The afternoon is chaotic, filled with screaming toddlers that refuse to climb into inner-tubes and a disgruntled canoer who cut his foot in the river. I’m not sure how it’s our fault he got out of the canoe, or that he didn’t wear the suggested water shoes, but the way he told it, we’re all lucky he didn’t bleed out in his canoe. Ellis told him we’d consider his suggestion of adding first aid kits to the canoes next season. Then he mouthed “bite me” as he walked away. But the last thing he saw as he climbed the stairs was Ellis’s smiling face.

And it was the last thing I saw too, before I made my way toward my bike and rode to the high school, still in my red River Depot t-shirt. It’s a solid twenty-minute ride, so I’m going to be late, and halfway there my phone starts exploding with notifications; probably Zander thinking I’m not coming.

When I pull into the parking lot behind the high school, where the baseball fields are, the first thing I notice is how many cars are there. It’s not enough for a big event, but there are at least eight cars, which is more than you see at the high school in the middle of the summer unless there’s an event. As I cut through the parking lot and onto the grass leading up to the baseball field, I realize there is an event taking place, because I recognize some of these cars. I’ve hit them with foul balls, and piled into them for tournaments. And when I’m close enough to see into the dugout, I know I’m right. Because at least half of the baseball team is here.

My first thought is that Zander brought everyone to beat me up, like some retro movie set in a town that isn’t Riverton. That shit doesn’t happen in a town where you’ve gone to school with everyone since basically kindergarten. It’s like six degrees of Kevin Bacon around here; even if you don’t know someone, you know their cousin, or their boyfriend, or your dad went to school with theirs. Six degrees of Riverton.