“Hey! Hey you, taco breath! Got a match?”

The small boy playing in the street looked up bewildered at the older boy towering over him. The older boy bounced an unlit cigarette in his mouth as he rocked back and forth on his toes and heels. The small boy had been playing quietly with a discarded cardboard box, pretending that the box was his fort, his haven from the dangers which surrounded him. He looked down at the taller boy’s worn black tennis shoes, trying hard to disappear.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” said the older boy. He gave the box a hard kick. “I asked if you had a match.”

“No,” whimpered the small boy, his lower lip trembling.

Juan Portillo, 11-year-old ruffian and street urchin, member of the infamous Santiago Gang, gave the box another half-hearted kick. Fingering the package of cigarettes in his pocket, he glanced around looking for someone else to bully. Down the street, Jose Santiago, founding member and leader of the Santiago Gang emerged from between the buildings and immediately, Juan’s disposition changed from that of the tough antagonist to mewling subordinate.

Following close behind Jose was a smaller, wirier version of the Santiago gang leader, Jose’s seven-year-old brother, Miguel. And following Miguel, the last of the Santiago gang, the stout son of the town’s butcher, Luis Mantigo.

“What are you doing, Portillo?” Jose asked as he approached.

“I was trying to get a match from this punk. See what I have ” he said excitedly as he pulled the new package of cigarettes from his pocket.

“Only you would think to borrow a match from a four-year-old, Portillo,” Jose said disgustedly. He slapped the cigarette from Portillo’s mouth.

“I’m hungry,” said Miguel and instinctively, he turned the cardboard box over, looking for food.

Jose stared out at the nearly deserted streets of Tupequena. Siesta time. The buildings themselves seemed to be snoring. In the bay, a fleet of pathetic fishing boats bobbed listlessly in the turquoise water. Along the pier, a handful of beautiful white yachts shifted lazily on the incoming waves, sparkling impossibly white against the green jungle backdrop. Above, the cloudless azure sky seemed to vibrate in the superheated air as the relentless sun beat down on the tiny, sleepy town.

Jose sighed. He often wondered why it was so difficult to find good followers. All his life he had been searching for good followers only to have discovered instead simpleminded sheep. Oh, how he longed for the stolid sidekick from the old Western movies he had seen when he was younger – the grim-faced, steely-eyed Yul Brenner or rock-jawed, thin-lipped Charles Bronson.

Jose knew he would need good followers to help him fulfill his destiny, i.e. the destruction of the upper and middle classes. The destruction of the upper and middle classes was 12-year-old Jose Santiago’s primary goal in life. Jose was not quite sure what or who the upper and middle classes were. Nor did he know where he might find them or how he would destroy them once he did find them. He had read in the newspaper not so very long ago about a daring young revolutionary whose sole purpose was the destruction of the upper and middle classes. And with the true instincts of a born leader, young Jose had latched onto the phrase. He liked the sound of it and the sensation it left in his mouth after he said it.

Jose’s instincts also told him that once he found the upper and middle classes, he would need money to bring them down. All morning Jose had been thinking of ways to make money.

Turning to Portillo he said, “Quit playing with these small fries and come with me.” Jose Santiago led the small band of would-be revolutionaries across the square toward the docks.

“I’m hungry,” Miguel whined.

“Me, too,” said Luis.

Jose ignored them. He too, was hungry, but it was a different kind of hunger he carried within. His dark eyes sparkled as he made his way along the pier past the pleasure boats of the rich who had already started to arrive for the winter season – feasting on the elegance he glimpsed behind the curtained window and glittering white hulls. At the end of the dock, he sat down and dangled his long, sun-darkened legs over the edge.

“It is time we stopped playing in the minor leagues,” he said. “Thinking small will never get us anywhere. It is time for us to think big.”

“Think big?” Portillo asked tentatively. “You mean perhaps I should take a whole carton of cigarettes next time?”

“No, you idiot!” Jose said. “I mean it is time to think of more than just stealing cigarettes and candy bars. We have bigger fish to fry.”

