"Gotcha," Dwayne responded sarcastically as he rooted through the refrigerator for one of his favorite dark beers. "We probably shouldn't speak to them anymore until they can afford a proper luxury vehicle."

"You don't have to be an a.s.shole, Dwayne," Estelle snapped back. "I just don't want us to get burned by people who don't have the good sense not to live beyond their means."

Dwayne rolled his eyes. He fantasized about telling all of the gossiping hens how much money he had in the bank as he drove golf b.a.l.l.s at them from the living room. He'd love to see the wine gla.s.ses shattering everywhere, splashing hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine all over their thousand-dollar outfits. They'd dive to the floor, cursing him for his insubstantial income and known a.s.sociations with a colored guy.

"By the way, ladies," he said instead, "I noticed that you're reading the Gospel according to Matthew. That's a great book. How far have you gotten?"

Dwayne peered his head around the corner to watch them search for an answer. They were dumbfounded.

"After the opening prayer, we got a little sidetracked," one of the fully stretched, prim-and-proper blue bloods responded. "We were just about to begin our studies."

"Oh, I see." Dwayne pounded the last drop of beer from his bottle into his mouth. "You should skip the first six chapters and cut right to chapter seven. It starts out, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged,' and gets considerably more interesting and applicable from there. Thank me later. I'll be in the other room watching the Rangers game with Alex."

Dwayne walked into the living room and sat down in his favorite chair. Alex was lying back with his legs up on the couch. He was doing the only thing he loved as much as playing baseball ... watching it. The Texas Rangers were playing the New York Yankees in a much-antic.i.p.ated afternoon game. Alex was glued to the television.

Dwayne grabbed the remote control, turning up the volume in an effort to drown out the cackling from the silicone, purple-toothed hens in the next room. He watched Alex's face as it hung on every play.

"Dad," Alex said as he looked toward Dwayne, "do you still think I'm good enough to play shortstop?"

"Yeah, I do." Dwayne could feel the self-consciousness settling into his son. "I think you're the best shortstop in the league."

"Thanks, Dad. I wish Coach Dale would give me a shot to prove myself. I feel like I'm letting you and Mom down."

Anger crept into Dwayne as he sat stoically staring at the screen. It began to nag and claw at him. What in the h.e.l.l was Coach Dale thinking? Seriously! He had the option to win games. Instead he chose to crush the dreams of half of his team to overcome some deep insecurity he obviously harbored about fathering a kid that sucked at baseball. It wasn't f.u.c.king fair. He'd had enough.

"I'll be back in a minute, son," he said softly to Alex as he rose from his seat.

He walked back into the kitchen and grabbed another beer from the fridge. He popped the lid and quietly slipped out the back door. Leaning over the railing of his back porch, Dwayne surveyed the state of his lawn with a landscaper's eye. Every few feet along his eight-foot capped cedar fence, he noticed a baseball on the ground. An old aluminum bat lay propped up against a huge live oak. A tattered glove sat inches away. There were a few worn tracks shaped like a diamond in the gra.s.s where Alex and his friends had played backyard ball time and time again.

Dwayne couldn't take it anymore. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed. After a few rings, the line picked up with a loud commotion on the other end.

"This is ... umm ... OH MY G.o.d THAT'S THE SPOT!" Russ yelled as he dropped the phone to the floor.

Dwayne could hear Russ struggling to grab the phone as his young wife was obviously s.e.xually a.s.saulting him.

"This is ... OH G.o.d, BABY, DON'T TOUCH IT! IT'S SO SENSITIVE RIGHT NOW! DON'T EVEN LOOK AT IT! PLEASE! JESUS!"

Dwayne was about to set the phone down, when an out-of-breath Russ managed to gain his composure.

"This is Russ Paisley," he said, panting and clearing his throat.

"Ummm, yeah, Russ ... It's Dwayne. I was ... uhhh ... Is this a good time?"

