A Mound Over Hell

by Gary Morgenstein

  The buzz intensified. Bronx College led 7-0, if anyone was paying attention to that.

  Fifth inning, first batter popped out. Second batter grounded out, 6-3. Puppy sweated, doing the math. On a 1-2 pitch, he broke off a slider and felt something pull in his right shoulder. Not just pull. A little person was holding onto his muscle like a bell, ringing pain.

  He sat alone at the end of the dugout, towel over his head; his teammates and manager figured he was superstitious. He didn’t want anyone seeing him chomping on the cotton fabric as a pacifier.

  In the sixth inning, the leadoff hitter smacked the ball into the gaping artillery hole in the left field stands. Next one lashes the ball into the right field corner. Single scores him, triple scores that runner. Suddenly it’s 7-3.

  Puppy persuaded the manager that he was fine. He bore down and got the next batter on strikes, a grounder scoring the run, and the third out retired on a lazy fly to center.

  Puppy 11, Mooshie 14, Annette carried the crossed-out updated numbers through the stands.

  Top of the seventh, a leadoff double followed by two groundouts cut the lead to a couple runs. Annette climbed on top of the home dugout, leading the crowd in barking.

  “Oof, oof, Puppy. Oof, oof, Puppy.”

  He nailed the third out on a sinking fastball, nearly going to his knees in agony.

  Puppy 12, Mooshie 14.

  Bottom of the seventh, his teammates gave him a little cushion, taking a four-run lead into the top of the eighth. The leadoff batter homered into a mortar chasm in right-center, but the next two hitters singled. First and second. Puppy waved back the manager into the dugout. Only way he was giving up the ball was if his shoulder sailed across home plate.

  A bouncer to short set up first and third, two outs. Annette’s boobs danced on top of the dugout. Fans of both teams were rooting for him, clapping and barking rhythmically.

  Puppy 13, Mooshie 14.

  He went into the clubhouse during the bottom of the eighth, heaving in the toilet and swallowing down four aspirin. The manager asked how he was and Puppy dry heaved again. Just nerves.

  The little guy ringing the bell now had friends. By the top of the ninth, Puppy could barely see through the pain. Wavy blurs, dry heaves, knees wobbly. His ears hurt and he didn’t know why. He snapped one off at the knees on a 3-2 count.

  Barking shook the Stadium.

  Puppy 14, Mooshie 14.

  The second batter lofted an infield pop. The second baseman squeezed the ball, earning hate from his teammates for denying Puppy another chance at a strikeout. He gallantly waved his gloved hand for everyone to relax. He didn’t know how much longer he could raise his right arm.

  Two outs. The BU cleanup hitter swung the bat slowly, waiting.

  A curve caught the outside corner. Strike one.

  “Oof, Puppy, oof.”

  A fastball dipped at the knees. Strike two.

  “Oof, Puppy, oof.”

  He walked behind the mound, rubbing the ball. His teammates were silent, afraid a word would break the spell. He wound up and the ball floated slowly toward home, catching the hitter off-balance with a feeble swing.

  Strike three.

  Annette flung her signs into the air and ran onto the field. Puppy fell to hands and knees, surrounded by teammates who lifted him up, then lifted up Annette. He clenched his groin to the sky a la Mooshie, laughing hysterically. He threw up on a teammate. The players carried the lovers together in the air and they kissed, big happy smiles because they owned the world.

  “Come on, man. I’m getting cold,” Vern complained, waiting to hit.

  Puppy rubbed the ball. The oh so charming Frecklie’s Mom sat about eighteen rows behind the visitor’s dugout trying to be as inconspicuous as you could when players outnumbered fans. He tipped his cap and, sneering, she moved back a few more rows.

  Puppy stared into the rickety waist-high screen behind home. His pitch made it on two bounces. Vern swung anyway, corkscrewing into the left-handed batters box. Some hoots echoed out of the Falcons dugout.

  Ty clapped encouragingly. “Way to keep the ball down.”

  Puppy waited for the shoulder to hurt. Nothing. A slight twinge from disuse. He threw another pitch that landed in front of home. Vern missed that one, too.

  “Nice,” Cobb shouted approvingly.

