“Contract?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Guaranteed for the whole season.”
“Sure.”
“With pay raises every ten games.”
“I can’t do that.”
Beth folded her arms, glaring.
“I can’t. It’s the law.” Everyone was expected to do a good job so extra rewards like bonuses and anything other than an annual raise were forbidden. Hard work was a given, not a goal.
Her mouth twisted disdainfully. “If other jobs open, then Ruben has the option.”
“Depending if he’s qualified.”
“My son can do anything.”
“Anything he’s qualified for, Ruben gets first shot.”
“In the contract.”
“Can’t. The law.” No favoritism, side deals, nepotism. Nothing smelling of getting ahead on anything but the merits. Family businesses were especially monitored. Corruption, bribery, laziness, all the same sins.
Beth conceded with a grunt and stuck out her hand. “Beth Rivera.”
“Puppy Nedick.” He fired his most winning smile. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Beth sneered as if meeting him were a step above an appendectomy without anesthesia and slammed the bedroom door behind her. Frecklie made amends by offering another piece of pie.
“Is she always this charming?” Puppy asked.
Frecklie nodded wearily.
• • • •
PABLO’S EYES WANTED to dribble out of their sockets; that seat in the corner of the B22 bus looked so nice. But he’d never taken a work seat, reserved for people exhausted from their jobs. You could be on crutches and blind, and if someone were half asleep from a long day, you gave them your seat. The only way you could keep your butt planted was if you were also pregnant.
This morning Pablo had examined the entire second grade class of PS 88, finishing up with a smile-o-meter flair by playing the Rosen Girls’ I Got Smiles vidmusical of dancing lips and whistling cheeks. The kids wouldn’t leave, sending his schedule into the toilet.
Two emergencies, an unexpected wisdom tooth and an infected root canal, turned the waiting room into the 6 train at rush hour. It wasn’t until eight o’clock that the last patient left, mumbling thanks through the novocaine. Then all the paperwork, documenting the procedures, follow-ups, a great deal of potential fraud in cheaters wanting to have holes drilled in their teeth, he thought testily.
The bus rolled unsteadily up the hill. A young red-haired woman tugged on Pablo’s sleeve, waking him.
“Sir, please sit.”
“No,” he mumbled sleepily, forehead leaden against the pole.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“Everyone does.”
The woman frowned. “Do you think Grandma’s Tenth Insight is wrong?”
The bus quieted so deeply he could hear the stop light change colors.
“Course not.” Pablo pushed up from his heels, reciting, “But we must believe that our fellows work harder than us. Otherwise, it becomes selfish resentment.”
She smiled faintly. “Especially for someone exhausted.”
The passengers stepped aside so he could slump into the corner seat. Pablo was asleep in a few moments. When the bus stopped, the redhead handed him a thin envelope.
“Get some sleep, Dr. Diaz.”
She stepped casually out the back door. It took him a weary few beats to react to the envelope on his lap. How’d she know who I was? He tapped his name plate on the white coat. Never even undressed, he shrugged sheepishly, pocketing the envelope. Worse ways to meet someone than on a bus.
Pablo picked up some vegetables and rice at the corner market and collapsed on his long black couch. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young played on the stereo. He sipped a glass of Huntsville pink wine, forgetting about his dinner, eyes hypnotized by the circling album.
He propped himself up and forced down a bite of the rice. Outside, the pugs began barking.
Pablo munched on a stalk of broccoli by the window. Twenty across and thirty rows deep, the fawn and black-furred pugs marched resolutely. Children, spilling out of bed near midnight once a month for this occasion, gathered noisily along Bruckner Boulevard, waving to the well-trained real animals, who kept pace, though a few skittered in anticipation.
The leader, a tall kindly man wearing a black top hat, blew sharply on a whistle and the pugs skipped and hopped and ran toward the crowd. Children fell to their knees, hugging the dogs, feeding them, playing fetch. Soon the children and the dogs were one mass and you couldn’t really tell who was fetching for whom. The late night snacks of hamburgers, pizzas, rolls, bones, and bowls of pasta littered the street.
