“And if anyone here ever gives you any crap, I mean one wrong blink, you come right to me.” Boar Face licked her lips.
• • • •
KENUDA WANDERED AROUND Cheng’s office, but there was little to look at, the tiny room nearly barren except for basics, as if showing anything personal might reveal a weakness. The First Cousin grunted again over Kenuda’s plan. Little shit always grunted at me. I could pull his pecker and he’d complain he hadn’t come long enough. Kenuda was crabby and tired. Annette had given him crap until three in the morning about Dara.
“I’m branching out,” he’d insisted. “Entertainment plus sports. It’s a niche begging for someone.”
“Why can’t you find someone else to fill it with?” Annette had whined.
Because Dara was the most exciting woman he’d ever met. Annette’s jealousy was tiring. He hadn’t thought the relationship would go this far. That he was forty-four and still only a Third Cousin after all these years suggested loser. Higher end women wanted someone on the rise; sports were smelly, no, just not serious. Annette was eager to harvest her eggs; a child would help him along with a wife. He’d heard the gossip. Kenuda got his nuts broken by a football. Kenuda prefers screwing a basketball. Or teams. At least the starting units. Kenuda’s skating by.
Marriage would give him stability. But there was a reason he hadn’t ever married; that very stability frightened him. With stability came sameness.
Look at that one, Kenuda risked a sneer toward Cheng. Licking Grandma’s butt for nearly forty years. He’d been her boyfriend during the last part of his baseball career; a drunk and needy journalist had spilled dirt one night after Super Bowl CXXIV. Albert and Lenora, the Untold Romance. Whisking him into the House at all hours. Security guards had said they were noisy, too. The greatest shortstop of his day, who Lenora came to see October 12, 2065 for her first and last baseball game; apparently she hated the sport. But the seventh game of the World Series was great cover to root for her lover and relieve the stress of the failing war, the awful losses and then, ironically, she nearly gets her head blown off.
Cheng, this dreary old reporter rasped, had stayed by her side, Cubs uniform bloody. She’d been hurt far worse than known; perhaps even life and death for a while, nothing was ever certain. Other than Cheng was suddenly named a General.
Kenuda scowled at the shriveled asshole. A General who led the retreat. He wanted to nuke the Allahs, insisted this drunk, but couldn’t go against Grandma’s wishes. Wouldn’t dare go against his meal ticket, now that baseball was banished. Sold out his beliefs to become the first First Cousin.
“He was an asshole as a player, too,” the reporter said, finishing the expensive brandy. “Everyone on the Cubs hated him. But for pure hate, rivalry, oh, he and Mooshie despised each other. She never missed a chance to hit him in the head with a pitch. They dueled with bats once.” The reporter cackled so loudly his teeth nearly flew out. “The Moosh had knocked him down, he charged the mound and Derek Singh, he was injured that day, threw a bat like a javelin to Easy Sun Yen at third who speared it to Mooshie and her and Cheng banged bats until they were down to handles, then they wrestled. Look it up.”
Cheng tossed aside Kenuda’s report and rubbed his eyes, nodding for him to sit.
“Do you believe in a soul, Kenuda?”
“No, sir. That’s a religious concept.”
“No, it’s not,” Albert said disgustedly. “Soul is in your thoughts, an essence of passion and life. It’s why dying people survive and how great art is made.” He stared at Kenuda and shook his head. “You don’t get it. That’s clear from the plan.”
Cheng brushed the folder aside disdainfully. “Why are we doing this?”
“So that everyone can come to Amazon Stadium and remember what happened.”
Albert winced. “Where’s that? Putting ropes around holes so folks don’t fall in? Painting more seats? Selling more food? How does eating a hot dog help people remember treason? What lessons are learned?”
“These exhibits…”
“Everyone has heard the same shit over and over. So what?”
Kenuda was furious at himself. He should’ve asked Hazel for help. Or Nedick. Your ego always gets in the way.
“What would you suggest, First Cousin?” he asked meekly.
“I’m not the Commissioner, am I? But it’s a good thing I know a little about baseball.” Cheng tossed the report into the garbage. “It can’t be just about making money. Though your mind can’t grasp anything else. Like leadership.” Albert sneered. “Perhaps it’s time for a new assignment of responsibilities, Third Cousin.”
Elias stiffened. “I’ve already taken care of that.”
“Pardon?”
“Third Cousin Turashami died two months ago. I’ve been overseeing entertainment, beginning with overhauling the antiquated music area.”
“Why don’t I recall approving that?’
“Because you’ve been too busy leading, First Cousin. As have I.”
Cheng leaned back, reconsidering Kenuda. “So you have. Music.” Albert’s eyes narrowed. “I heard a Mooshie Lopez tune from the 60s on the vidrad the other day.”