“I wish, Jose, you would stop talking about candy bars and fish fries,” Miguel said.

Jose looked at his younger brother.

“Go wash your face,” he said.

Jose turned away from his brother and scanned the bay. Far out to sea, two, now three yachts appeared on the horizon, heading toward the port. As he watched them grow larger and brighter as they came closer, Jose had an idea. If his scheme worked, there would soon be enough money to do anything he wanted.

“Portillo,” he said looking out at the buoy bobbing in the middle of the channel. “How well do you swim?”

Outside the studio, the wind howled. There were no windows in the building, and yet, Gordon P. Wingfoot, nightly weatherman and fill-in weekend sportscaster, could feel the icy drafts on the back of his neck. Outside, snow pelted down in a blinding white fury as the program director signaled methodically with his fingers – five-four-three-two…

The glare of the studio lights temporarily blinded Wingfoot as he crept closer to the weather map hanging on the wall near the edge of the stage. In the teleprompter, he saw insipid anchorman, Wes Blythefield, as he exchanged pleasantries with co-anchorwoman, Cicely Goodson.

“Morons,” he said under his breath as he awaited his cue. The magnets in his hands indicating clouds, snow, sunshine, rain, stuck together like super glue creating a sharp-edged weapon. Hefting the magnets, Wingfoot glared menacingly at his fellow newscasters, oblivious to the frantic signals from the idiot cameraman.

He felt ridiculous. Why had he ever accepted this god-forsaken job in this podunk town? He longed for the sounds and smells of the park in Ponca City. If only the Pioneers had not been such inept dupes. If only they had won a game or two more.

Wingfoot’s mind wandered to a scene from the past season, an outfielder chasing after a line drive, the ball ricocheting off the hapless fielder’s forehead. And opposition runners racing like frantic lunatics around the bases. How he hated them! All of them!

He knew they were now playing baseball in some god-forsaken town in Mexico. He could not imagine what it must be like. But anything would be better than Waterloo Iowa.

Suddenly, the glare of the studio lights hit Wingfoot flush in the face and for a moment, he was uncertain of his position on the stage. He stepped forward, then back and as he did, his heel caught on something. In a panic, Wingfoot grabbed for support to stop his fall. From the viewer’s perspective, the weather map hung on a wall as solid and substantial as one might find in one’s home. But in reality, the weather map was a flimsy carboard-backed map hung precariously on an equally flimsy stage wall. The instant his fingers closed on the molding of the wall, Wingfoot knew it would not hold his weight. The map came first, Maine spinning up toward Hudson Bay while California crumbled in his hands. The magnet weapon flew out across the stage and landed with a hard slap on the cheek of anchorwoman Goodson. Her scream jarred the needle off the scale in the control room and left a ringing in the soundman’s ears.

The would-be wall holding the map crashed to the back of the stage and with an exquisitely precise domino effect, the pieces of stage behind the anchor-crew came crashing down on anchorman Blythefield’s head, dislodging his toupee and trapping him to the one solid prop on the set, the anchor desk.

“Help, help me!” Blythefield bleated feebly as crew members scrambled to and fro. Wingfoot reeled on, still trying desperately to re-capture his lost balance until at last, he crashed into the camera sending it spinning across the floor toward a second cameraman who

in the true spirit of a dedicated professional, had his eye glued to the eyepiece searching for the next key shot. Sparks flew as the cameras crashed together and there was the distinct sound of breaking glass although no glass could be seen.

“Oohhhff,” said the cameraman as he was crushed between the cameras.

When Wingfoot finally hit the floor, it was with a sound best described in historic terms. The sound of the Titanic hitting the iceberg?...of Joe Louis hitting Jack Dempsey?...of Babe Ruth hitting the “called shot” in Wrigley Field? Just before he blacked out, Wingfoot struggled with the best way to describe the terrible sound he had heard when he hit the deck, a sound he was certain he would remember for the rest of his life.