Stiff Breeze Off the Breadbasket

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The wind didn’t care for the jaunty angle of his ballcap. Took offense. Took a gusty swipe. Deposited cap in cabbage patch.

“Damn. I mean hell. I mean heck.”

Jogged. Retrieved cap. Jogged back. Tugged it on nice and snug, though he really preferred jaunty angles. He kept walking. They kept walking.

He looked up at a sky scaled to the pen of Pullman. Every so often a gunner let loose a flare of cumulus, and, elsewhere, militant angels bailed out of a staggered cloud-ship, their robes flashing brilliantly, their screams following them down into mass graves of corn and last year’s burnt-out strawberry crop.

“What does A’s stand for anyway?” she asked, pointing at his cap.

“Athletics.”

“Athletics?”

“They’re a baseball team. In America.”

“Oh.” She furrowed her brow. Stopped skipping. “Where do they play?”

“Oakland.”

“Oakland.” Committing it to memory. “Where’s Oakland again?” Skipping again.

“Where they play baseball.”

Stopped skipping. She frowned. Walking now but looking down at her ladybug galoshes, at a pair of mud-puddling butterflies.

“In California,” he added apologetically. “Northern California.”

She looked up and nodded.

“Did you grow up close to Oakland?”

“No way. If Oakland is the cabbage patch here, then I grew up all the way over there by the cherry tree.”

She took a good long look at the cherry tree in the distance.

“How’d you do on your last geography test?” he asked, suddenly remembering about her last geography test.

She shrugged. “Nothing to write home about.”

“Damn it!” The hellcat wind had yanked his cap off again.

It was swirling now, ruffling his hair, her long hair. They were the wind’s grandson and great-granddaughter.

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