“I didn’t have any sweets and hugging arms when I got to America. Just rolled down the gangplank in a wooden cart and got dumped in front of a Purple Gown. ‘Member them?”
“Yes.” Albert was already bored.
“They all had moles on their cheeks. Ugly mothers. Not like the ones today. Took us away like we were yesterday’s garbage. In a way, we were, reminders of what was coming from the Allahs. Cleaned out France of too many Christians. Already made the Jews disappear.”
“How can you remember? You were only two years old,” Cheng snapped.
“Beaten by my older adoptive brothers, the kids in the ‘hood in Boston. Called a retard, spy, Camel. Me.” He tugged on his blond hair.
“The fondness of childhood memories.” Albert sneered. “Yet look how wonderfully you turned out. A respected vidsports personality.”
Hazel stretched his Gelinium leg so it lightly brushed Cheng’s shin; he grinned inwardly at the First Cousin’s discomfort. The Fake General’s discomfort, he thought acidly. “With a few bumps along the way.”
Cheng leaned back with a deadly stare. “It would give me great joy to hear your life story, Hazel.”
“But you’re busy.”
“No, I don’t care. Anything?”
“Tomas Stilton never left the country.”
Cheng’s eyes fluttered closed. “He did. You just lost him.”
“I have someone in his security guard…”
“He left.” Cheng’s rheumy brown eyes drilled into Hazel.
“How do you know?”
Cheng couldn’t very well explain Tomas had activated his A3 double to cover himself. “Did Derek Singh respond?”
“He will eventually. And then I’ll be invited to talk…”
“And will say what I tell you. Hopefully we can catch this now, before Grandma goes too far.” Hazel waited patiently. “She’s altering the school curriculum.”
“Again?”
“This time it’s significant.”
John automatically tapped the vidrecorder lashed onto his left shoulder. A journalist would vidrecord his own funeral, Cheng thought wryly.
“That crap she threw out today will be in there,” the First Cousin said.
“Grandma’s always talked about overcoming hate.”
“This is different.”
Hazel’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
“I’ve given you enough.”
“You’ve given me nothing, First Cousin. I’ve given you everything. Trust and love.”
The First Cousin frowned and tapped on the cockpit door and the ‘copter slowly rose; he grinned at Hazel’s uneasiness. “I’ll drop you off, don’t worry.”
Hazel glanced down at the fading treeline.
Cheng handed the reporter a slim sheet of paper filled with Grandma’s tight neat scrawl.
VANGUARD FOR INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOLS:
• Teach origins of anti-Muslim legislation of 2030s and impact on society
• Teach origins of anti-Muslim immigration laws of 2040s and impact on society
• Teach origins of Muslim deportations of 2050s and impact on society
• Teach restrictive immigration laws of 2060s including impact on society
• Teach Arab history
• Introduction to the Quran
It took Hazel a few moments to be able to physically hand back the paper. He was pale.
“You can’t let this happen, Cheng,” Hazel shouted.
Two Black Tops stood in the doorway of the cockpit with Pflia machine guns; Cheng brusquely waved them back inside.
“She’s letting in some of the Camel refugees, isn’t she? Bullshit dissenters, we all know the stories, poor fucking things who don’t want to squat to Mecca and bugger little boys and only want freedom. That’s what she’s up to, isn’t she?”
Cheng wished it were only that.
12
Touch my ass again and you’ll be pissing out of your ear.” The full-figured woman wearing Puppy’s black bathrobe waved a frying pan like a tennis racket.
Puppy dropped both bags of groceries onto his living room floor and froze.
Ty helped up Mick, angrily wiping the blood from his mouth.
“Bitch,” Cobb growled.
“You want a piece of me, too, Grandpa?” She clenched her groin.
No, Puppy thought. No. This was not possible.
The woman suddenly sneered at Puppy. “Think you can explain how to turn on the shower?”
How could this be?
She rapped the frying pan against Puppy’s head, and not gently, either. “Shit for brains, you mute?”
“Mooshie.”
