The Park

He was looking at my sheet over his glasses, blowing smoke out of his nose with a dying cigarette in his hand.
"Who you know?"
"Pat Migliaccio, sir."
"Don't call me sir, I ain't no fuckin' officer!" he barked, punching out his Marlboro in an overflowing green plastic ashtray.
"Pat Migliaccio." I repeated.
"Ummmm" he said, rubbing his chin for a moment and then making a few marks on my sheet.
"I'm putin' you with Monk and Buster today. You know how to line a softball field?" He asked without looking up.
"Not yet." I said.
"They'll show what to do."
A layer of smoke hung at eye level in the room. I glanced up at the 3-D picture of Jesus hanging over his desk and reached out to grab my sheet. He handed it to without looking up.
"Call me Joe G. Call me 'sir' again I'll be wipin' your ass off my boot."
"Understood." I said, beginning the tight toothed, upper tongue movement of the "S" sound before stopping myself.
"Meet those two idiots outside." He said, tossing another Marlboro into mouth and looking down at his lighter.
I pushed my way through the screen door to half-a-dozen green pick-up trucks and a peeling picnic table with a group of green t-shirted men standing around a Coca-Cola can.
"Leave 'im alone, he's havin' smoke." said the tall one with wraparound sunglasses and a thick gold chain. Everyone laughed.
"Yeah, he's takin' a break in there." Ha, ha, ha, rang the chorus.
They all laughed and looked at the Coca-Cola can with thick streams of smoke pouring out the mouth.
"What's goin' on?" I asked.
"We caught a bee in there, and Nicky tossed his smoke in there." One of them said and then pressed a cigarette up to his lips and pressed hard as he sucked in. He looked and spoke like a man short of breath.
"We're seein' how long he can take it."