We are perfectly still, so still that we are surprised when the man finds us and stands over our table. He has a big grin on his face but he says, “Hey kids, you know you’re not supposed to be here if you’re not eating or playing games.” In the dimness, his teeth look bright white. It reminds me of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf before he eats the little girl. Then the man shrugs his shoulders and says, “Sorry guys, store policy.”

We pick up our towels and the orange arm floats and the sunglasses that Frank almost forgets. We’re scooting out when the man says, “Hey stop, what do you think you’re doing?”

I say, “You told us to leave, so we’re going!” After I say it I suck my lips into my mouth and look around at the others hoping he didn’t notice it was me.

He tells me, “I never told you to leave. I said you’re not supposed to be here.”

I’m sure the man’s just messing with us now. Frank’s eyes are wet. They shine big and then he juts his chin out at me. I swallow the lump in my throat and say, “Well, we don’t like it here anyway.”

The man says, “Hold on to your horses!”

Frank’s eyes widen and he says, “Come on, we better go.”

But the tears have gushed out and once I start I can’t stop. And I hear myself saying something about Buddha and America and how we don’t want to be Japanese Baptists, and how we’re going to do good in school and get good grades so we can “Go back to Vietnam.”

The man shakes his head in disappointment. He says, “You want to go back to where? What-cha-ma-call-it? Now what kind of thing is that to say on the Fourth of July? What da ya mean you don’t like it here? When you’re living in the home of the Giants, huh? Would you get food like this anywhere else?” His smile reaches his ears. From behind his back, he sweeps out a big disk glistening with grease and cheese and pepperoni. He says, “How about you guys help me celebrate our whooping Padre butt today, huh?”

All the kids cheer and slide back in the booth. The man pulls up a chair and he sits in it backwards at the head of the table. Everyone is happy to claim their own slice but I’m too ashamed to eat. I put my head on the table and bury my face in my arms until the man taps my shoulder and puts a slice on my napkin. He says close to my ear, “Some day some lucky guy will tell you how cute you are when you get mad.” He winks at me. “Come on now, eat up ya little firecracker.”

We sit in a darkened booth on the Fourth of July. We eat pizza and listen to baseball. The man tells us how close the game was. He describes the last play. The way Chili Davis hit a double, and Max Venable stole second, and Jeff Ransom slid into home. He says how the stadium roared and everyone jumped out of their seats and the coach was so happy he cried. He says, “That can happen to you. Sometimes you’re so happy that you cry.” He says it straight at me. He loves baseball so much he makes it sound like a big amusement park, and calls it the Big Show with things like cracker jacks, and circus catches, goose eggs, and curtain calls. And even though we don’t get to see fireworks that night because our parents are too tired to take us out, in my sleep, I see balls like comets blazing across the night sky, and stars like lollipops shooting pop flies.