Bill straightened his tie and shoved his shirt down in front of his pants. He hated these damn marketing meetings. "Only ten minutes late", he thought, squinting at his scratched up sports watch, and smiling. "Maybe, if I go to the head in thirty minutes and stay about ten, I'll make it through this".

Taking a seat in back by the AC unit, he sat down, with eyes rolling up and legs stretched wide.

Harry Kuchinich, the marketing VP, was still speaking, "...especially the team working Elyria and Berea Heights, ...Mark, Joanne, you have given us all new standards to strive for. Heading into the third quarter..."

"Asshole", Bill mumbled under his breath, "Such an impo'tant man." Bill smiled to himself.

For the last three years, Bill felt lost. He didn't know what he was doing with his life, or why he was doing it here. Whoever thought he would have ended up in Cleveland, Ohio. He didn't share a history with these people. He still thought they talked too fast, and had an accent harsh and choppy. He tipped his head back in the chair, he closed his eyes and imagined laying back on " moss hill". He called it that, because the entire top was carpeted in a thick layer of moss, cool and plush. Of course fifty three miles from the Ashville city limits, just about everything was a hill, unless it was a mountain.

He was never sure of the story: sometimes it was that his father won the thirty hilly acres in a card game, sometimes it was an inheritance from one of his mother's uncles who used the land for hunting. But his father and mother worked saved their money, bought a double wide, and that was where he was born.

He felt alive back then, naming the hills, streams, fields.

There was a place for every mood. Going by the big tree that was struck by lightening was for his daring mood. It was in deep woods where he would carefully have to make his way through the yellow jacket nests while trudging off the path. Or he could cut through the meadow to the pond, where the Cook family kept their horses.

Then there was His father a quiet man, uncomfortable in the company of others. He stayed to himself, avoiding crowds, parties and anything else that smelled of social strata. He was a hard worker, chopping logs to sell for firewood, planting corn, building fences, but was unable to hold down a regular job. His chickens, two cows, and being handy with an engine is probably what kept the family from starving to death. Which is why when Bill got his scholarship to play football for the Kent State Golden Flashes he seized it like a dog bites a bone.

Money is the key, isn't it?

" ...with the Dow Jones Industrial average bumping up against the eleven thousand mark...", Harry continued.

"Jesus Christ on a carousel." Bill mumbled. He felt his throat and stomach tighten. He forced himself to breath deep, and closed his eyes again.

Kent state football was exciting. Bill loved going into every game as the underdog. He loved being personally underestimated by opponents. Maybe the flashes didn't have the best win-loss record, but that only helped Bill as he thundered through the offensive linesmen and smashed into the running back.

"That was defensive line backer number 56, Billy Bassman with penetration into the backfield for a three yard loss on the play." How bill loved to hear that. He could feel his heart jump and the heat rush to his face just thinking of it.

Running through the steep Carolina hills , exercising his fathers hunting dogs made football easy for him. By setting low, he rearranged three hundred pound offensive linemen with ease. His legs were like sculpted granite , rock hard and full of definition.

"What am I doing here? "he wondered. Bill rubbed his temples.

"....so reason number two is diversification... "Harry pointed towards the screen.

Bill glanced at his watch, sighed, his tension headache starting to throb. "deep breaths, deep breaths" he told himself again. "

His mind wandered back to that last freezing week in Cent. The week that most likely brought him to this land of suits, ties and marketing meetings. He had torn a hamstring and been dumped by Laura in November of his senior year. That week , life as he knew it stopped.. Bill found the hole. " A hole so deep and profound in it's depth," the words formed in his mind, "that a part of me is still stuck there." Colors were never as bright, hopes never as high, truth never as clear, since the day he was slammed into the sod and found out life was not fair.

Football was to be his career, NfL scouts had been looking him over all season. Laura was to be his wife. She was three months pregnant. He had saved money. He had made plans. She said she wasn't ready. He said he would take care of her. She said, "It's not you, it's me. But we can still be friends." Laura went to the Akron women's clinic and had an abortion. Later, he found out she had been sleeping with her old boyfriend Steve the last six months they were together.

He left college the weekend before finals. With his cinematography and graphic arts experience, he was hired on at Ohio Bell. That was fifteen years ago.

At least he wasn't living hand to mouth, like some carolina ridge runner., like his dad. His apartment was right off Covington drive in Cleveland Heights. His steel gray F-150 was paid for, and had a roll bar with fog lights. Of course, laundry laid in piles, some clean-some dirty, all over his town house apartment. The sheets on his bed had not been changed since his date with Renee... was it a month ago? It was too depressing to deal with. Too depressing to even call in sick this morning.

".... bouncing up and down through much of the quarter, stock funds shot ahead..to finish solidly...." Harry changed the screen on the overhead projector.

God, was it a month since I even had a date?' Bill thought. There had been women after Laura. There was Cheryl, what she lacked in looks, god! she could make up for in bed. Where did that woman learn those kinds of things? But that was all they had together, a good time in the sack. She didn't like being outdoors, didn't care much for music, or concerts. She was all wrapped up in a church group Bill couldn't stand. They dated three years..

There was Karen . who after a rolfing experience stopped "eating anything with a face" and moved to Santa Fe. Regina, who couldn't cut the apron strings and had to visit her family every weekend., Anna Lisa who used both her names and had a husband on the side.

But mainly, Bill knew that the problem was his. A part of him was missing, ever since Laura. There's a darkness, a piece he held back, even from himself.

".... and since the decline in the interest rates, corporations now have..." Harry turned on the lights and sat down at the table.

Bill remembered the zebco rod his father bought him for his eighth birthday. His dad took him down past Pelhams nursery, where the stream had some deeper pools. The water remained icy cold in early June. They forded through the stream, jumping from rock to rock. Catching his first brook trout, with his own rod, bringing it home and eating it for dinner gave him such a feeling of pride.

" .... so lets give a hand of recognition to Jimmy Gage who is celebrating his thirty seventh year of service with Ohio Bell." Harry rose from his seat and began the clapping.

Bill snapped back from his day dreams. His mouth fell slightly open. sweat beaded up on his head. He looked hard at Jimmy Gage smiling as he received his plaque and applause. His suit was gray and wrinkled, bulging in all the wrong places. His face looked bloated, pasty white, except for the small veins and redness around the nose. Despite the smile, his eyes held an rheumy sadness, that to Bill, looked exactly the way Bill himself, feels. Bill turned pale. He could feel the goose bumps rise up under his suit jacket. He felt the nausea starting to rise up in his gut. He ran from the room.

Bill knew he didn't need "no stinking tarot card reader" to know he glimpsed his future. One thing Bill had learned in football was if you were heading into trouble, reverse field. Spin. Find the opening. He turned the key, started up his truck and threw a Springsteen CD in the player.

As he turned onto Chester avenue, He knew exactly what he had to do. He dialed his cell phone. A man answered at the other end. "Hello Dad, I'm coming home"

He made one more trip back to the house to get his rod and tackle. Before bringing it out to the truck, he stopped at his antique cherry desk, pulled out a sheet of stationary and an envelope.

Dear, Harry,

Today I saw my future, It scared me shitless. Now I need to find my past. Maybe I'll meet me somewhere in the middle. Going fishing. I quit.

Sincerely,

Bill Bassman

He brought the fishing gear out to the truck, turned the key, and turned up the Springsteen CD, "... strap your hands on my engines...".

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