james figures a baseball bat is his best precaution in anytown’s woods.

derek jeter’s fading signature is crawled across it and the marker is caught under his iphone’s flashlight. it’s easier to focus on than tree after tree or the silhouette of anytown’s destitute industrial town where spools of police tape wrapped around one scene have been expanded.

james won’t think about that. he’ll focus ‘cause half an hour ago he popped ritalin to make sure he would.

so james takes his eyes off his bat and onto who he’s with because he ain’t sure about her. he doesn’t say it, though. he keeps it to himself as he did when he first met her. a hurried aside in their high school’s hallway right next to the lockers as he asked her “so what do you know about anytown?”.

now they’re in anytown’s woods and james asks, even though he pushed for coming here, “so, uh.”

“don’t mean to be rude or nothin’ but do you got any– what’re they called. leads?”

Roz Voclain