In an hour, the leader blew the whistle and the dogs reluctantly reformed their lines, wagging their curly tails, looking forlornly at the waving children. Another blast of the whistle and off they marched to a new neighborhood.
There weren’t enough animals to meet the needs. Robot pets had failed; enough stories of children mutilated by a malfunctioning orange cat had shuttered the industry. In the Bronx, pugs were favored; this was Grandma’s home, pugs were her favorites and she was allowed one indulgence. Across America, different breeds found different cities.
Boxers in Chicago. Jack Terriers in North Carolina. German Shepherds in Oklahoma. Share and share. Grandma wouldn’t allow one child to be jealous because they didn’t have a pet.
Try sharing this food, Pablo thought and tossed the veggies into the garbage. He sliced some cheese, pouring more wine than he needed. He was exhausted beyond sleep. He sat on the chair, dully watching Grandma’s Sleep Well My Darlings on the vidnews rolling across the wall behind the couch. She tucked in triplets. He hadn’t seen that before. When’s the last time you watched?
Three boys, all curly-haired, darkish faced, probably Southeast Asian, lifted up their faces. Grandma kissed one on the forehead, another on the nose and the last on the chin. She sang Sleep Well in her light, slightly discordant voice, playfully making fun of her singing and encouraging the children to join in.
After a last chorus of “we watch each other all night”, they hugged. The children contentedly closed their eyes. Grandma turned off the light, her round almond-shaped eyes shining alone on the screen, watching her Family go to sleep.
Pablo yawned, dribbling wine down his chin. The forgotten envelope hung out of his white coat, tossed on a chair. She wasn’t bad looking, he smiled, tearing it open in between sips. Maybe she’ll be Mrs. Dr. Pablo.
He stared at the note. Simple. Clear.
Pablo poured more wine.
• • • •
THE WHITE LETTERING of the Salvatore’s Furniture sign faded down the side of the old five-story brick warehouse on the deserted end of the Grand Concourse at East 204th Street. Hazel parked behind a line of rusting cars languishing in front of boarded-up storefronts.
The Black Top lifted his reflector face-mask just inside the bland metal door, which took a few minutes to find along the featureless building designed to be ignored. Expressionless except for bored suspicion, the BT studied the pass for a long time. He looked Hazel up and down.
Hazel tapped the signature again. “Order of Sport Commissioner Kenuda. It’s all there.”
The Black Top folded his arms, black armored elbows grazing the two guns on his hips. His job was not to be rushed.
“Temporary loan of equipment,” Puppy explained.
Now the BT noticed Puppy; he wasn’t pleased. He ran Puppy’s Lifecard through a small security device outside the front door, disappointed when no notification of Puppy Nedick, notorious criminal, came back demanding his capture.
The BT disappeared inside. They waited silently in the faint moonlight. The door slid open. Another BT escorted them down a crusty hallway, up a flight and into a storage area, slipping out silently.
“Fucking Black Tops,” Hazel growled.
Three shelves loomed over them. Hazel propped a ladder against the wall and half-hopped
up the steps. Puppy noticed the Gelinium.
“Sicily,” Hazel explained over his shoulder.
“First or second battle or would you prefer I don’t ask?”
“Appreciate that much courtesy.”
“There were a lot of veterans in my DV when I was a kid. We learned the rules. Especially showing respect.”
“DV was the only place where we got that. Go outside and people would spit at you. But as a soldier, you dared not respond. You had to take it. Ever hear of the tomato medal?”
Puppy shook his head.
“How many times you stood there as someone threw shit at you, blaming you for losing the war. Rotten tomatoes at a bad stage performance…”
“I get it.”
“I knew a guy, claimed to be eligible for twenty-seven tomato medals. Tony Teller. I heard he blew his brains out. He left a note: ‘This makes tomato medal number twenty-eight’. I figure it’s probably a true story. If it’s not, it’s still a good one.” Hazel stared off. “Though sometimes we didn’t take it. I broke the skull of a sucker in Jersey once. He asked me if I faked the injury. I dumped his body in a trash can. Maybe he was even dead.” Hazel shrugged and steadied the rickety ladder. “Anyway. I was at Second Sicily, though I was on ship for the first invasion. Never made it that far ashore. I lost the leg trying to recapture that boot. Shit like that never works. There’s a reason why something’s gone. Jobs, love, wars.”