  “Why don’t you roll the ball?” yelled a wise guy in the Falcons’ dugout.

  “That is rude.” Shannon stepped toward them.

  The Falcons kept up the mocking calls. Vernon skip-stepped away from the next pitch, which still caught his shin.

  “Just throw the damn ball,” Ty yelled. “Throw, it, hard.”

  “Bring back the HGs,” another Falcons wag said, producing laughter.

  A blur shot behind home and into the Falcons dugout. When Ty was finally dragged away, two Falcons were unconscious and a third was spitting out teeth.

  • • • •

  THE NARROW RED micro-fibric seat wobbled beneath Tomas’ bulk, his hands illuminated by the dreary black-and-white images flickering on the Tremont Avenue movie screen. The droning melodrama was a whisper in the deserted theater. Grandma had been overly sensitive to accusations of propagandizing all entertainment. Too sensitive, he thought. Get it done like she got everything else done from wiping out social media to the Miners.

  But Grandma insisted the heaving bosom cinema recalled her childhood. Where exactly that childhood was, she never said, smiling enigmatically. Beijing, Manila, Ho Chi Minh City, Pyongyang, Mombai. He suspected Paris since most of the approved movies were old French New Wave, peppered with saucy Italian and absolutely dim-witted British comedies.

  Music was fine, let it roll and rock in all directions. Vidnews and vidshows were largely ignored; dutiful white noise. Live theater had been hooted away for its banality long ago, shorn of subversion. Movies, old tear-jerking movies, a couple cinemas in each major city presenting Sunday matinees of ancient Disney animated films, was about all that was left. Safe. Her head of security preferred safe.

  Tomas sensed that all he knew about being safe was slipping away.

  The round-faced man in the bulky overcoat two seats away dove into the popcorn with hungry relish. Tomas faked attention to the screen, where a reedy-looking young man dangled a ‘bacco from the corner of his mouth, seducing a pretty girl with his eyes and motorcycle.

  “I have waited two days.” The Paris Collector leaned over casually.

  “Not enough food?”

  He grunted and resumed devouring the popcorn.

  “How is Paris?”

  “We survive as always.”

  The world’s oldest profession as perfected by the French had found a permanent home, Tomas thought sourly. “Is the interest from the Son genuine?”

  The Collector nodded.

  “Are you sure?”

  “We cannot be sure of anything with those people.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Tomas whispered harshly. “I worry about a trap.”

  The man chuckled, spraying popcorn on the seat in front. “Why risk that? An assassination Of would unleash nuclear retaliation. Even the Council of Muftis is beyond that. They are too fat in their wealth.”

  “But the Son isn’t.”

  “He is restless and young. Very smart.”

  “Is it just him?”

  The Collector sighed. “He wouldn’t do this alone. He wants to succeed.”

  Tomas pressed into the seat, the images sitting on his lap. “Grandma needs more than that.”

  The man dug out a stray kernel from his back tooth. “The Son can only go so far on faith.”

  “So can she.”

  The man turned, offering the popcorn. “Who would question Grandma?”

  He had some nagging ideas. Tomas scooped a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

  “You do not like any of this,” the man asked as a statement.

  “That’s not for me to say. She thinks this is a last chance for real peace
. Her legacy.”

  “Writing history while you still live it can be dangerous,” the Collector said.

  “We have to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Tomas grabbed the raised overcoat, pinning the muscles onto the side of the man’s neck. “This is not good enough.”

  “You want guarantees?” The man jerked away with surprising strength. “Peace is more dangerous than war. Most of the world is used to this arrangement. You live well enough. So do they. Yes, the goats blow each other up from time to time over some argument, but they’re Allahs. To them it is like pissing. But one powerful person now wants to change. Ask yourself why, Tomas. Twenty-five years since the Surrender. A Surrender she pushed for.”

  “We had no choice. They could’ve taken America proper. Grandma wouldn’t have really launched the nukes.” The Major briefly imagined the empty movie theater filled with Allahs and shuddered.

  The Collector sipped noisily on his cola. “They’re not the same as before.”

  Tomas craned his neck slightly.

  “They don’t maintain weapons or discipline,” the Collector continued. “That iron core of purpose is gone, except for the religious fanatics.”