"Yo! Dwayne! Thank Christ! I was hoping it wasn't the church calling again! Just getting a little wink-wink 'cardio' in, if you know what I mean. I swear, Jade's been so d.a.m.n freaky since she got her nipples pierced, I think she's going to rip my d-"

"WHOAH! Hey, brother! That's a little too much info. Good for you, though. I just-"

"Dude, she's like a friggin' rabbit, 24/7, bro. Seriously. I can send you some pictures."

"No, no, no, man ... That's just ... Wait, okay, email them to my work email. But that's not why I called."

"Cool. I'm sending them now. Why did you call?"

Dwayne paused for a moment. He was getting cold feet. He had been so certain just moments before. His phone beeped. He looked at his phone. He had an email. He pushed the b.u.t.ton quickly to glance at it.

"You get the email yet?" Russ barked.

"Yeah, I just ... Jesus, is that a carrot?"

"She's been going through some weird vegetable fetish. Who am I to judge? I just let her go with it. Wait 'til you see the one with the-"

"Holy s.h.i.t!"

"-Large English cuc.u.mber."

"Yeah, man, I'm happy for you. I just ... wow. Ummm ... That thing we were talking about, with Dave ..."

"Yeah? What about it?"

Dwayne paused again. Thinking it over one last time made him more angry and resolute.

"I'm in," Dwayne barked. "Let's do it,"

"Cool. I'll get started."

"Nothing over the phone from this point forward though, okay?"

"Sure."

"And Russ ..."

"Yeah?"

Dwayne took a deep breath. "n.o.body gets hurt."

"I know what you did, David," the heavily disguised voice said into the receiver.

Dave the umpire glanced down at his phone. The call was coming from a blocked number. He pushed his three large pit bulls off his nasty old mattress, which sat on the floor of his trailer, so that he could get a clear line of sight on his alarm clock. It was 3:21 a.m.

"Who the f.u.c.k is calling me at three in the morning? Is this a joke? Earl, this better not be you callin' from the pen again. I told you not to-"

"SHUT THE f.u.c.k UP, LOSER!" the caller screamed. "I saw what you did at the baseball field, David. Would you like me to share what I saw with the police?"

"G.o.dDAMMIT, WHO IS THIS?!" Dave sat up and rubbed his eyes to make sure he was awake. He was. He grabbed a half-burned joint from the ashtray and lit it.

"David, David, David. You've been a bad boy," the voice scolded. Russ was trying to sound like a cross between Hannibal Lector and the guy from the Scream movies.

"With your record," Russ continued, "I doubt that you'd like anyone to find out what you've done. You'd be locked up for good. You don't want that, do you?"

Dave jumped out of bed and walked to the window of his double-wide. He crinkled the mini blinds down, peering around the Movin' On Up trailer park for suspicious activity. He saw nothing.

"What do you want?" Dave asked.

Jade had begun to rustle from her slumber. Russ knew he had to get off the call quickly, before Jade grabbed the cocaine and wanted to have s.e.x for the ninth time that evening. Russ had hoped to be making the phone call to Dave much earlier, but Jade just kept coming back for more. Now her hand slid up his thigh and into his new shimmery golden thong she'd just bought him.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Russ mumbled as he tried to grab Jade's hand before she latched on. "Not now, honey, just let me get off of this ph-"

POP!.

She had pulled back the front of the thong, stretched it to full elasticity, and then released it, snapping Russ square in the twig and giggleberries.

"OH, JESUS!" Russ whispered loudly, with all of the breath gone from his lungs from the immense pain. "All I see is white! Oh G.o.d it hurts! You're such a twisted freak! Oh, why, why, WHY?!?!"

Dave listened to the commotion on the line. He was lost. "You talkin' to me, dips.h.i.t?" he asked the caller.

Russ flew out of bed and began jumping up and down. The pain was too much. He had to scream.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! NO, NO, NO, NOOOO!!!"

