He closed his eyes and now, *now* he felt the extent of his injuries, felt them truly for the first time since he'd woken up in this hospital. There were deep, grinding pains in his legs -- both knees broken, fracture in the left thigh. His ribs hurt every time he breathed. His face was a ruin, his mouth felt like he had twisted lumps of hamburger glued to his torn lips. His dick -- well, they'd catheterized him, but that didn't account for the feelings down there. He'd been kicked repeatedly and viciously, and they told him that the reconstructive surgeries -- surgeries, plural -- would take some time, and nothing was certain until they were done. He'd managed to pretend that his body wasn't there for so long as he was able to poke at the computer. Now it came back to him. He had the painkiller rocker-switch and the pain wasn't any worse than what passed for normal, but he had an idea that if he hit it enough times, he'd be able to get away from his body for a while again. He tried it. # Hilda and Lester sat uncomfortably on the sofa next to each other. Perry had hoped they'd hit it off, but it was clear after Lester tried his Yoko joke again that the chemistry wasn't there. Now they were having a rare moment of all-look-same-screen, the TV switched on like in an old comedy, no one looking at their own laptop. The tension was thick, and Perry was sick of it. He reached for his computer and asked it to find him the baseball gloves. Two of the drawers on the living-room walls glowed pink. He fetched the gloves down, tossed one to Lester, and picked up his ball. "Come on," he said. "TV is historically accurate, but it's not very social." Lester got up from the sofa, a slow smile spreading on his face, and Hilda followed a minute later. Outside, by the cracked pool, it was coming on slow twilight and that magic, tropical blood-orange sky like a swirl of sorbet. Lester and Perry each put on their gloves. Perry'd worn his now and again, but had never had a real game of catch with it. Lester lobbed an easy toss to him and when it smacked his glove, it felt so *right*, the sound and the vibration and the fine cloud of dust that rose up from the mitt's pocket, Christ, it was like a sacrament. He couldn't lob the ball back, because of his busted wing, so he handed the ball to Hilda. "You're my designated right arm," he said. She smiled and chucked the ball back to Lester. They played until the twilight deepened to velvety warm dark and humming bugs and starlight. Each time he caught a ball, something left Perry, some pain long held in his chest, evanesced into the night air. His catching arm, stiff from being twisted by the weight of the cast on his other hand, unlimbered and became fluid. His mind was becalmed. None of them talked, though they sometimes laughed when a ball went wild, and both Perry and Lester went "ooh," when Lester made a jump-catch that nearly tumbled him into the dry pool.