  “They’re all fanatics,” Stilton muttered.

  “No,” he shook his head emphatically. “I live among them. I know. Some are willing to die, where others won’t. They have the Empire they always felt was promised.”

  “All the more reason to defend it.”

  The Collector paused. “They could be taken.”

  “Militarily?” Tomas asked. The Collector nodded.

  By who? Our will to fight, except for the Miners, had been broken. This was not virtual reality on some mobile device shared with people who weren’t your friends, emotional silos of fake communities. This was real and we hadn’t been ready to fight because we forgot what we were fighting for. We were tired of losing, blaming ourselves for mistreating Islam because somehow it had to be our fault for them starting the whole damn thing. Allies, friends? European whores waving the white flags and giving away the countries they stopped loving long ago under the banner of human rights. Only the Russians had really fought hard. And the Jews in that last battle of genocidal martyrdom in Jerusalem. He rubbed the Gelinium as if it stored all the dead. There would’ve been nothing left if Grandma hadn’t said enough. Time to rebuild, my darlings.

  Now time to build something new. We don’t have the soldiers, planes, ships, hell, guts for anything else except peace with an enemy who wanted us dead. The realization made him sadder than he wanted to admit.

  Tomas slowly returned the bag of popcorn. “Grandma wants to meet the Son.”

  “I will set it up.” The man shook out the last of the snack into his palm, greedily licking the salt.

  “Not yet. I want to meet him first.”

  “The Son will not prefer that.”

  “Grandma won’t like it, either. We’ll just have to lie to both of them.”

  • • • •

  FISHER PACED BACK and forth in front of his desk and then around the furniture; all that was missing were a stop light and a few street signs. He finally leaned against the wall, hoping it would collapse and take him away from all this aggravation.

  “Nedick, this is not acceptable behavior. We never had an HG act like this.”

  “Because they’re not real.”

  “My players suffered injuries,” Boccacelli said with grave concern as if he cared. “This man must be disciplined.”

  “Yes, Nedick. He must be disciplined,” Fisher added.

  “I already spoke to Ty. He lost his temper. It won’t happen again.”

  “Baseball players are violent.” Boccacceli straightened his tie. “There’s a reason why we have the HGs. You people are prone to this. Look at what you did the last time.”

  “I didn’t do anything, sir,” Puppy said coldly.

  “Your DV friends did. The Miners were mostly DVs.”

  “They’re all gone. Look at the bones in the outfield.”

  Boccacelli flushed. “Cobb’s your responsibility.”

  “Yes sir, he is.”

  The Falcons owner scowled.

  “And we’re already out of toilet paper,” Fisher whined.

  Mrs. Balinksi’s kielbasa hadn’t agreed with everyone. “I’ll tell them three sheets per poop, no more.”

  The owners frowned skeptically.

  “And then there’s these added labor costs.” Boccacelli sneered. “I see two more on the payroll. I imagine both are DVs.”

  “Excellent guess, sir. They work hard and they also work cheap,” he said tightly.

  “With good reason. Doing what exactly?”

  “Maintenance and concessions.”

  “Maintaining what?”

  “The ambience so people are motivated to eat. If they eat, they pay. If they pay, you get a cut.”

  Fisher moved away from the wall. “Cut like money?”

  “Yes, Mr. Fisher. Fifty percent.”

  The owners tried containing their greedy smiles.

  “What’re they eating?” Fisher asked.

  “Pierogi and kielbasa.”

  Fisher tried silently mouthing the words.

  “From the Polish region,” Puppy said.

  “That’s Muslim Europe food,” the Hawks owner gasped.

  “It was a CE Polish country which served kielbasa and pierogi long before the Allahs took over.”

  “We’ll have to check,” Boccacelli warned. There were instances of vague trouble for people serving cuisine of enslaved nations. “How many of these polishey things were eaten today?”

  “Thirty kielbasa. Twelve pierogi.”

  The owner’s eyes widened.

  “Fifty percent,” Puppy continued. “We get more food stands, you get more money.”

  Fisher brightened. “Who’ll eat this foreign food?”

