Year at twelve and hour there too, I bore witness right here in Minneapolis to greatness in action at Elsie’s Bowling Bar. Sit down here now and let me tell you about it.

It was damn near empty when we set down on those swivel chairs at lane seven and I bought the kid and me a pitcher of Pabst, what we drank then. It was clear to me damn near when I stepped in the door the kid wasn’t messin around tonight. He sipped slowly and with calculation, staring off at the coteries of pins and you could see right then he hadn’t much intention of lettin them stand there like that much longer.

I asked him just how his day was goin and the kid was friendly so he obliged my small talk but his answers were short and direct as a sharpened dart. I gave him first roll but I reckon he woulda took it anyway; I’m telling ya, the kid was locked in.

His shoulders loosened as his size tens graced the hardwood. His eyes, on the other hand, seemed to somehow constrict their vice grip on those poor-bastard pins. His pointed nose called his shot like the Babe as he took his steps like a dancer. Ten pins. All the beauty of a Hallelujah in destruction. The kid didn’t spare a grin.

I’d tell you about my frames, children, but why eat salad when there’s steak? The kid reprised his perfection three times more. I halted the waitress with my palm. I hear they used to cut Nolan Ryan off after four strikeouts.

I made my rolls quick and forgetful like I was introducin the Pope. The kid caused another ten-pin tornado and I lit up a stogy. A little boy come walkin over about then, suckin on a lollipop, askin me just what time it was. I didn’t know the boy but I told him to sit down, learn something. And get that damn lolly out you’re mouth while you’re at it, I told him. I don’t know your daddy but I doubt he wants you turnin fairy on him.

Damn me to hell, the kid rolled another one.

I told the boy to get up there and just throw my ball in the gutter two times real quick-like. The kid looked like a Greek Myth stretchin his tendons under the disco lights. At that point, I’d just as soon break my mother’s back as break the kid’s concentration.

On his sixth toss, there was something off in the kid’s curve. It wasn’t headin for that sweet spot right between the one and three pins. I adjusted in my seat and made sure the boy wasn’t doin anything stupid. The kid didn’t shake as the his ball kissed the one and two, strikin the seven and causin an implosion from the back. The kid sucker-punched them sombitches and, sure enough, they all fell.

The waitress came and asked if we wanted another and I raised my palm again and asked her if she knew what this means. The kid rolled another ace as the people began to flock around us.

The boy tossed two more quick ones in the gutter and I gave him an approving look. He sat down satisfied and guess what the kid did again?

He only needs four more, I was thinkin but damned if I was gonna say it. I damn near found time to think about my entire life up to that point before his next roll sent the pins asunder.

Before his last frame, the kid sat with his elbows on his knees, rubbing his palms together like he was tryin to start a fire. He stepped up slowly and stabbed his fingers in the holes. I could hear a young girl start to whoop somewhere behind me and I turned round and shot her a glance that I imagine made her reconsider her very existence on this Earth. Arm back and then forward, smooth as butter, the kid didn’t disappoint.

Now the owner of the joint had come by, his arms folded and rested on his gut. I gave him a wave and he nodded and kept on standin there near the back. The kid rubbed resin on his hands and blew on them ever slightly. My grandpa had seen Don Larsen in ’56, he used to describe the way he applied resin. Like a tiger lickin his lips.

A silence covered the alley like a quilt. The kid didn’t acknowledge his audience. He stepped up to his moment and only to the moment, performing for it and only it. I swear to ya, it was then the jukebox stopped.

Just like the last ten, the kid’s form was airtight. He layed that ball on those tiles like he was sending Moses in a box. The lights flickered above and I bit the collar of my shirt. The boy seemed like he was really learnin something.

His ball hit right in the money, right where the kid liked it. It bulldozed through the pins like a canon, fallin down one by one. The girl let out a cheer and I allowed it. The kid turned around assuredly. I pumped my fist and prepared to be Yogi Berra. The boy tapped me on the shoulder, pointing at the ten pin standing obstinately like a spirit. No one dared say a damn thing.

Like the rest of us, I looked over at the kid. His blue eyes were motionless behind his chiseled cheeks. He pulled a tooth pick from his breast pocket it, stuck it in his mouth, and waited for his ball. I pulled out a tooth pick of my own and gave one to the boy and me. The kid shot the ten down like a clay pigeon and exited stage right without sayin nothin to nobody. We all stood there watchin lane seven like we was watchin our neighbor’s barn burn.

The kid was standing under the awning smoking when we stepped outside. I patted his shoulder and he nodded his head at the headlights leaving the parking lot. Let’s go, I told the boy.

Why didn’t that pin fall, mister, the boy asked me when we got some distance from the kid.

You’re young, son, I told him. You always expect all the pins to fall.

We hopped in my truck and I gave the boy a ride home in the rain.