The private investigator knows she is the World B. Free of Pop-a-Shot. She’s known this since before she started grade school. Without practice or instruction, she has always been an assassin at the game. Ball leaves hand, ball finds net. Pace, distance, noise, room temperature—none of it could ever affect the zen of her shots. She is, has always been, at one with a tiny ball and a bent, crooked rim. Today’s no exception. She’s raining goals on surveillance at Dave & Buster’s while her subject drinks pitchers of light beer and embarrasses himself clanking skee balls off the backboard of the machine across from her, scoring 10-point toss after 10-point toss for the posterity of her purse cam instead of being bedridden like his insurance claim suggests. She couldn’t care less about whatever check the guy’s still going to get from the insurance company, even after she hands this footage and a dozen photo clips over to them with her detailed report. She doesn’t even care if this dude’s here cruising kids, or has one of his own running around the place somewhere completely unsupervised while he profanes the arcade with his failures. She only cares that he’s fully active in frame for an hour of stooping and rolling, pouring pints and singing Kidz Bop tunes at full volume. Beyond that, for her it’s all high score after high score, the purity of her shot’s arc, and the satisfaction of swish. Swish. Swish. Swish.
Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English and Coordinator of Creative Writing at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather Review, Pidgeonholes, The Shore, Moist Poetry Journal, Psaltery & Lyre, EcoTheo Review, Grist and other journals. His work has been selected for inclusion in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Fight Nights (Blue Horse Press, 2025). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.