He carried the realm of possibility with him, on his back, a once burdensome but now comfortable cargo that helped keep his feet on the ground. His youthful prospective was optimistic, but in time, optimism is tempered in the furnace that is a city in summer, and now the realm embraced a future full of good and bad events, and that was ok, that was life.

They called the tavern the What If, and when they played ball that first summer “The What If’s” was emblazoned on the their jersey fronts in electric blue. Lucky said he’d named the place perfectly, because prospecting was the only reason anybody ever went into a bar. He loved that the team had usurped the name; he thought so little their prospects that he surmised the only way to move was up. “The great ‘What If’s’…” Lucky would say in his neighborhood accent as they came into the door for their free round after a beating. “What if they ever amount to something someday! That’ll be somethin’!”

–Danny Grosso