by Ramon Collins

The path down from the old house ends at a rusty mailbox with a weathered H. JENKINS painted on the side. A torn envelope lies by the gatepost.

Henry Jenkins sits in a creaky rocking chair on the front porch of the house and studies the somber clouds across the valley. A tic under his right eye keeps time with the motion of the rocker.

He sports a short white beard, has a red bulb nose, puffy cheeks and tufts of white hair that stick out around a battered Tennessee Smokies baseball cap. His checkered shirt blossoms from well-worn bib overalls that stop two inches above the tops of work shoes.

“Gonna rain ‘fore nightfall — I can smell it,” he mutters to the hound dog that lies on the worn boards beside him. Henry adjusts the tobacco cud in his left cheek with his tongue, leans forward and lets loose a chocolate-colored stream that just clears the top of the porch railing. The porch shows stains of less-fortunate missiles.

He rocks back, looks down at the dog and pats its head. “Tell you what, Chaser, I’m still in the record book and that means I’m still alive. Yessir, batting champion, Southern League, 1974: Hank Jenkins -.389. That’s who I’ll be until some college kid outdoes me.”

A plane drones overhead, nosed toward the Mississippi River. Henry glances at the crumpled lab report on the table that sits beside an open packet of Brown Mule Chewing Tobacco. He frowns, grips the arms of the rocker, tips forward and squirts another defiant umber rivulet over the rail. “By gawd, I’m here ‘til something moves me out.”

Chaser looks up and yawns, then puts his head down on his front paws with one eye open. Henry launches a weary sigh.

“I wonder who’ll come first — the kid or the cancer?”