Freewrite 1 Week 2

In my front yard lingered twelve
neighborhood kids, eager for baseball.
Run to hat then corner house, graze
pine tree and barrel into Joe, the catcher.
My mother smashed the ball into the neighbor’s
bathroom window. To his curses, we found
another and three innings later, the chalk board
filled with the dust and cheats of the generation.
Evan volleyed the ball into the sewer, and I,
the smallest, wiggled past the upturned manhole
to swim for it. I waited for a crocodile to snap
my hand or worse, the ball, but rather only found
the stinks and secrets of the neighborhood lingering
under our houses. Protests forced me to shower,
and my team, without me, faded.