A Mound Over Hell

by Gary Morgenstein

  “They’re good people,” she said evenly.

  “I’ve no doubt. There’s a wondrous energy afoot. But you are the performer, not them. You lead, not them.”

  “Cousin talk?”

  “Common sense. Loyalty is a building block, not a door. This owner…”

  “Jimmy Monroe. The guy who found you a candleholder and a tablecloth.”

  “Because I’m a Cousin.”

  “But you’re not supposed to be shown favoritism.”

  “Exactly. Still happens. Human nature.” Kenuda paused. “You need to play at better places for the sake of your career.”

  “Enter Elias.”

  He shrugged modestly. “It’s my job, Dara. Sports only goes so far. But entertainment has enormous possibilities. They’ve been, I feel,” he lowered his voice, “somewhat neglected. Understandable. All too often, art’s a stalking horse for propaganda and a free society needs to trust what they see. Grandma correctly wiped away all the entertainment parasites, the ones the Allahs didn’t nuke in LA. But it’s time to rethink its role. We need more opportunities for song, dance, movies. Athletics isn’t just hulking men and women. They’re balletic and the people love it. Why can’t they love real ballet?”

  “What’s to ensure we don’t go back to those wild days when artists spoke and manipulated political ideas through their art?”

  “The time of social media?”

  Mooshie nodded. Maybe he could also think with his brain.

  “We’re past that. Now the art, the accomplishments, even this wretched champagne and rancid cheese, speak for themselves. Not amplified into a million distortions of influencing, persuading, lobotomizing our free will into part of the smart set. I love your music because I do, not because someone said I’m a fool if I don’t. People have learned they can find truth on their own. Football players call their own plays. No one asks for my permission.”

  “Baseball players call their own pitches.”

  “Yes, sorry.” He sighed. “Puppy’s very enthusiastic and hopefully this last fling will be good for him. I’ll help him once the season’s over. But first you.” He stared. “Let me make some calls. No pressure.”

  “You’re a Third Cousin.”

  “Perhaps a little pressure.”

  Mooshie smiled. “What do you get?”

  “More time with you, Dara.”

  “Who is engaged.”

  “As am I.”

  “To my fiance’s ex.”

  “A nice girl. Loves her shoes.” Mooshe nearly poured her drink over his smirk. “I’m here simply as an admirer.” He waited anxiously until she clinked his offered glass. “Now promise after you’re done tonight, you’ll let me take you to this little place on Tremont which serves real Argentinian wine. Please. Or I’ll be forced to drink this urine and it will be on your conscience.”

  • • • •

  PABLO BRUSHED PAST without so much as a good morning or apology for waking Zelda at five-thirty.

  “Don’t you answer your bell? I nearly froze on the damn bench.”

  “You know I sleep soundly.”

  They both blushed. He grudgingly dropped a bodega bag on the kitchen table. Zelda yawned and set out the coffee and donuts.

  “I’m trying to lose weight.” She pleaded with the donuts to dance off the table, but they sat there smiling jelly smiles.

  “Good idea.” He grunted at her belly flopping out of the robe. She angrily pulled it tighter and spitefully didn’t offer him any napkins or plate or utensils. He spilled coffee on the table and looked like he’d lap it up. Zelda grew more worried than annoyed.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Because I woke you before the sunrise?”

  “That’s one clue.”

  He looked terrible. Handsome face unshaven, big eyes bleary. Worse, the way he grimaced as if in the middle of one hellacious inner argument which he kept losing.

  She ate the donut, but slowly, in case someone talked her out of it. “So?”

  Pablo stared hard. “I need your honesty.”

  “Always.”

  “Do you think I’m a passive observer of the world around me? That I live watching others live and feel my daily comments, inwardly and outwardly, on their lives really suffice for mine?”

  Zelda took a long sip of the coffee to sort through Pablo Speak. “I think so.”

  Pablo rubbed his stubble sadly.

  “But you always have. At least after college.”

  “When I changed?”

  “When you thought you had to change. No more DV shit. Like you showered your soul or something.”