Russ stood on the white marble bedroom floor, doubled over in pain at the foot of his ornate eighteenth-century bed. He held the phone in one hand and pulled back the thong with the other to survey the damage. Aside from the agony and odd purplish coloring from overuse, everything appeared fine. He took a couple of deep breaths, walked toward the large picture window with his winky and a t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e protruding from the side of his thong, and jolted himself back into character "Listen, Dave," he whispered menacingly. "You're going to do me a favor if you want to stay out of jail for the rest of your natural life."

"I'm listening," Dave replied. Dave was utterly bewildered by the early morning call. Normally, nothing scared him, but something wasn't right with the guy on the other end of the line. He knew he was dealing with a psychopath.

"Ricky Dale is a douche, Dave," Russ stated. "We both know this."

"Yeah. So?"

"He's playing too much daddy baseball these days, Dave, and some friends of mine and I have had enough."

Dave held the phone away from his head for a moment to glare at it, and then he placed it back to his ear and mouth. "Are you f.u.c.king kidding me?"

"Would you like to find out if I'm kidding you?"

"No, it's just ... What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do? You want me to tell Ricky Dale how to coach his s.h.i.tty baseball team?"

"I want you to make sure there's no more daddy baseball going on, Dave. That's all. I don't give a s.h.i.t how you do it. It's simple. The good kids play the good spots, the s.h.i.tty kids play the s.h.i.tty spots. And no more good kids on the bench. This isn't the G.o.dd.a.m.ned YMCA. We want to win. Who gives a s.h.i.t about the kids that suck? f.u.c.king Democrats! That's what's wrong with this G.o.dd.a.m.ned society! Winners need to win! It's your job to make it happen!"

"But I just-"

"G.o.ddammit, Dave! No excuses! It's your job to restore some G.o.dd.a.m.n order to the universe! I don't give a s.h.i.t how! Scare him! Make it happen! Make it happen, or you go to jail!"

Russ clicked his phone off. He missed the days when phones had two parts to them, and you could slam them together to hang up with much more dramatic effect. But the days of the dramatic effect were no more. He knew the Democrats were behind this as well.

Dave sat back down on the end of his bed. His pit bulls were snoring again. He flipped on his old box television and hooked up his illegal cable box, turning the channel to a show about a guy who lived in the swamps of Louisiana and fished with his hands. He sparked up another joint and drifted off to sleep.

Monday morning, Dwayne Devero stood over the stovetop frying bacon and eggs for Alex before he headed off to school. Alex was drinking his orange juice while watching ESPN SportsCenter on the television near the kitchen table. He did this every Monday morning, catching up on all of the college and professional games he'd missed over the weekend.

Estelle came dragging into the kitchen as Dwayne set Alex's breakfast plate in front of him.

"I guess I have to make the coffee around here," Estelle mumbled as she filled the coffee machine with water and placed the filter with ground beans inside.

"Yeah," Dwayne replied. "It must be rough to have to go to the trouble of pouring water in that thing before a long day of spending money, drinking, and talking s.h.i.t about people."

Dwayne was thankful that Alex stayed submerged in sports news so that he didn't hear the back-and-forth between his parents.

"You left the lawn truck parked out front again," Estelle sneered as she looked out over the kitchen sink into the driveway. "Jesus, Dwayne! You know how I feel about that!"

"Oh my G.o.d!" he snapped. "Now everyone in the neighborhood is going to find out I work for a living! s.h.i.t! Our cover is blown!"

"Okay, a.s.shole," she said over her shoulder as she walked away. "I've got a yoga cla.s.s in an hour. Bye."

Estelle offered an evil, yet quite sincere, middle finger to Dwayne as she walked back to the bedroom. This was what it had become.

"Comb your hair and brush your teeth when you're done, buddy, and I'll take you to school," Dwayne told Alex.

Dwayne set the frying pan in the sink. He squirted about a half a cup of dish soap into it, and let the hot water fill it up. As he turned the water off, he noticed his phone light blinking. He'd received a new text from Russ.

RUSS:.

The orange hyena is on the bike.

DWAYNE:.