“The lips work. Excellent. Maybe the hands and feet are next. Shower, bubblehead. I smell like old farts. And clean clothes would be nice. Something not so shabby.” She plucked at the frayed sleeves.
“Mooshie Lopez,” he said dully.
“I bet you’re the smart one of the group.”
“Watch her,” Ty warned. “I’d hit the chiquita but I don’t hit women.”
“Don’t let that stop you.” Mooshie loosened the belt loop.
Ty considered the swelling around Mick’s mouth and backed off slightly. Lopez grunted and threw the pan into the sink.
“I don’t do powdered eggs, either.”
She headed into the bathroom, Mick and Ty warily giving way. Stunned, Puppy followed and leaned against the sink, staring. Mooshie waited impatiently.
“You want a peek?” She tugged at the bathrobe.
“Please. No.”
“Don’t think I’m good looking?” Lopez self-consciously brushed back her thick black hair.
“Of course I do, I mean, you’re…right?”
Lopez laughed that baritone of joy, the Mooshie roar, the happiness that could knock down a lamp post, the laugh of love that Grandma had recorded as the sign-off to the vidnews every night. Sleep well my darlings and don’t forget to laugh.
Soon Mooshie’s laugh had become a signature. A new line of shoes. You want them to make you happy, don’t ya? Cue Mooshie laugh. That artificially processed cheeseburger hit the spot? Cue Mooshie laugh. Wouldn’t it be nice to get away for a weekend in Albany at Hudson Inns? Cue Mooshie laugh.
Puppy smiled weakly. Mooshie cupped his chin.
“I don’t understand it, either, handsome. But here I am and I smell like dirt.” She tugged aside the shower curtain.
Puppy headed directly into the bedroom, ransacking the drawers. Mick and Ty watched from the doorway.
“Who’s the chiquita?” Cobb flicked a cautious eye toward the loud singing. Mooshie was all over Street Fighting Man.
“Mooshie Lopez.” He was annoyed by their puzzled looks. “Mooshie Lopez. The greatest baseball player of all time. Who you had to hear of.”
Unless you really were dead. Because Mooshie played from 2041 to 2065.
“She slapped me,” Mick complained as if Puppy were a Blue Shirt and would produce a pair of handcuffs.
“No doubt well deserved.”
Puppy left a blousy blue Donuts Rule t-shirt, black boxer shorts and a pair of jeans by the door.
“There are clean clothes outside here, Ms. Lopez.”
“Thanks, gorgeous,” she called back. “More soap would be nice.”
He dropped a fresh bar on the clothes, added bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and rushed into the kitchen, making a fresh pot of coffee. Lopez returned, struggling with the jeans zipper.
“A little tight. Got anything else?”
“Give her your fat clothes,” Mick snarled.
She tossed her hair defiantly. The Mooshie flip. Runners in scoring position, key moment in the game, cap comes off, crowd sizzles, screaming with anticipation, toss the hair side to side, crowd is about apoplectic, back and front, curls circling her head like a spider’s web, stadium’s wobbling from the din, opposing team’s frantic, panicked, she’s flipping the hair, cap back on and with a whoosh the ball’s rocketing into the right fie
ld bleachers.
Mick and Ty backed away as she sat down with a derisive snort.
Puppy fried up some crumpled Edison’s Crackers in oil and placed the plate down, carefully setting out the knife and fork. Mooshie grinned her famous gums-and-all grin.
“They still make this?”
“It’s not easy to get. There’s a place on College Avenue. I think the guy stockpiled a cache during the war.”
Mooshie speared a bite and lolled her eyes happily. She peered at Mick and Ty as if just seeing them. “Who are these old farts?”
Remember there’s a logical explanation for why you’re introducing them. “Mooshie Lopez, this is Ty Cobb, and the man with the roaming hands is Mickey Mantle.”
Mooshie chewed. “Hall of Famers.”
“That’s right,” Cobb snarled. “I was voted in the first class of eligibility.”
“As you should’ve been.”
Cobb brightened. “Finally, some who knows who I am.”
“Great great hitter. I know. I broke your old record for hits. Oh wait. Pete Rose had did that already. Ah, well, I broke that sucker’s, too.”