  Pablo quietly repeated her words as if Grandma had added a new Insight.

  “What’s happened, honey?”

  “I can’t say.”

  Zelda leaned her chin on her fist, staring. He sighed.

  “It’s a Cousins issue. This is all internal. So that you can embrace externally.”

  “Figuring out who the hell you are, simply.”

  He cleared his throat. “I guess.”

  “Are they dumping you?”

  “No.” He frowned, suddenly alarmed. “I don’t think so. No one knows how it starts so how can you know if it ends. I imagine they’d stop coming.”

  “People visit?”

  Pablo hesitated, then nodded. “Or someone behaves oddly. I can’t say more.”

  Zelda squeezed his hand. “This is what you wanted your whole life, Pab. You can do it. Whatever that is.”

  “I’m not so sure, Zel.”

  Last time she’d seen Pablo tear up was when they were fifteen and he knocked three Regs unconscious for calling them DV dogs because they’d wandered north of 167th Street. He kept kicking the kids, sobbing, until Puppy and Zelda dragged him away, where he trashed an alley full of garbage cans.

  “You’re ashamed of what you were, baby. At some point you have to realize that’s who you still are.”

  Pablo clamped his teeth together to keep from answering. “Does that work for you and Puppy?”

  “No. Our failures are good road maps.”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay. It’s true. But you’re smarter and more ambitious.”

  “So we always thought.”

  “Maybe not that much smarter.” Zelda grinned. “But don’t quit, jerk. You have no other friends but us, you strike out in love and you’re pushing forty. What else you got going?”

  “What if I fail?” he whispered.

  “You won’t.”

  “You’re so sure?”

  “Yes.” She nodded emphatically. “One of us has to do something. You have to succeed for all of us.”

  Pablo cried silently for a moment. Finally, he asked, “And how have you been?”

  That was always the mystery of friendship. You wanted to share something with someone you loved, but if they were going through shit, was it fair to dump on them? Sometimes you had to take turns, especially when they might be the father of your child.

  “Terrific. Can I have the rest of your donut?”

  He made pig noises and she kissed him on the forehead, leaving jelly on his eyebrows.

  • • • •

  PABLO WIPED MUSTARD off his chin as the Needleman’s waiter beamed expectantly.

  “I’ve never had a kasha knish.”

  “Like something an angel would make, right?” The waiter persisted until Pablo acknowledged the pagan concept of angels serving deli food after death, indicating he needed more time to decide the next course. The waiter’s opinion of Pablo’s decisiveness as a customer dropped as he shuffled behind the counter.

  Too defensive, Pablo scribbled in his notebook.

  Dentist isn’t enough.

  Teeth are taken for granted.

  What isn’t?

  Bold bold bold

  Be what you are but different, he murmured Grandma’s Eighth Insight.

  Diaz waved over the waiter, ignoring the beeping watch for the second reminder o
f his nine AM patient.

  “Pastrami or corned beef?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Pablo said pleasantly. “Just give me a second. Those gentlemen near the door, how often do they come here?”

  “Every day.”

  “Every single day?”

  The waiter was offended. “Why wouldn’t they? Best pastrami and corned beef in the country. Not that you’d know…”

  “Give me pastrami on white with mayo.”

  The waiter shuddered. “That would not be possible. You will have it on rye with mustard or you must leave.”

  “Fine,” Pablo muttered, staring at the laughing men. He crunched on a pickle, imagining winged cherubs in a huge bowl of mustard, and wandered over to their table.

  “Good evening.”

  The men grew silent.

  “I’m at the other table. I’ve been here before.” Pablo slid over a chair. “I like the food, too. Dr. Pablo Diaz. I’m a dentist.”

  Their suspicious eyes were cold, “go away” blinking over their heads. Pablo’s social skills were never great and it took him a minute to figure out what to say.

  “I’m getting the pastrami.” He scanned their table, settling on a bulky sandwich. “What’s that?”

  “Brisket,” muttered the thin man with wispy hair.

  Pablo sniffed. “Real beef?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Not much cattle left after the war.”

