Personal Narrative: Zack Lingard

Zack Lingard is like any other 13 year old kid except his dad is in jail for the rest of his life for killing 5 people. Zack misses his dad every day, but from what he has heard his mom tell people, he knows he is not a good person.

I live in Chicago, our house is nice, but the area is in the ghetto, it can get kind of scary but we don’t have much money so we have to make do. Every Thursday and Saturday I go to the railroads by my house to pick up trash to earn money, it’s not a lot but as my mom tells me, every little bit helps. My mom works at the diner next to the movie theater up the street, they make really good pies there so when my mom is working I go there and eat dinner and she doesn’t have to pay. My mom makes eight dollars
I only had school every Monday and Tuesday because my mom was so busy and needed to work. When she came home from work she was so tired she would fall asleep. I would worry about not learning stuff but my mom would always tell me that the only thing i needed to learn was street smarts, which is all I need for living in Chicago. The only thing that kept me human was baseball when my dad left, it was there for me when I was sad, I would walk four miles every day just so I could go to batting practice. My mom is wonderful and takes me to every baseball game even though we don’t have much money, we always save up so I can play in the best division possible. I had people come up to me and tell me I could be the next big thing in baseball, but I do it for my mom, she helps me with everything from batting to pitching and she is the best coach you could ask for. My mom gives me strength to not quit and she makes me believe I can do anything. Today is the day, tryouts are always tough but I was gonna try my best and that is all I could do. The first drill was batting we had to hit into the left, right and middle over the fence that was 300 feet away. The first up batting was Jeremy he didn't get it over on any of them, the next guy John didn't get any either. One by one none of them got it over. I heard them call my name, “Zach Lingard, you are up next after Ron Harper”. Ron is the best guy I have ever seen at baseball at my age, and he only got it over one part of the fence, the left side of the fence. The coach called my name, it was my turn. I was terrified, not one of them got it over except for Ron and he only got one over the fence, here goes nothing, the first one on the left side the coach throws me a fast slider down low and I crush it right over the fence, my