her eyes wide open, and put her hand against her chest and breathe a “no!” and the others would nod and say things like “oh yes” or “he did.” Then they’d either shake their heads, or laugh or both.

She looked different, too. Younger. Prettier, I thought. Maybe she felt prettier there. Maybe it was because she smiled when she was there. Her smile reminded me of the black and white photos she kept in the albums under the bed. The photos of her and my real daddy, back before I was born. She smiled in all those photos and most of the time he was next to her, his arm slung around her neck or wrapped around her then-thin waist.  There weren’t many photos of her after I was born, mostly because she was the only one left to take them.

I looked around the beauty shop at the posters of the perfect women and men. All beautiful, just like on television. Not like me. They always smiled, and I imagined they drank Cokes whenever they wanted, did whatever they wanted. Beside the posters was a mirror, and I stood just the right distance so that my reflection was the same size as the other people on the wall. And I turned and smiled at them, trying to mimic their happiness. As long as I looked at them and away from my reflection, I could imagine that I was also beautiful. But when I caught a glimpse of myself I wondered how we could all have the same number of holes in our head and how all of mine could be so ugly.

Momma went to that beauty shop every week, but she didn’t look like any of those posters either. But she never stopped trying. She pointed to a poster of a girl with red hair, her head tilted back, smiling as if she knew all of life’s secrets. Marlene looked back between the poster and Momma, nodded and went to work. I didn’t want Momma to look like that poster, or any of them. I wanted to bring in that photo from home. I wanted Marlene to make Momma look like that again. But maybe even Marlene’s magic couldn’t do that. I don’t think that Momma and my real Daddy cared how they looked back then. They didn’t seem to care about anything but being in those photos together.

              Marlene finished her washing and cutting, squirting and rolling and put Momma under the hair dryer. She closed her eyes, like she was praying and I wondered if her prayers were ever like mine. They never came true and real, but I prayed anyway. We never went to church, but Momma was as faithful to Marlene as any Baptist or Methodist was to their services.

              As the dryer blowed hot air onto her head, I slipped over to the Coke chest and lifted the lid. Right then I decided to quit praying for a Coke. Marlene was busy shampooing another woman. I lifted out a bottle, slowly, and put my hand over the opener to muffle the hiss. The cap released, then dropped and clanked against the others. I inhaled and held it. Marlene never looked up, never stopped talking. I fished around my pocket for a quarter and eased it in the payment cup beside the chest. I drank the Coke as fast as I could, but even so, that cold drink tasted every bit as good as I’d dreamed. And nothing happened to me, at least nothing I knew about.

              After Marlene styled and sprayed and Momma paid, we left, and Momma’s smile left. The two of us rode home in the faded blue Buick, mostly in quiet. I counted the splits in the old dashboard that got wider every summer. I could see the foam inside the cracks and wondered how it looked when it was whole, and dark blue. After a few miles the car filled up with the smell of hairspray and whatever else Marlene used, and it started getting to me. A beauty shop smell in a room is one thing, but being cooped up in a car with it is another. I cranked down the window and stuck my head out like Major or Chief would’ve done. The wind blew hard into my mouth and took my breath. I struggled to keep my eyes open, and they filled with tears.

              “Roll that window up now!” she yelled, protecting her hair, now the color of Ann Margaret’s, with her right hand. “I didn’t pay six dollars on this hair just so you can tear it down on the way home.” 

              I didn’t mind quick enough, so she threw her arm across me and rolled it up herself. The car swerved and she and straightened us up, then finished the window. I stared straight ahead.

              “Just for that, you can’t go camping tonight. You hear me?” She had both hands on the wheel, but she was looking at me. I could feel it.

              “Answer me.”

              My ears burned with anger and before I thought, I shouted at her, “You were just looking for an excuse to keep me from going anyway. You weren’t ever going to let me go.” I turned and looked at the road ahead.

              Suddenly my head felt as if it had exploded. As my senses returned, I realized she had reached over and shoved my head against the window.

              “Hey!” I screamed. “You’re gonna kill us!” I gritted my teeth.

              “I’d rather kill us both than have a child talk to me that way. I didn’t put up with it from your daddy, and I’m not gonna start with you. You hear me?”