Cobb’s face fell.
“And I also stomped the shit of your lifetime batting average. .370.” She proudly tapped her chest. “And you, farm boy.” Licking the last of the crackers off the back of her hand, Mooshie turned to Mantle. “I broke your record for most home runs by a switch hitter. Oh yes. I also set the record for most home runs by any player ever. 810 homers.”
Mickey gulped.
“Along with winning 283 games.” Mooshie held out her cup. “More coffee, handsome.” She grinned. “I forgot your name.”
“Puppy Nedick,” he said hoarsely.
“Puppy. I get the bedroom, of course.”
“She’s staying here?” yelled Ty.
Mooshie reared back her fist and the two old white guys fled into the bathroom.
• • • •
PUPPY BUZZED FEROCIOUSLY on Zelda’s outside bell. She finally answered.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
“What do you want?” she asked anxiously.
“I have to come in.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Now. Zelda. Now.”
Zelda paused inside the intercom. “Can it wait half an hour?”
Puppy shivered in the cool air. He’d left his warmest jacket for Mooshie.
“No. It’s important. Huge.”
Zelda swore softly.
He waited outside. Zelda lived in the Highbridge district, populated by quiet little apartment buildings where everyone exchanged big neighborly smiles and then hid inside their homes. As he stood there, seven people passed with kindly comments about the abrupt April chill. After ten minutes, he was about to buzz more angrily when that sailor kid from the bar came out, smiling sheepishly.
“Hi, Puppy.” Diego shook his hand warmly. “Sorry for the delay. You can go up now.”
“I don’t know why you couldn’t wait.” Zelda padded into the living room in an oversized sweatshirt designed with birds. She grudgingly dropped a bag of Krusty Pretzels on the coffee table.
“Now I understand.” Puppy smirked.
“We were just talking.”
“Whatever you say.” He held up the empty bottle of South Carolina cabernet.
Zelda threw a couch pillow at him. “I say the truth.”
“I can’t talk when you’re stinky.”
She padded off into the kitchen and returned with a bag of Oregon Sallie’s oatmeal cookies, which she cradled, eating slowly.
“Fine, be however you want to be, whatever.” He took a deep breath. “Mooshie Lopez is in my apartment.”
“Oh.” Zelda started on cookie number three.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Yes. You interrupted a date with a sweet guy for another hallucination.”
“Are Ty and Mickey hallucinations?”
“You’re right. They’re real and now they let in another DV.”
Puppy leaned forward angrily. “It’s Mooshie. I’m telling you. It’s fucking Mooshie. I know it. I mean, the gestures, the phrasing, everything.”
“Because no one knows how Mooshie Lopez talked.” Zelda clenched her groin in classic Mooshie-style disdain. “All you had to do was watch one of the zillion vidclips.”
“No one could be this good.”
Zelda opened her mouth in mock rapture.
“Ty and Mick and Mooshie have come back. Stop laughing, Zelda. For some reason, I know not why, they have returned. Stop the ghost moaning. I want you to come over and meet her. Interrogate all you want. You’ll see. You know her in and out as well as I do. Probably more because I didn’t dress like Mooshie as a teen.”
“You did once.” Zelda laughed.
“And I was lovely. Will you come over?”
“Not now.”
He clasped his hands. “Please.”
“Don’t you see I’m upset?”
“Yes. Do you see I’m upset that you won’t believe me?”
Zelda sighed. “Tomorrow. Maybe.”
“Not maybe…”
“Fucking tomorrow.” She smoldered with two cookies in her mouth, looking like a petulant squirrel.
“Want to talk for a few minutes why you’re upset?”
Zelda shook her head, her eyes glistening. Puppy reached for her hand. She threw a cookie at him.
Diego was sitting cross-legged outside the building on the stoop, waiting. He bounded up respectfully.
Puppy scowled. “What’d you do to her?’
“Nothing.” Diego stiffened.
“You obviously have a guilty conscience to be waiting here.”
“Stand down, man.”
