Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash
by Dan Crawley
Then on one of my weekend visits Dad took me to a minor league baseball game, where the local team was matched up against a rival known to play tough and dirty. I asked about the restroom and Dad stuck his thumb toward the back of the tiny stadium; he wouldn’t go with me like Mom did; I was still so small.
When I left a stall, I saw a group of teenagers sitting on the sinks, others leaned against the graffitied walls. They wore the other team’s caps and wouldn’t let me pass.
I sat beside Dad, and he didn’t ask where I’d been the whole time, or about my swollen eyes. So I swayed in to speak softly just as Dad yelled, “Come on, ref, are you blind?”
Dan Crawley’s latest collection is Blur (Cowboy Jamboree Press).