Elias smiled smugly. “My idea.”
“Music from the war years is a perilous path to walk.” Cheng caught Kenuda’s alarm. “I actually prefer it, but there’s a reason why it’s rarely played anymore.”
“I thought…”
“Clearly not thoroughly, but you’re a young man. You don’t remember how such music became anthemic to the rebels. Especially Lopez’s songs.”
“Not everything is remembered,” Elias said smugly.
“No,” Cheng conceded. “Not everything. Mooshie was a wretched person, but an amazing voice.” He began singing softly, “’Be brave with your heart, love ain’t never smart, let God sleep in the bed with us.’ It’s called Drapes. All right. Be careful. But nostalgia music might work. Just might,” he mused. “In its day, the sound was wonderful, a musical renaissance until it got twisted like everything else back then.” He paused, dancing with one leg on a memory. “You’ve already implemented a waiver, correct?”
“For what?”
Cheng’s disdain returned. “Mooshie’s songs are still outlawed.”
• • • •
ZELDA TIGHTENED THE knot on Diego’s new tie. “The flowers weren’t necessary.”
“I thought I’d make a good impression and let them see I’m responsible.” He nodded toward the Parents’ house.
“If they can’t see that, then fuck ‘em.”
“And you better not swear.”
“Oh?” She grinned. “Any other tips on my crappy shitty behavior you’d like to make?”
He glanced at his watch. “We don’t have time.”
The woman tossed Diego a surprised, but approving glance as she placed the roses in a glass vase.
“Thank you, these are beautiful. I don’t remember the last time someone brought flowers.”
“I thought, given the occasion. You know, the uh, occasion, it would be nice.” His stammering increased as the little demons in pigtails skipped into the room. They looked at Diego, sorting out what someone with such a nice smile was doing with the she-pig in the dreads.
“Girls, this is Diego. He’s Zelda’s friend.”
“What happened to the other one?” They turned accusingly toward Zelda.
“She couldn’t make it anymore,” the woman explained.
Zelda had received a curt official letter that Mooshie’s negativity and suspicions were not welcome in a setting of warmth and love, asking if she needed a temporary “friend” assigned during the pregnancy, implying Zelda’s taste in companions matched her choice in sex partners.
“But Diego’s much nicer, isn’t he?” the woman asked.
The girls took Diego by the hands and led him toward the couch; Zelda wondered if there was an oven behind.
“So do we play games?” he asked.
They simultaneously said “oh yes, lo
ts.”
“Not lots,” the woman said with a scolding smile. “Today we get acquainted. Would you like some brownies, Diego?”
“I’d love some.”
If he didn’t stop smiling Zelda would smack him.
“We made them,” the girls chorused, offering the plate to Zelda, who waved them off; the children frowned, plotting other ways to poison her.
“I’m having another brownie,” Diego announced and the girls applauded.
Zelda had enough. “Now what?”
The woman frowned. “We’re a family. We do what families do.”
“Being together,” Diego said.
The woman and girls leaned forward as if Diego were the most fascinating person who ever lived.
“You can do pretty much anything as long as you love each other,” he said, shooting Zelda an encouraging look. She plopped besides him, determined not to smile.
“Isn’t that always the case? Finding the way together. And what memories do you have of your family, Zelda?” the woman asked.
“Very happy ones. Always a lot of love.”
“Your mother died young, didn’t she?”
Zelda reddened. “Sort of. I was twelve.”
“Suicide’s a painful thing for a young girl.”
The children were horrified, certain Zelda had a role in her mother’s death.
“I didn’t know that,” Diego said.
Zelda shrugged. “That was a long time ago.”
“Were you close to her?” asked one of the girls, startling Zelda.
While she’d helped her bewildered father with the arrangements and set up the house for visiting mourners, she hadn’t gone to the funeral, which brought Zelda before the DV Community Board for questioning. If you couldn’t love and respect your dead mother, how could you possibly love and respect The Family as a whole; if you ever made it out. What if she hadn’t loved and respected her mother, Zelda told the committee, which sort of gasped since Zelda’s failure was theirs. My mother was an asshole, she beat me, she beat my father, I’m not sorry she jumped off the roof, only that she didn’t do it sooner.
Zelda had been put on probation for two years and monitored monthly through a bored general practitioner, psychiatry had been outlawed a few years earlier under the Anti-Parasite Act, who asked if she had any bad dreams. Just life, she’d told him once. Zelda liked making adults gasp. She still did.
“Um, not really. She was kind of…” her voice trailed off as everyone waited. “Troubled. I don’t like troubled people. I like happy people.”
“You don’t seem happy,” the other child said.
“Maybe not at this moment.” Zelda glared at the girls. “Usually I’m very happy.” She poked Diego for backup.
“Zelda’s always happy and singing.”