Puppy exhaled as much to calm himself as offer up a silent apology. “How about a walk?
They turned up Ogden Avenue, passing a few late-night delis closing to make the midnight curfew and join the other shuttered stores.
“So she’s okay?” Diego finally asked.
“Actually she’s pretty upset.”
“You shouldn’t have insisted on coming up,” Diego said. “We were in the middle of something.”
“Maybe I had a good reason. Look, kid.”
“Diego.”
“Diego. I’m not answering any deep, personal questions about Zelda. And I’m not getting involved in her relationships.”
“Who asked you to?”
“You did.”
Diego shrugged sheepishly as if he’d forgotten. “I like her. Just so you know. I like her.”
Puppy relaxed slightly. “Me, too.”
“She says you’re like brother and sister.”
“Better because we chose each other,” he contradicted Grandma’s Twenty First Insight about blood ties.
“I’m trying to understand her.” Diego floundered a little. Puppy felt bad for him. He’d spent more than twenty-five years understanding Zelda with very mixed results. “I’m not after sex.”
“See, I don’t want to have this conversation…”
“I like her.” Diego tapped his chest, then his temple. Puppy repeated the shorthand. Diego smiled, relieved.
“I told her that and she threw a shoe,” the young man said wonderingly.
Puppy laughed. “She likes throwing things.”
“It’s very appealing.”
“As long as you duck.” Puppy hesitated. “I’d do anything for Zelda. Anything. But as I learned years ago, she’s going to do what she does and it’s more often I’m there with the proverbial shovel cleaning up, instead of helping at the start.”
“Do you think I’m stupid to chase after her?”
“You could make a good case for the idiocy of both relationships and loneliness.”
Diego paused. “Does she have anyone else in her life?”
Puppy shook his head. The kid’s sweet. And a DV. Since Zelda’s batting average in lovers was about .100, maybe he could help. It’s probably a big mistake.<
br />
“You and I didn’t talk,” Puppy cautioned.
“Oh no,” Diego said eagerly, tapping his lips. Puppy touched his ear doubtfully. Diego squeezed his tongue. There were few stronger DV assurances.
“Show Zelda how you feel, but be prepared for her to push back. Knowing,” he wagged his finger, “that she wants space, at the same time also wants you to show how much you want her.”
Diego’s eyes crossed. “That’s not easy.”
He chuckled. “Buckle up, young man.”
Did he just call someone a young man?
• • • •
CLARY SANTIAGO SQUEEZED into the small passageway, rusting nails scratching her forehead. Rotting wood drifted down like foul-smelling snow. Her back bumped against the back wall; she had nowhere to go. As the door handle slowly turned, Clary chambered her right knee into her chest; if only she’d been able to do that when they’d torn off her clothes. The first time.
Her bare heel slammed into the Allah’s forehead. He grunted in pained surprise. Clary re-loaded her foot, squinting through the pale shadows for his nose, mouth. Any target to cause him pain.
“Stop that,” Azhar hissed.
Clary kicked with both feet, baring her teeth.
“Stop. It is Azhar.”
Clary panted, creating icy puffs in the cold Spanish night. She went to kick again, but less certainly.
“Azhar, see?” He lifted himself higher on the ladder and stuck his angular, bearded face into the hiding place.
She frowned. He was the kind one. But the others were kind at first. They smiled and gave her chocolate. Then they held her down.
Allahu Akbar, they kept saying.
Azhar left for a moment, returning with food sloppily piled on a metal tray. He poked the fork to re-arrange the eggs and bread into something appetizing, then placed a glass of milk by her right leg. Clary tensed. She had a clear shot. She could break his nose. But she didn’t want to die hungry.
“I won’t tell anyone where you are.” Azhar tenderly reached for her ankle, stopping as Clary recoiled like a frightened animal. Which she was. You poor child, he thought. Allah, cover your eyes. I can only do what I can do.
He offered the fork. Instead of driving the utensil into his forehead, the eleven-year-old grabbed the plate and devoured the food with her fingers, glaring as if Azhar were poisoning her. Clary held out the plate. “Mas.”
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