Home run!

This is a narrative that I wrote in creative writing class today. Thought I'd share it with you.


My favorite place when I was a child was the baseball field behind the church. The white building with the broken bell was nestled between two prominent foothills in my small Virginia town. My friends and I would sit with our parents in the austere wooden pews for the sermon. The preacher's voice would drone on about eternal fire and damnation and we'd be swinging our feet over the dusty wood floor, our eyes searching the outside world for a glimpse of the field we would play in after service. Every once in a while I would turn in my seat to look for my friends. My mother would tug so sharply at my ear, tears would come to my eyes and threaten to spill over from the pain.
When the benediction signaled the close of the service, us boys would scramble down the aisle of people who were waiting to shake hands with the pastor and tell him how encouraging it was to hear about the eternal fires of hell for the fourth Sunday running. We'd press between bodies and jettison out the red double doors and make a bee line for the field.
The bases were large pieces of slate and we had worn paths back and forth to each one. The field wasn't turf like they had at the golf course, but patches of crab grass scattered here and there with no apparent pattern at all. There was a tree right behind first base that Billy, our catcher, hid behind ever since Willy knocked out his two front teeth with a curve ball.
This was holy ground and we always made newcomers take off their shoes. Besides, it's easier to slide into third with bases loaded on that slick dirt when you're barefoot.
Our field was far enough away from the whitewashed church so we'd never broken any windows yet. Macon Haywood donated two stained glass windows last year with the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. The problem was we were Anabaptists and the congregation would have preferred depictions of John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey. They windows were prominently set to the left and right of the pulpit so the morning sun would make the colors dance all around the sanctuary right at ten o' clock when the singing started. The adults all said it lent a holy quality to Eunice's organ playing. I thought it sounded like a cat being gutted with a spoon.
Plaques with Macon's family name were put in right under the windows. "It was my money, and it should be my name on them," he said. "People should know who has the culture in this town."
The only culture we cared about was the stuff Josh Newsome brought to our game. He was a barefooted newcomer who looked to be almost six foot and only in the ninth grade. He was the son of a potato farmer and said to be a good hit. All the adults were serving food on the tables and we were in the bottom of the third with bases loaded and Josh was up at bat. Willy pitched his famous curve and Josh's bat connected with the ball and it went sailing over the field and crashed right through Macon's Virgin Mary, causing fragments of multi colored glass to explode in an array of midday fireworks.
Now one window is left shining brilliantly beside the pulpit and the other side is covered with plywood, waiting for Macon Haywood to have another bout of generosity.