Puppy allowed Hazel his moment before changing the subject. “What else is in this building?”
“Just junk, I think. Supposedly there’s a room full of cellular phones, Allah robes, even cans of bad foods passed off as technological breakthroughs. The food scandals of the ‘70s. Grandma’s a pack rat.”
Hazel’s rummaging sent dust onto Puppy. He finally tossed down a large burlap sack. “Nothing’s marked. Though you don’t need to label these.”
He gingerly stepped back down and flipped out a blade lightly taped to his ankle, traditional DV style, slicing the burlap and then the plastic covering six bats.
“Damn.” Puppy slid out a sleek, black bat. He sniffed. “Real wood.”
“Yup.” Hazel’s eyes gleamed as he swung a white ash bat. “Isn’t this an Albert Cheng model?”
“Hell yeah.” Puppy scampered quickly up the ladder and threw down another bag. It bounced a little. Hazel was already stacking gloves carefully.
“I thought they’d burned a lot of these after the trials.” Puppy slipped on a fielder’s glove. Cracked, dried out, yet it still felt wonderful. He found another bag with ancient jockstraps, which he quickly closed.
“Who knows what they really burnt,” Hazel said. “When I first started in sports, I found this amazing piece someone had done, documenting all the baseball burnings.”
“That the Anglia documentary?”
“No, no.” Hazel crouched, holding out a catcher’s mitt. “That one was approved. This was rogue.”
Angry citizens tearing down baseball fields, confiscating equipment from neighbors, and axing/hammering/smashing to smithereened shit the remaining nine ballparks that had comprised the rest of the major league homes: Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Braves Field, Forbes Stadium, Phillies Field, Houston Aerodome, Cleveland Civic Center, St. Louis’ Golden Arches, and Minneapolis-St. Paul Baseball Fields.
In each city center, the rubble was dragged away on robot-driven trucks with waving schoolchildren hanging onto the side. Huge smelt-like holes swallowed up the steel and concrete, while smaller surrounding fires devoured the equipment, magazines, books, trading cards, photographs, banners, anything resembling memorabilia.
“This woman filmmaker caught the attacks on the manufacturers.”
“Wasn’t that approved?”
“Not on the workers,” Hazel said quietly. “Must be thousands of people from Rawlings, Louisville Slugger, Wilson, on and on, buried beneath the razed buildings.”
“They say there are bodies under Fenway and Wrigley,” Puppy added.
John flipped the mitt back into the bag and slipped on a catcher’s mask. “They say a lot of things.” He went back up the ladder and opened another bag, whistling softly as he unfurled an American flag draping nearly to the floor.
“Ever see one?” Hazel’s voice was gentle.
“In school. I was five, six.”
“Before they burnt ‘em all away after 10/12?”
Puppy nodded, tenderly touching the edge of the flag. “Every morning, singing the song.”
“The song being The Star Spangled Banner,” Hazel said tartly. “Remember any of the words?”
“Pretty much. Almost got it perfectly, but I screwed up a few and my father threatened to throw me off the roof if I ever got it wrong again. I figured it wasn’t worth it.”
“It’s always worth it,” Hazel said coldly. “After 10/12 they took the flag from us, too. Here we were getting mowed down by Allahs using American weapons from NATO since the damn Allahs had been voted, fucking voted, as head of NATO countries and you couldn’t even have a flag on your sleeve. In your pocket. You’re an American soldier and…that’s how the term red stripes started.”
“Tearing the stripes and putting them into your boots.” Puppy said, surprising Hazel. “Like I said, there were a lot of vets in my DV.”
“We sang it anyway,” Hazel lowered his voice; the death penalty for flying the flag was still on the books, though not prosecuted since the late ‘80s. “Backwards. Like the Chinese or the Jews.” Hazel gently rolled the flag back into the bag and shoved it deep onto the shelf.
They silently sorted through a few more bags of equipment, Hazel peering sadly at a stiffened batting glove. Puppy gave him a careful look.
“I didn’t figure you for a lover of baseball.”
