When Men Betray by Webb Hubbell Page A

kidding. The Boy’s Club was boarded up, its brick walls marred with graffiti, and the door’s hardware wrapped in chains to prevent break-ins. The cracked concrete sidewalks had been overrun with knee-high weeds. Every outdoor light was broken, and beer cans and broken bottles littered the entire area. The ball field was in no better shape.
    Stepping out of the car, I glanced at the sky. The weather had turned warm and muggy. A storm was rolling in from the southwest, and the wind was starting to kick up. It brought back memories of searching the skies, waiting for the wail of tornado sirens.
    Kudzu covered collapsing chain-link fences. I climbed over a low spot and walked the base paths in silence with Clovis a few steps behind. The infield, once raked to perfection, was full of trash. The rubber on the pitcher’s mound was curled up on both ends, and an old bottle of A&W root beer sat in the middle. I stood on the pitcher’s mound facing home plate. The backstop was full of holes, the concrete bleachers had cracked, and the white paint was peeling everywhere. Butler Field, where two Hall of Fame baseball players had played as teenagers, and the site of many of my pitching triumphs, wasn’t fit for rats, much less a pick-up game.
    Clovis kicked at an old beer can. “About fifteen years ago, the Boy’s Club Board of Directors built a new facility in the west with a swimming pool, gym, and a new baseball field. They planned to keep Butler open for the city kids to use, but their folks caught on pretty quick. Inner-city parents drove their kids to the new Boy’s Club or put them on the bus. The new facility was overwhelmed, and Butler went unused. The Boy’s Club tried to sell Butler, but nobody wanted an old building and a ballpark in central Little Rock. You see the result.”
    It was starting to spit rain. I walked off the mound, and we trudged across the diamond toward the Tahoe. My eyes were fixed on the ground, trying to avoid broken glass, or worse. When I reached the curb, I heard the roar of an oncoming car and a vibrating drum beat—
thumpa, thumpa, thumpa
—from the radio, turned up as loud as it could go. I turned and looked up, expecting to see a car bouncing up and down like I see in DC.
    What I saw was a car barreling straight toward me, already halfway up on the curb. Before I could react, I felt an impact on my right like I had been tackled by a linebacker. The next instant, my face was in the dirt, and I felt someone fall on top of me—hopefully the linebacker was Clovis.
    The car was gone, but Clovis stayed put, his gun arm fully extended. I tried to lift my head, but couldn’t because Clovis’s left hand was holding it down.
    â€œStay down!” Clovis started to move forward, still in a full squat, still holding the gun, but now rotating three hundred and sixty degrees and rising slowly as he searched for any sign of movement or danger. After what seemed a very long time, he stood upright, holstered his weapon, and turned back to me.
    â€œClovis, for Christ’s sake put the gun away. It was just a car that went out of control. Probably a bunch of kids.”
    â€œStay still, Jack. Let me check you out.”
    I ignored his instructions and put my hands in a push-up position, trying to get up. Only then did I feel a sharp pain shoot out from my upper leg. I saw that the bottom half of a beer bottle was embedded in my thigh, a growing patch of blood soaking my pant leg. Clovis pushed me over so I was sitting on my butt with my knees bent, repeating “shit-shit-shit” as fast as I could, as if that would ease the pain. Clovis was talking into his cell phone, and between my expletives, I understood he was ordering an ambulance to the site.
    I looked down again and saw that my leg was bleeding—a lot. Feeling a little woozy, I tried not to look. I’d never been good with blood, mine or anyone else’s.
    Clovis looked at my