conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Saturday, Ben-Hur, Gestapo with the genre: History, Americas?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first two paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked
  Woodliff's stocked every sickening candy known to kiddom, including those sugary dots attached to long strips of paper that you bought by the foot, and licorice whips in red and black, Jujubes, Junior Mints, Rolos, all the Mars and Hershey's bars, Baby Ruth and Almond Joy and Zagnut and all-day suckers. In the summer, the heaviest traffic passed through the freezer, where you could get those nut-covered ice cream cones, or push-ups, Sealtest or Ranney's ice cream in cups, ice cream bars with chocolate or orange coating, and a half-dozen brands of Eskimo Pie and Eskimo Pie wannabes. Woodliff's pastries ranged from Betty's homemade doughnuts to the most cherished of all summertime kid edibles—Hostess cupcakes with chemical-cream filling and metallic orange frosting.
  My grandmother was a devoted Woodliff's patron, although she probably went three years between visits there. Two or three mornings a week, she would call Betty, lingeringly, on the neighborhood party line, and put in an "order." Later that morning, Mose would pull up behind Annie's house and appear at the back door with a box of canned goods, vegetables, butter and bread. He'd rattle the door once, barge in, climb the steps to the back porch and bring the box into the kitchen, where he and Annie—the handsome grocer and the flirtatious old lady—would review each other's family news, assess the weather, reprise the obituaries and chew miscellaneous fat. If Mose didn't have too many orders, he'd stay long enough for coffee. Mose never collected a dime from Annie. Papa would drop into Woodliff's the next Saturday morning, pay Betty for that week's orders, gather some breakfast food and other staples and then, while stocking up on cold cuts, pass the time with Mose at the meat case. Woodliff's was a beautiful grotto, cool and dark with rolling hardwood floors, narrow aisles and provisions stacked so high that Wilt the Stilt would need a footstool to snag a roll of Charmin. Everything leaned precariously inward and blocked the electric lights. Papa and Mose, in the half-light of Woodliff's back room, leaning over the T-bones and boiled ham in the meat case, might have been two bootleggers in a cellar, deciding a new password for the speakeasy.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Everyone was gathered round now, intent on the argument, muttering gutturally with each riposte. A few Publics glowered at me like I had started this whole mess. I supposed I had, unless you wanted to blame the tree.
  The argument continued, wandering thus extemporaneously, with ritualized but colorful ejaculations, for another twenty minutes. After the first ten, the debate broke up spontaneously into small group discussions, with Catholics and Publics vehemently exploring the labyrinthine channels of one of baseball's deepest metaphysical riddles. Where does the individual self end and the ground begin? Eventually, each kid had flung his glove on the ground at least twice. Several shoving incidents had almost broken into fisticuffs, and Aston had taken the opportunity to call me a pussy to my face roughly 425 times. I was ready to break into bitter tears and go home when Stinkwater interjected a fresh issue.
  Suddenly, spurred by expediency, Fin and Stitch joined hands and leapt the epistemological chasm. They devised a hasty compromise, determining that a drive that lands in a baseball cap lying on the ground can be regarded as a "ground-rule double." Schermerhorn, who was way past second base when the ball hit the oak tree, bleated in protest. But this was mere theatrics. He was tired of the argument, too. He sighed, trotted to the infield, took his base and, in a dizzying minute, the game was restored. As the Publics headed toward the backstop, I overheard Aston arguing with Stitch that a ball landing in a cap should only be a ground-rule double if the cap belonged to "somebody who can catch the ball, not some pussy who's scared shitless of the ball and falls on his ass every time the goddamn ball comes in his direction—Jesus! What a gyp!" Based on my history, I couldn't help seeing the merit in this point.
  We managed to squeeze in two more innings before darkness fell and the spring chill swept down the hill on a twenty-mile-an-hour north wind. Schermerhorn's ground-rule double ended up sparking a five-run rally that put us several runs down. Around the backstop, feeling responsible for the downturn in our fortunes, I kept a low profile among my fellow Catholics. Notwithstanding the daily example of Jesus' love for the diseased, disgusting, downtrodden, drummed into all of us by the dread Sister Mary Ann, no one offered me solace. I was shunned. On the other hand, no one tossed me to the sand and started kicking my head. I counted my blessings. The tension around the backstop got a little worse in the inning after the cap incident, when I got to bat for the duration of a single swing. I hit a weak one-hopper to second base that turned out to be the third out. In the last inning, with Overacker, Gunderson, Fin and Kiegel batting in succession, and the Publics' left fielder losing a routine fly in the twilight, we scratched back miraculously to a one-run lead. But in these games, runs came easy, and one run up was as good as six runs down, especially when Kiegel, who roamed left field like an ambulatory Electrolux, had to leave. If he wasn't home by dark, to bed down a half-dozen horses, lock up the chicken coop and do his homework, his old man would strap him 'til he couldn't sit down. Since Turd Man had been summoned home to supper by his sister just after the cap incident, we were down to seven players. We abandoned right field and, with a fatalistic sigh, Fin sent the third baseman, Four-Eyes Fuchs, to Kiegel's post in left field. Fuchs and I constituted the entire outfield defense—a recipe for disaster. Fuchs could catch the ball, but he was slow and couldn't see much of anything six feet out from his nose. I was a gazelle with eyes like a falcon, but my hands were concrete and my glove was a sieve.
  Luckily, the descending darkness was as hard on batters as it was on fielders. The Publics managed to load the bases on a swinging bunt and two errors. But Overacker, who was pitching now, struck out the weakest Public hitter and Fin saved the tying run by somehow stabbing a looper hit straight over third base.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last four paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: My teammates' footsteps pounding in my ears, I squeezed the ball, speeded up and aimed myself at Blomeier.
  Right in Blomeier's face—which was suffused with a hatred I never came to fathom—right toward Blomeier's hands—which were reaching out to tear open my trachea—I planted a Ked and reprised my President's Physical Fitness high jump.
  Blomeier's hands grabbed at air. His eyes tracked upward, following my sneaker soles—which cleared the top of his head by six inches. I landed on my feet in the end zone, bumping butts with Blomeier. I had barely turned before my team, shoving Blomeier aside, engulfed me—laughing at the football season's most improbable play. Sternweiss, Wayne Westwick, Joey Imhoff and all the others covered me with thumps of praise and then both teams ended the season with one last, celebratory pigpile. Fat Timmy Tollefson was the last to pile on, and he almost killed all of us.
  We headed back to Waunona Way together, pushing our bikes and talking loud. The exceptions were Giles Hamilton and Blomeier, who had skipped the pigpile. They were gone already, before we noticed.