              I nodded, but I didn’t rub my head.

              Momma adjusted the rearview mirror so she could see herself. She reached up and patted her head, smoothing everything into place. Her fingers looked wrinkled against the colored and lacquered hair.

              The rest of the way home, I wondered which daddy she meant. Maybe she meant all of them. I looked over at the door handle and remembered pulling the Coke out of the chest, how easy it was. I wondered how easy it would be to pull the door handle up and leap out at a stop sign and run away. Run far away, like all the daddies eventually did. I looked at the door handle hard and thought of the sweetness of the Coke.

              Mitchell got home from work a little early that afternoon. Momma was away doing bookkeeping down at Simpson’s Paving Company. They were closed on Saturday afternoon, and she went in every week and got them caught up. I stretched out across my bed about the time he ripped open the front door of the small house and the air pressure in the house changed, causing the curtains around me to sway. He slammed the door and yelled my name.

              I wasn’t supposed to go, and I didn’t want to go with him anyway. He got to my doorway and the smell reminded me of Chief and Major and I rolling around on the grass, them pouncing all over me, legs and paws flailing away. He smelled like freedom.

              “Ready to go?”

              “Yeah. I’m ready.” I walked down the hallway and took a note Momma left Mitchell on the kitchen table, folded it and put it in my jeans.

              We piled up in his truck, put the dogs in the back along with the gear and drove out highway 52 away from town, and west, into the sinking sun. Mitchell said he knew a great place just up the road a bit, up in the hills where it’d be quiet. I plugged in the earpiece to my transistor radio, extended the antenna and found the Braves game. He reached over and fiddled with the truck radio until he found a station that came in pretty good, then became scratchy and faded as we drove along. In between pitches of the game I heard a woman singing as if she was crying, louder as the station came in, softer as it went out. Called strike three and that’ll do it as we go to the bottom of the first. I took out my earplug.

              “Who’s that?” I asked.

              “That, my man, is Bessie Smith. Listen.” He reached over and turned the radio up. We went over the top of a hill and the station cleared up, and I could make out what she was singing.

              “She sounds sad,” I said.

              “That’s the St. Louis Blues. Nobody does the blues like Bessie.” He cocked out his chin and stretched the word “bluuuuuues.” Then he started singing along and nodding. He’d stop every little bit and say, “That’s right” and “Listen, listen to this.” And he’d turn it up just a little louder. I could hear a horn and the woman get louder and then fade to where you thought she was gone, but then she’d be right back, like she was right there with us. He rolled down his window and lit up a brown cigarette, a cigarillo, he called it. I was used to some of the daddies smoking but this was different. It was small and smelled sweet. And it looked cool. He sang the smoke from his mouth, and I watched it sail out the window.

                            He's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea

                            Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me

              I listened hard and watched Mitchell while he drove and smoked and sang, as if he was crying. I wanted to reach over and pat him or something, but I kept to myself and just listened. When the song ended, he turned down the volume a bit. I watched the sun as it slid down behind the trees and gave up for the day. I thought about Momma and felt it settle in my stomach, sliding farther and farther down until it pressed to bottom and sat there and burned. In the back of the truck Chief and Major sat with their heads in the wind, tongues hanging out, eyes squinted, and seeing them made me feel better.

              We arrived just in time to get the tent set up, unpack, and eat the bologna and cheese sandwiches he’d bought for us at the bait shop on the way home from work. Mitchell built a campfire, and I sat across the flames from him as he walked over to the bed of his truck and plunged his hand into the icy cooler and pulled out two bottles.

              “Want a Coke to wash that down?” He held them up like a magician who’d just pulled a rabbit out of a top hat, ice and cold water dripping and running down his arm. I wondered if it would taste as sweet as the one at the beauty shop.

              “Yeah. That’d be great.”

              He popped off the tops and handed me one. Mitch watched Chief and Major chase each other around the fire and duck in and out of the tall grass, then held his Coke up for a toast.

              “To sleeping, eating and playing,” he said, taking a long pull off the bottle.

