“Want to play next?” the boy asked Frank. “Bet you five dollars.”

“I’m not good enough to play for money.”

“Bet you that box of squid there.”

“No way.” Frank ate on while they continued. “You guys aren’t playing for money,” he observed.

“He already took all I got,” the vet said. “Now I’m like pitching him batting practice. He’s dancing on my body, the little fucker.”

The boy shook his head. “You just ain’t paying attention.”

“You wore me out, Chessman. You re beating me when I m down. You’re a fucking menace. I’m setting up my sneak attack.”

“Checkmate.”

The other guys laughed.

Then three men ran into their little clearing. “Hi guys!” they shouted as they hustled to the far end of the site.

“What the hell?” Frank said.

The big vet guffawed. “It’s the frisbee players!”

“They’re always running,” one of the other vets explained. He wore a VFW baseball cap and his face was dissolute and whiskery. He shouted to the runners: “Hey who’s winning!”

“The wind!” one of them replied.

“Evening, gentlemen,” another said. “Happy Thursday.”

“Is that what it is?”

“Hey who’s winning? Who’s winning?”

“The wind is winning. We’re all winning.”

“That’s what you say! I got my money on you now! Don’t you let me down now!”

The players faced a fairway of mostly open air to the north.

“What’s your target?” Frank called.

The tallest of them had blue eyes, gold-red dreadlocks, mostly gathered under a bandanna, and a scraggly red-gold beard. He was the one who had greeted the homeless guys first. Now he paused and said to Frank, “The trash-can, down there by that light. Par four, little dogleg.” He took a step and made his throw, a smooth uncoiling motion, and then the others threw and they were off into the dusk.