FIRST INNING: LETTER

The brown paper package lay discretely on the table in a very non-threatening manner, but somehow its sudden presence still made Michael Smith uneasy.

He studied it, trying to see through the brown wrapping. But all he saw was the brown paper, sealed across the top with a bit of cheap wax.

Cheap wax. He never got mail; who, then, had sent this? Michael had no parents, nor did he have close friends. He supposed that at one point in time, he had parents, namely at his conception, and he absolutely knew that he had once had close friends. But with age had come hardships, and with hardships, separation. And around that lonely time, Michael had given up on selling papers, because who wanted to buy wrinkled papers from a dirty face that was no longer innocent, young, or clean?

Who had sent him the package?

He sat across from it, hands on the table, studying it intensely, sure that its delivery at this apartment had been some kind of a mistake. But, yes, that was the correct address on the brown paper. Yes, he was Michael Smith. But there was no address listed for a return. In four years he had never received a single letter, and now came this elaborately wrapped package, complete with its cheap wax seal.

Michael reached toward it with tentative hands. It felt as if the package were repelling him and he cringed. Surely his juvenile crimes could no longer haunt him; he wasn't even sure his name was really Michael Smith. Perhaps he had made it up in pitiful longing for some sort of solid past.

The writing was messy, misspelled, painfully childish. Michael could barely read, but this was simple enough, and frightening. It opened, terrifying to him, with the greeting, Dear Skittery, and then continued with a few old memories. Horrified, Michael continued to read.

Who knows my name? he thought, frightened and awed. And how did he find me?

The answer came at the end. Your loving friend, it closed, Snitch.

Michael's hand moved to his heart. Clutching at his chest as if it pained him, he read the name again in disbelief. Snitch, it absolutely said. Snitch. He gave way then to wariness. With an odd feeling, he understood that this may wreck the future he had built so carefully for himself.

Snitch.

Funny feelings rose in the deep parts of his heart.

Michael carefully tucked the letter into the drawer of his worn little desk. It was July, and hot in the city as it was hot in an oven. He slumped back in his lone chair, placed tediously across from his lumpy bed, and considered the next move. He had received the letter, and more than that, to prove its authenticity, there had been also the tarnished silver chain. Only Snitch could ever have traced that chain back to his old friend. Four years ago ... such a long time ago ...

Calloused fingers lightly feeling the weight of the stolen silver, Michael squinted again at the letter as if he somehow expected it to change. He wondered at the whole situation.

I'm back in New York, the letter had said, And I want to see you. Please Skittery, I know that you remember me, please answer this. I've read about you in the papers, and I want to see you. Please, Skittery, answer me just this once. Your loving friend, Snitch.

Defeated at last, Michael sat back. Of course he remembered Snitch, how could he forget Snitch? But for Michael to bring his past into his present would be dangerous, and this Michael understood with a highly trained discipline, though his feelings were suddenly becoming mixed and uncertain.

No.

No.

Michael repeated the strong word twice in his mind and shifted his weight to the right to look at his own dirty reflection in the cracked mirror. No. He had once put a stop to this, now he would put a stop to it for good. He would answer Snitch, and tell him no. No. Such a statement would be, indeed, the right thing to do.

But when his fingers lingered on the chain for an instant too long, he thought better of it and fastened it around his neck before grabbing his glove and bat and leaving the spartan apartment.

Even at training that night, he could not concentrate. He tried to, of course, but with dismal, discouraging results. And the worst happened when he wasn't paying attention and he got popped in the nose with a fly ball which bloodied it instantly.

"Jesus, Smith," someone swore at him. "Watch yourself or you're gonna get hurt!"

"Thanks," Michael said irritably, trying to stem the flow of thick, red blood from his nostrils. "I didn't know that."

"You havin' an off night or something?" asked the pitcher Jack Chesbro.

"I'm tired," Michael answered elusively, though it was half true.

"Well, get it together and get onto the field," called another playful voice, slamming Michael's mitt into Michael's gut, in a friendly manner.

Try as he might, Michael could not bring his mind fully into the game at training that night. Even as he wiped the sweat from his eyes, he remembered – unwillingly – the days when he had sold New York's papers in New York's heat. Snitch had been there, of course – no, he did not need to recall this. Such days were like the forbidden fruit of his mind's eye, beautiful to look at but dangerous to actually taste.

Still, he could not concentrate strictly on his game. Mind drifting in a consistent way, even the other players noticed that Michael's game was not true to his usual form. But they also knew that Michael was young, only twenty, and that he was still adjusting to the game. So they were patient, and when Michael went home that night, he parted from his teammates with gentle words of encouragement.

"Get some sleep, kiddo," Chesbro patted his young friend on the back. "Feel better tomorrow."

Conroy agreed. "Get your head back. Clear up, lad."

But Michael knew that sleep would not help, and that he may have lost his head for once and for all. He did not say this, however; he went home, and he put his head on the lumpy pillow, but it was a long time before he could will himself to fall into a fitful sleep.