There was a convict in the condos.
He took two lives, one with a bat.

I first heard the story when it slipped out my neighbors drunk lips.
"He killed someone! He killed them with a bat!"
Though each word was said with such sharpness,
they seemed to drag on in her slur.
Her body staggered, as if the bones didn't want to fit,
or they didn't know how.
She kept pointing her finger.
I just wanted to smoke a cigarette, but instead I was a witness.

He was walking away at first.
Until she screamed those words.
He found her shoulders, and shoved them into the wall.
Loud whispers, until she pushed him.
But he is bigger, and he won't fall.

That's when I started screaming.
In his rage he surely must have forgotten my existence.

He walked away that night.

It wasn't until months later when the heavily protected policeman barged through their door,
and had all the children wait outside as lights were shone on the windows and doors and faces of everyone in the close proximity,
that's when I realized that there was a convict in the condos.
That he had taken two lives.
One with a bat.