Casey at Bat

I've been participating in this writing game - a certain number of new words a day. Doing okay - not wonderful, but good. I'm going to share a bit - BUT it is totally unedited. I'm not stopping to fix things, not reading through to make sure that spellcheck didn't catch "saw" instead of "was", not even stopping to "fill out" spots. I'm considering this the bare bones of the story. I've already decided that I need to go back and insert 2 chapters, but that's for later. Anyway, this is a bit of what I'm doing.


Now, it wasn’t that she was overly tall, okay maybe she was; but Jit was about as tall as a toadstool, and skinny to boot. And standing there in that oversized jumpsuit, its pants and sleeves rolled up at least half a block, he looked more like a scarecrow than anything else. Yet, he was Jit, always faithful, always ready to lend a hand, especially if Casey were involved. She didn’t feel guilty worth a wit for using that hound dog loyalty to her advantage, and this month she really needed advantage.

“Jit hon, I really need that car fixed. You know I promised Maisey that trip to Dallas this weekend, and I can’t let her down.” Again. In Maisey’s short life, Casey had let her down in more ways than she wanted to think about.

“Don’t worry, Mac and me’ll get this old piece of junk ready afor Friday evenin’.”
Narrowing her eyes she looked directly into his “If you don’t sleep through it. So help me Jitty, I’ll pull out whatever hair you have left on that scrawny head if you let me down.”

“You know, didn’t your momma ever tell you that you can kill more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”

“Yeah, and a few other aphorisms too, like you can lead a whore to culture, but you can’t make her think.”

“Aphor-what?”

“Aphorisms, little sayings. That’s my word of the week.”

Jit scratched the three hairs on his chin, his face screwed up tight. “Sounds dirty to me.”

“That’s ‘cuz you have a dirty mind Jit.”

“Hmm … say, is that Nick Trevor over there?”

Casey didn’t need him to indicate what ‘there’ was, the hairs on the back of her neck had already alerted her to the fact that her bastard of a neighbor was in the vicinity. Blatantly she turned around, just in time to see Nick slip into the hardware store, the bell on the door jangling from across the street. She hadn’t seen him since Friday, when he’d disappeared quickly over the fence into his own yard. Not that she’d been looking of course, but then again …..

Stepping into the street, she nearly tumbled forward when the sole of her flip-flops curled under her, but she continued to walk doggedly towards the store, ignoring Jit’s call behind her.

“Friday, Jit. Just have the damned thing ready by Friday.” Upon reaching the other side, she hesitated, unsure of herself for the first time in a very long time.

“Shit a duck, it’s only Nick, a man. A member of the forever doomed and avoided. Get a grip.” Still, she wished she had something else on instead of her Daisy Dukes, cropped top and flip-flops. “Excuse me? He’s a moron, a degenerate, a piece of ….”

“Cassandra Sue, you talking to yourself?” Jit’s voice, so close to the middle of her back, startled her, and this time the flimsy flip-flop gave in, tumbling her gracelessly to the cracked sidewalk. Even Jit couldn’t catch her, not that he could have handled her weight if he had, no the lame-brain stood watching helplessly as Casey landed on hands and knees just as Nick stepped out of the store.

“You all right?”

Casey stared at his knees, unwilling to look up.

“You know, at any other time, that wouldn’t be a half bad position to have you in.”

This time Casey lifted her head, the hair that had earlier been pinned up tumbling into her face, obscuring her view. But she didn’t need her eyes as she blindly crouched forward and bit him on the leg, hard.

“Dammit Casey” Nick leapt back, hand clasping his leg just below his knee, hopping on the other leg for just a second before smashing to the walk beside her. There he lay, sprawled on his back and Casey felt a bit of a smirk.

“You know honey, at any other time, that wouldn’t be a half bad position to have you in.” Jit snickered behind her and Casey couldn't help but giggle. Yeah, this could work.