  “What war?” grumbled the chubby man with blotchy skin.

  It took Pablo a moment to process that; Puppy’s old DV baseball players popped into his head.

  “The war with the Allahs.”

  “Finally we kicked their asses,” the man said, earning pleased nods from his friends.

  Pablo frowned and gestured at a plate of brown kernels and bow-shaped noodles. “And that?’

  “Kasha varnishkes.” The third man sighed.

  “Where do you get it?”

  “Russia’s best.”

  Russia? The Caliphate of Russia?

  “Mine’s from Warsaw,” the wispy haired man disagreed.

  In the Caliphate of Bulanda.

  “Nah, the best comes from Brooklyn. They get it from Jerusalem.” The chubby man’s blotches flared.

  Jerusalem was ashes.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” The waiter stormed over. “Back to your table. These are regular customers since we opened in 2036 and they don’t get bothered.”

  As the waiter prodded Pablo to the rear with the tray, the pastrami sandwich slid off. The old man’s hands blurred as he caught the food, tucking the meat between the bread with two lightning fingers and slamming the plate down in one motion.

  “Rye bread. Mustard. The way it was meant to be,” he said gruffly.

  Pablo peered at the neat sandwich, astonished. Everyone waited. He slowly chewed through his unease.

  “Best in America,” Pablo said, very carefully. He waited until the waiter shuffled back behind the counter, then he threw a pickle toward the other table, which the blotchy-faced man snatched without even looking. Pablo fired a sour tomato; the wispy-haired gent plucked it out of the air. With a pitch that would’ve made Puppy proud, Pablo fired a pickle down the heart of their table; the three men simultaneously pulled apart the briny cucumber in equal thirds, munching away.

  “No food throwing,” yelled the waiter.

  Pablo smiled grimly. He would order dessert.

  • • • •

  PUPPY WAS LYING on his back in center field as large shuffling skeletons danced in a circle and chanted baseball songs. He didn’t recognize the lyrics or the language or the music. But they were definitely baseball songs since they wore baseball caps, which they waved triumphantly as, in turn, they stomped on his shoulder. This hurt intensely and he swam up through the overgrown grass, gagging as it filled his nostrils and mouth and ears; since when did he breathe through his ears? Was that why his head was floating off his body?

  From the ceiling, Puppy looked down at the bed. He had a skull for a head. Mooshie grinned a skeletal smile, laughing insanely and reaching for his penis.

  The pain remained past waking. Brushing his teeth hurt. Showering hurt. Lacing his sneakers hurt. Anything where he used his right shoulder hurt.

  Ty had called an off-day practice, furious about yesterday’s 8-1 loss. It was all their fault. Playing with just six fielders versus the usual nine for the Falcons might’ve had something to do with it.

  In the fourth inning, Cobb had gone into second with spikes high, gashing the Falcons shortstop, who took umbrage at having his thigh sliced like an AG steak, especially when the play wasn’t even close; Ty was out by five feet on the attempted steal. But he was angry he got a bad jump; the Falcons shortstop’s thigh seemed as good a scapegoat as any.

  The shortstop shoved Ty, who decked him with one punch, then kicked the second baseman in the chest. The Hawks rushed out to help. Mick flattened the first baseman and Vernon completed the destruction of the opposing infield as the fans stood and barked and applauded happily at the newest wrinkle to this fascinating game everyone had always said was boring.

  By the time the calmer folks, led by the umpires, impressed order, the three Hawks were tossed for starting and continuing the fight. Puppy wanted to think that his aching shoulder was because he’d wrenched the Falcons’ catcher off Mickey’s back, but he knew otherwise.

  He was the first person in the clubhouse today because he wanted to hit the aspirin supply; Ty grumbled past.

  “Where the hell are your friends?” Ty yelled.

  “It’s only eight.”

  “What does that matter?” Cobb overturned stools. “Will you be there?”

  “Here I am, skip. I’m not the ghost.”

  “At this goddamn meeting.” He flung a crumpled piece of paper at Puppy.

