It's Pronounced Mrotek, Baby

We were standing in the middle of a field, 10 o'clock at night, and it was fucking cold.

The wind was blowing too fast, too hard, and my fingers were numb in my pockets. I've lived here forever, I know Milwaukee gets cold, but I've never liked that part of living here.

Mrotek was smiling as he brought an abnormally shaped bag out of his car trunk. He spilt the contents onto the ground, and..well, I don't know what fell out.

Several stick like tubes, some colored some white, came out, along with a few bolts and 6 sets of balls connected by chord. I stared at Mrotek for a second before looking at the junk again.

"Don't worry, it won't bite." he said, and began assembling the parts. "I might, though." I ignored this and sat on the bumper of his car, sinking into the open trunk. I wrapped my arms around myself and brought my knees closer to my body.

"Its what my friend's family call Geezer Ball. I borrowed this from her." He grabbed one of the results, a rung-like latter of a square, and planted it 10 or 12 feet from the other. Then, he grabbed the balls and handed me 3 sets. They were yellow. Yippee.

"Now, just stand back, concentrate, and try to get it on a rung." I started to swing, one ball in my palm, the other swinging from the string's momentum. "Wait, Stop! You have to stand by the base." He said, and I moved back a few steps to where I was beside the form. I started to swing again.

"Align with the base. You can't be standing infront of it." I glared at him from the side, then moved to where I was told. Again, I started to swing. "Tatia-"

"I swear, if you tell me one more thing I will make your chances of reproducing very, very slim." He didn't seem to have anything else to say. I swung the ball at my hip, bent my knee, and tossed it. The first rung; green.

"5 points." He smiled, and I continued with remaining of my sets.

I learned that the top rung was 5 points, the middle 3 and the bottom 1. If you got all three, you won. But, your successor had the chance of knocking yours off or canceling you out. If they're set landed on the same rung, neither of you got a single point. The first to 21 won, and you couldn't go a single point over or you were eliminated.

Emotech insisted I not call him that, he preferred Andy. Mrotek was more suitable that that. After 12 rounds of this "Geezer" stuff, we stopped playing and he drove me home. It was nice to be in the car, with the heat on.

Mrotek decided he should tell about himself.

He like Milwaukee, and the cold.

He was sorry I seemed chilly tonight.

He has a twin, who preferred break dancing over his own drums. I secretly found it interesting that he played drums, though he would never find that out.

He didn't mind that I wasn't going to tell him about myself.
I might or might not have been touched by the things he said, the way he seemed to care about everyone.

I could barely concentrate on the words he was saying. My vision seemed blurred and his words were too loud and all I could think about was one thing.

This withdraw shit, was harder than it seemed.

I needed to find someone with connections, and I needed it sooner than later.