              “Yeah,” I answered, holding it up and watching the fire flames flicker off the glass, like it had come from the devil himself. I took a mouthful and felt the bubbles expand and push against my cheeks until I swallowed. It was even better than the beauty shop Coke. I didn’t have to hide it or chug it. Mitch and I sat there and drank our Cokes just as slow as we pleased. He lit up another cigarillo and the smell made the Coke taste even sweeter. His smoke blended with that of the campfire, all rising toward the heavens. I leaned back and watched until it disappeared into the stars.

              When Mitchell finished his Coke, he let out a burp that made Major and Chief stop and turn around. I laughed, and then he laughed. I tried to make myself burp, but it was nothing like his. Then he went back to the ice chest and pulled out a beer, a Pabst, he said. He angled the neck of the bottle against the tailgate and slammed his palm down onto the top of the cap, sending it bouncing, rattling up into the bed. He leaned his head way back and finished it off in a few long gulps, then got another and finished most of it, then turned and motioned to me. I didn’t understand. He held it out and motioned again, nodded and said, “C’mon. It’s okay.”  I looked around and it was just me and him and the dogs. “Just between us,” he said. I slowly got up and took the bottle, feeling scared and excited at the same time, like I was stealing something really good. I should’ve felt bad, but I didn’t. I held it like he did with my top fingers around the neck and the bottom two where the bottle got wider. It took everything I had to keep from dropping it. Leaning back against the truck, I tilted the bottle up to my mouth until the cold beer crossed my lips and hit my tongue but it wasn’t sweet at all and I forced down a swallow and coughed. Mitchell laughed and got himself another beer. I felt like Adam when he ate the apple.

              “Whaddya think?” he asked between drinks. He leaned back on his elbows against the bed of the truck, his head facing forward, and he watched me out of the corner of his eyes.

              “It’s all right,” I lied. It smelled like the bathroom in the school’s gym, and I was amazed that he was working on his third and not slowing down.

              Mitchell looked up at the sky and pointed the neck of his bottle up to the night, first one place, then another, and nodded. The droning of the crickets absorbed every sound except Major and Chief chasing about through the tall grass around our campsite. Major growled, low and angry. Chief jumped all about him yipping and barking. Major lurched forward and threw himself into his barking. A hiss and scream came back, like a cat, but louder. Both dogs tore into something and Mitchell went running toward them, but stopped just short. He held his arm out to make sure I didn’t try to get in the middle of it. All I could see were the dogs with their tails high as they shook their heads wild from side to side, jaws clenched. The hissing stopped, and the dogs quieted a bit. They snorted their breaths as the teeth and mouths were busy tearing their kill apart so they could eat it.

              “A raccoon,” Mitchell said as he eased closer and looked over the top of them. The two dogs growled a bit at each other and then reluctantly shared their catch.

              Mitchell came back to the campsite and looked up at the sky. His normally hard face seemed softer in the unsettled campfire light.

              “You know where Orion is?” 

              I didn’t know what he was talking about but it felt like Momma’s accusations. “I swear, I haven’t seen it.”

              He laughed. “Naw. The stars. A constellation. Orion.”

              I shook my head no.

              “Look.” He motioned me over with the neck of his bottle. “See those three stars there in a row?  They’re always the easiest to find. That’s his belt. See?”

              He traced an imaginary line that connected real stars; each one jumped out of the blackness after his bottle crossed it. I saw the stars but couldn’t make a belt out of them. But he could, so I nodded anyway.

“Those stars look so close together, don’t they?  They’re not. See, the star on the left. It’s a lot closer to us than the other two.”  He shook his head. “Fooled the ancient Egyptians. Did you know they used those belt stars to decide where to build the pyramids?”

              I squinted and tried to imagine the belt, maybe a thin one like Mitchell’s, or maybe a wide leather belt like the second John used to whip me with before Momma ran him off. Those three little stars didn’t amount to much of a belt, let alone anything having to do with the pyramids.

              He smiled and retraced them, not taking his eyes from the sky. Then he pointed out the stars that made Orion’s shoulders, legs and head. His sword. And I began to see the man in the sky surrounded by the clouds. A full moon sat off to his side, and he looked like a batter, shoulders cocked, waiting for a fat fastball heading high and inside.