“I’m not.” He laughed disdainfully. “I’m just a reporter. Not allowed to have strong opinions anymore. Actually any opinions. Otherwise how could you trust what I report?”
“Then why’d you suggest we come here?”
“Because it’s a great story.”
Puppy leaned on a bat. “I don’t want you making fun of us on the news.”
“Freedom of the press, Mr. Nedick,” Hazel said, his face tightening.
“Not freedom to mock. Not freedom to twist. Freedom to tell,” Puppy quoted Grandma’s Twenty Second Insight.
Hazel sneered. “You going to quote her all the way back in the car?”
“Nah. I’m taking the subway.”
• • • •
THE THREE BOYS stood patiently outside Gate Six in their ill-fitting dark suits and ties, stiff like scarecrows. They would’ve waited for hours, soaked, frozen. Nothing was supposed to dissuade you. Puppy had waited for three hours, also in his father’s suit, for his first job at fifteen, digging up dead trees. Never once had he loosened the tie or even wiped dirt from the crisp white shirt. Head drenched in sweat, he’d shoveled for nine hours, never looking up. His hands bled for two days and he had to wash the shirt three times to get it back into some form of usable wear; he also wore that same shirt and tie the day he left the DV for Bronx College. His father had already sold the suit for booze.
Puppy glanced questioningly at Frecklie’s pals.
“Jobs. Now three.” Frecklie shrugged at the simple math and introduced Paquette and Ariel, twins.
“Nice to meet you.”
Ty pushed past them dragging the unsteady Mickey, who wore the dim and delighted smile of a man still drunk after six hours of sleep. The teens frowned. Such behavior got you into the DV, not out.
“That’s two of the players, one of them ovbviously ill,” Puppy explained, leading them into the stadium.
Frecklie compressed his widened eyes into a casual glance around the empty pavillion. He was disappointed, annoying Puppy. What did you expect?
Puppy gave Frecklie the ticket box with the Lifecard swiper; the boy waved off the stool with a roll of his eyes. Paquette got the broom and Ariel was shown the concession stand.
“Chips.” Puppy held up two bags of Jordan’s Chimp Chips.
Ariel held his thumb and forefinger apart. Puppy grinned and told him to borrow Frecklie’s swiper if he had a customer. The kid’s face could’ve lit up the sunrise.
An unmarked truck idled along River Avenue. The A22 driver honked the horn. Puppy, trailed by Frecklie, came back outside and walked up to the driver’s window.
“Delivery.” The driver said, a second ‘bot staring with that shrewd aimless quality.
“Great. Just pull up.”
The A22s exchanged smirks. “Far as we go.”
“You can just drive up…”
“Far as we go.”
Puppy caught the driver sneering at Frecklie. Okay, that’s what this is about, he nodded to himself. “Need me to sign something?”
“Long as you got lots of proof.”
It took about twenty minutes for Puppy’s Lifecard to process; the security machine kept jamming for some odd reason. The A22s slowly, very slowly, opened the back door.
“You got five minutes to unload, otherwise we take it with us to the next stop.” The A22 leaned against the subway pillar, setting the alarm on its watch.
Frecklie fetched his friends and the three teens helped Puppy lug the equipment to the gate. An alarm buzzed and the truck door closed.
“Hey.” Puppy pounded on the driver’s door. “There’s still a couple bags.”
“You see any?” the driver asked its colleague in the front seat, who shook its head with grave certainty.
“Open the back door.”
“I got stops and a schedule.”
The truck edged away.
Puppy grabbed the robot’s head. It howled and the vehicle lurched to a stop. “This is borrowed from a Black Top security center. You want to explain to them at the end of the season why all the equipment hasn’t been returned?”
The A22’s eyes rolled around nervously. Its colleague nodded quickly. Puppy walked, slowly, very slowly, to the back of the truck and pulled out the last of the bags. The automatic door closed and the truck backed up, stopping a couple inches from Puppy, before rumbling away.
Inside of fifteen minutes, the equipment was stacked by home plate. The Hawks and Falcons players milled around as if expecting the bats, balls and gloves to start dancing. Ty examined a bat, shaking his head.
A Mound Over Hell Page 17