  Puppy read, frowning. “They can’t suspend you.”

  “Good. Take care of it.”

  Ty slammed the office door in Puppy’s face. Mickey helped straighten up the clubhouse; Puppy dropped the stools a few times. Mick gave Puppy a shrewd look as he buttoned his jersey with his left hand.

  “Mornings are the worse.”

  “For what?”

  “The pains.” He tapped the scars on his knees.

  “It’s just a little stiffness. Mooshie takes up a lot of room and we only have a small bed.”

  Mick grunted. “That must be it.”

  Puppy carefully tied his spikes. “She’s pretty selfish. Lucky I don’t fall on the floor.”

  “Think how much the shoulder would hurt then?”

  “The shoulder’s fine, Mick.”

  “Drinking never helped. I thought it dulled the pain, but not really.”

  “I have no pain and I don’t drink much.”

  “I figure they have better medicine now for sports injuries.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “We ain’t got a team doctor?”

  Puppy shook his head. “No one had ever been hurt before yesterday.”

  Along with the police and teachers, doctors were the Three Amigos of The Family. Trust, faith. Only the best, like Cousins without the mystery. If you couldn’t trust a doctor, a teacher, a cop, how could you trust anyone? They were the bedrocks of daily life.

  If a physician made a diagnosis and the patient refused, it was put before a medical board. So if the board agreed his shoulder needed surgery, and Puppy had never heard of a board overturning a doctor’s diagnosis, then he would have the surgery. Another simplistic way Grandma protected her more stubborn children. And Puppy was not having surgery. At least not until the season was over.

  Puppy tossed the burlap sack into the locker, grimacing.

  “What’s that?” Mick asked.

  “My fan mail,” he said shyly.

  Mantle chuckled. “You?”

  “Yeah. Me.” Puppy reluctantly fished out several letters.

  “Dear Mr. Puppy, I saw you pitch on the vid screen.
You were very funny and I’d like to pitch when I grow up.”

  “Dear Puppy, I haven’t watched baseball since I was a little boy. I think you’re terrific and you remind me of the days my grandfather talked about rooting for the Philadelphia Phillies.”

  “Dear Puppy, You stink. I prefer the HGs. They don’t give up as many home runs.”

  Mick chuckled his way through a few more letters.

  “None for me?” he finally asked, half-serious.

  “Nothing I’ve seen. I’m the local kid so it makes sense I’d get…”

  Mantle cut him off with a shrug of his thick shoulders. “I don’t care, Pup. You deserve it.”

  Puppy blushed and mumbled sheepish thanks; Mick gently smacked his cheek. “It’s kind of nice just playing for once and not worrying about all that other crap. I had enough attention in my life which did me no good except lots of fun, but him.” Mantle peered at Ty’s closed door. “The guy thinks people should applaud when he farts. He didn get even one letter?”

  “Nada.”

  They both grinned devilishly.

  • • • •

  BOCCICELLI AND FISHER stood in the far corner of the office as far from the fuming Cobb as they could get without levitating outside the window.

  “De la Puente is very upset, very upset.” Boccicelli glanced down at his notes. “He required five stitches. And Larsen might have a head wound.”

  “If he ain’t dead, he’s all right,” growled Ty. Puppy shot him the fifteenth warning look since they rode up in the elevator.

  “Ty is accustomed to an aggressive sort of play,” he explained again.

  “There was blood,” Boccicelli snapped.

  “Only five stitches,” murmured Fisher.

  “Would you like five stitches in the leg?”

  “No.” Fisher edged away, unsure who was the greater enemy at the moment.

  Ty gave Boccicelli the finger. The owner thrust out his chest like a fat rooster.

  “You’re the smart guy, aren’t you?”

  “Ain’t difficult in this room.”

  “Well, you’ll have more time to study because you’re suspended three games without pay.”

  Cobb fired murderous stares. Boccicelli moved a little further away.

  “No one’s getting suspended.” Puppy smiled reasssuringly.

  “Yes he is. This is the second fighting offense.”

  “Ty will apologize…”