              Mitchell leaned back on his elbows against the bed of the truck. “My old man used to take me and my brother out in the backyard every now and again. He’d point up to Orion. Told us that everyone else looked for the dippers, but he always looked for Orion cause it was easier to find. Those three stars, you know.” He took another pull on his beer and shook the tip of the bottle back at the sky. “He said that no matter where we were, no matter how far apart the three of us were, we could all be looking up at the same thing.”

              Mitchell finished the last swallow of his beer and tossed the brown bottle up into the bed of the truck with the other ones and walked about ten feet away from the campsite. I finished the bit that was left in my bottle. Then I heard the zipper of his pants and watched him fish around until he became still. It was quiet until I heard the sound of his pee hitting the ground, then splashing onto itself. And yet that scene, something so embarrassing to me, watching him pee out on to the ground, seemed familiar. The sight comforted me and then confused me as to why. My head spun, and I hated myself for feeling anything but sick. But watching him made me remember another time, another man peeing, but that time, off the side of a road. I remembered only the back of the man. Dark hair, and he wore a blue shirt. It was a long time ago. I remembered that I had been sitting in a car, watching out the window. We’d gone for a ride, just the two of us.

              I closed my eyes. In my mind, I saw the sky, and the man, and we were pulled off on the side of the road. The car was blocking the people in other cars that drove by from seeing him. And somehow I knew that man was my daddy, my real daddy. I had never had a memory of my father before, and I opened my eyes and tried to make them focus on Mitchell, tried to hold on to that memory as long as I could. But he finished peeing and pulled his shoulders up, tucked himself back in and zipped his jeans. I turned my head away as he came back to the campsite and grabbed another beer and popped the cap into the truck. I looked back over to that spot away from the campsite and squinted and strained to make the image return, but my real daddy was gone again.

              “You okay? You’re not going to get sick on me or anything?” Mitchell turned up the bottle but didn’t take his eyes off of me.

              “No, I’m okay.”

              “Okay. If you get sick you come and get me. And this beer is our secret, y’hear? I don’t want your mother all over my ass in the morning.”

              I thought about the condition of my ass in the morning just for going.

              He grinned and winked as if we were a team and we were for that moment. “I’m going to finish this one and turn in, but you yell if you need anything.”

              “Thanks, Daddy.”

              “Hey. Call me Mitch. You still gotta call me Daddy around the house, for your Momma, I mean. But out here, you can call me Mitch. Got it?”

              “Yeah, I got it. Mitch.”

              “Great, Matt.” He reached out, and we shook hands on it.

              My head felt light, as light as the clouds that surrounded Orion, and I lay back against a log and pointed my bottle up to the man in the sky like Mitch had done. Clouds moved across and encircled Orion and the stars were harder and harder to make out. I strained more and more to make sure he was okay.

              We would get back the next day, and Momma would show me a belt of her own. But it wouldn’t hurt as bad as I’d feared. I would keep Mitchell’s secret about drinking the beer. He would hang around the rest of that summer until just before school started and then leave one evening when I was in the backyard playing with the dogs, the porch light flipping on, my cue to get in the house for dinner. He came out with the screen door slapping shut behind him, his face solemn and weary as he walked toward me, like a manager taking a pitcher out the game, only I knew it was Mitch who was leaving, not me. He kneeled and hugged Major, then Chief, rubbed his face in their fur, scratched their ears, before standing up and sticking out his hand. I shook it. It was firm and strong, and I would never forget it.

              But all that was still in the future. For that one late summer night, after Mitchell fell sleep, I lay with my head poking out of my tent in a field, the Braves singing in my ear. Major and Chief chased and wrestled themselves out and came over and nuzzled up against me, one on each side. The grass on their fur smelled like Mitch, and almost as sweet as that last cigarillo he smoked before turning in. And as long as I could, I kept my eyes open and watched Orion poised, at the plate, every muscle tensed. A fastball bearing in.

Terry Price is a Tennessee-based writer with an MFA from SpaldingUniversity in Louisville who is a mentor in The Writer’s Loftcreative writing program at Middle Tennessee State University.  Hiswork has appeared in CCM magazine, The Trunk, The Tennessee Writer,Writer's Notes magazine, and a piece on jazz saxophonist, RahsaanBarber, appeared in the anthology, Best of New Southerner 2006.  His short story, “Eminent Domain,” appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of the Timber Creek Review.  To contact Terry visit www.terryprice.net