  Puppy flashed five fingers on each hand five times to indicate the attendance. “We’re well over the cutoff.” He paused. “And if you petition Commissioner Kenuda to have the games restored to the full nine innings, think of how many more kielbasa and pierogi you can sell.”

  The owners’ eyes gleamed.

  20

  Puppy motioned for Frecklie to stop twenty feet away. Far enough. The sun began descending somewhere over Manhattan, signaling maybe another half an hour of light. Even now, the tangled weeds along the back wall of the playground on Clay Avenue formed a canopy of shadows.

  Ready? Frecklie gave the sign of impatience, up on the toes, protectively holding the side of Puppy’s old weathered Derek Singh glove as if afraid it’d get hit by a ball. Puppy used a Santo Danero model, the Cubs left fielder from the ’65 team; he’d searched his bedroom, but the Mooshie Lopez glove had fled. Hopefully Mick hadn’t sold the mitt for booze.

  Puppy looked around again, expecting millions to descend from the sky in Grandma’s stealth ‘copters, brandishing cameras to project the moment into the holographic sky. Overreaching Is Not Ambition, Grow Within Yourself. A giant Grandma holding a tiny Puppy by the neck, carefully rotating his shoulder. See Grandma, he’d look up into those comforting brown eyes the size of clouds. Not a twinge. Not an ache. Nothing yet to suggest surgically repaired muscles would launch a vicious protest campaign against this lunacy. Even fools can be right. Sorry, Grandma. You never struck out fourteen batters.

  He had to try. If the shoulder hurt, close the door on the past. And the future. This room is your room forever. Ty could taunt all he wanted and give him a pink gown for his next birthday, but sometimes blind emotionally-laden stubbornness, I’m doing it so get out of the way, is the best damn guidance because it leaves so little room to realize what an idiot you are. Baseball was ending and somehow he had to slip in that last layer of his dream.

  First Puppy had to strike himself out.

  He lobbed the ball, which bounced off the tip of Frecklie’s glove. The teen underhanded the ball back with an air of vague disgust. He knew enough to know that wasn’t
a pitch.

  Puppy waited another few moments for the sun to scamper west. He went into the tight wind-up and fired. The pitch went right through Frecklie, who chased it down.

  No pain, Puppy half-smiled. Yeah, a regular stud from twenty feet. Frecklie tossed the ball back wildly, elbows and legs in opposite directions. Imagine what Ty would say about that throw, Puppy’s smile broadened. He stepped back to thirty feet.

  Frecklie sat cross-legged, holding the glove up and away with a prayerful gesture. To his surprise, the next pitch wedged into the pocket of the glove, knocking him backwards. He bounced up on his shins, delighted, and flipped the ball back.

  Frecklie patted his heart. Good.

  Good. What was good, what do you know about good? I was once great. Puppy fought the anger chasing the doubt and threw again. Frecklie chased after the pitch which would’ve broken at the waist. A softball fastball, but a strike.

  He rotated the shoulder. Frecklie anxiously walked the ball back.

  Hurt? Frecklie tapped his own arm. Puppy impatiently shook his head, turning rudely and retreating until he was about fifty feet away, then a little more until he was under the weed canopy, gray shadows creeping around Frecklie. He wished the dusk would swallow up the kid and he could do this alone.

  From just over sixty feet, Puppy took a long breath and threw hard, hip rotating. The ball ran steadily at Frecklie, hitting him in the chest and knocking him down. The boy gasped and rubbed his breastbone. Puppy waited. One, two, three, four, five.

  Grandma’s bra straps, he grinned.

  No pain.

  Frecklie crawled to his knees, still dazed. Off to the left, the wire fence sang out like rusty birds. Along the top, seven DV teens wedged their shoes into the squares, standing erect, expressionless. Off to the right, another eight kids took up similar positions. No pleading urchins with soiled faces, they wore clean white shirts and perfectly patched jeans.

  Puppy walked halfway toward Frecklie as a few more kids found wedges just below the top of the fence.

  “You told them?” Puppy asked angrily. “This was private.”

  Frecklie shook his head and touched his ear. They heard.

  The fence cooed again and soon about fifty kids filled the fence top to bottom in staggered rows. Almost as one, they raised up on their toes, then down again, then up and down one last time.