Dreams of sweet cream cutters we call butter and molasses dripping bender biscuits that are unhittable with spatula are interrupted by the sound of the hound dogs on my trail. I am 16 miles outside a Florida prison camp and thoughts of sweet Lucile keep me one step ahead of the long arm of the blue. Heart beat like a diesel motor, my tongue south of my lower lip and breathe as rare as a run in the 3 combined shut-outs, I let my mind reminisce the first time I laid peepers on Lucile. Wudint much furrer than the campus of LMU and she danced from the sticky fingers of a cool hand. The mound had become a sugar shack and from the first base side of the roof fell sweetness. Many a hours in The Box were spent with thoughts of Virginia and the 4.1 IP in the battle of Sugar Mountain and it made me think sometimes a slow hand can be a cool, cool hand. The Cavalier were force feed fastballs of medicine washed down with sweet honey dripping fried taters that were seldom touched. How else does a body swallow 86 mph of high warmth if not for the comforting but distractive smile of Lucile. As I slosh through the creek trying to throw my scent off I remember chain-gang stories of a young lefty Raider in a CIF SS Div.IV wild card game for all the marbles. Images of jonny-cakes and cornpone fill my delirious mind as bullets begin to whiz by my head. Late innings with a runner on and the Raider behind in the count 2-0 Lucile appears with a hunk of Shoofly Pie and induces the inning ending 5-4-3 as a bullet grazes my side. Up a head I see sanctuary in the form of Anteater Ball Park. The sun like the time I have left is sinking on the 28th day of March but to my delight dessert will be served first, for the first time. A cotton candy fastball spun by a carnival barker across the numbers strike one. The next pitch served with a butter knife, Fastball action with cut butter late on the hands fouled back strike two and when the ball smacked the wall I could smell sweet cream. Fastball low and way 1 & 2 and then I saw her. A 68 mph beauty in hot pants and red lace change of pace. Echoing through my mind were the words “Ah, Lucile, sumptin’ that sweet gotsta be called Lucile” when the bullet entered my neck. Before I gave up the ghost a smile spread across my face for Lucile was swung on and missed. One of many K’s to come for the twirler who put sticky finger prints on the single season record books as a freshman Sweet 16……. Jimmy Litchfield