“Sing,” the children said.
“Yes,” the woman clapped. “We’d love a song.”
Zelda looked helplessly at Diego, who thought for a moment and sang On the Road Again. He has to pick the song he played over and over when they fucked? The children clapped rhythmically. Zelda reluctantly joined in. The girls held hands and danced in a circle.
Diego gestured to his lips and heart. Finally, she gestured back her love. Diego beamed and spun the girls around a little quicker.
“Join us, Zelda,” he called out.
• • • •
DIEGO HAD LEFT Zelda a squared note on her pillow just after midnight. The subway took about forty minutes and then the walk along the dark streets another half an hour. Captain Lee stood outside Basil Hayden’s Funeral Home, impatiently smoking a ‘bacco.
He shook his wristwatch at Diego, who shrugged apologetically.
“Trains.”
Lee sniffed. “Yeah, they’re dousing ‘em in lilac shampoo lately.”
Diego blushed. “Strawberry. Sir.”
Lee shook his head at the many mysteries of Diego. His blue van was parked at the rear of the warehouse. The captain rattled the fence and a light flickered on. An A24 came halfway toward them, stopping with a peevish air.
“Neither of you look dead.”
“For which we’re grateful,” Lee snapped back. “We’re here for the Thomas order.”
The A24 hunched over suspiciously. “You got proof of that?”
The Captain held up a fistful of greasy bills. The A24 smiled greedily.
Diego stepped warily around the twenty small coffins on the long wooden dolly just inside the right of the large warehouse. Rows of finished and unfinished coffins covered the musty floor. A few A24s busied themselves unpacking plastic wrapping while another on a lift shouted warnings about scuff marks.
“Are these ours?” Diego whispered to Lee.
“Well they ain’t mine,” their robot grumbled from ten feet away; some said they could hear a fart in Nevada. They just creeped Diego out and he stepped away. “Where you going? We ain’t loading them.”
Lee gave the A24 a dirty look and they wheeled the dolly to the van. It took about fifteen minutes of silent sweat. Diego waited in the front seat, looking in the rear as if expecting someone to sit up in the coffins, until Lee paid and they drove toward Eastchester.
The Captain finally broke the silence. “No one’s in there.”
Diego looked again. “I know. “They’re just so small.”
“Don’t question…”
“I’m not. I was just with some kids.”
Lee gave him a meaningful look. “Whose?”
Diego hesitated. “I shouldn’t say.”
“But you’re busting to.”
He smiled sheepishly. The Captain was his friend. Zelda’s baby wasn’t a total secret, though he wouldn’t think his sisters would be happy. Or Mama. Can’t you find a girl like you, they’d ask, as if he hadn’t asked himself that. Older, sometimes not so nice, not exactly the slimmest body and now she got a child that might not be his. Fourteen percent not his. Well he’d made bizarre decisions before and his life wasn’t so bad.
Like riding in a van with little coffins at five in the morning.
“It’s not something I’d talk about with just anyone.”
“We trust Grandma. The rest of the world, it’s up to us,” Lee said.
Diego detected a slight hurt in his voice. The Captain’s been the best boss he ever had. Didn’t know shit about boats and he trained him, believed in him despite his many fuck-ups. Lee was mature, had to be way over forty. Near Zelda’s age. Wonder if she really was thirty-seven or maybe older. Her breasts sure seem young.
“Either tell me or don’t light up with grins like that.”
“Sorry.” Diego wiped his mouth to force away the memory of Zelda’s nipples. “I got a girlfriend.”
“So I guessed. The one from Saul’s Salmon?”
Diego nodded. “She’s a little older.”
“You wouldn’t open a bottle of Rhode Island red wine unless it’s been aged.”
The Captain’s wisdom amazed him sometimes. “I love her.”
“Does she love you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then that’s all that counts. Was it her kids?”
“Oh no.” Diego paused. “She’s kind of pregnant.”
Lee gave him another long look. “Yours?”
“Not sure.”
The Captain shook his head. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I wasn’t too happy, either. My odds are…” he hesitated. “Either me or two other guys.”
“She’s been sleeping with two others?” Lee exploded.
Good thing he hadn’t mentioned the fourteen percent. “But I love her.”
Lee sighed wearily. “And you went to the Parents House with her.”
“Yes, sir.” Diego fished the small box out of his pants.
“That a ring, son?”
Diego nodded. “With a diamond.”
Lee shook his head at the faith of the young and stupid. Where would the human race be without them?
• • • •
PUPPY NEARLY CLOSED the door on Kenuda, figuring he was only bringing awful news this early: the stadium burnt down, baseball was banned again, Annette wants him back. He stepped aside with a bleary wave and Elias entered in time to see Ty and Mickey’s naked bodies exchanging places in the bathroom.
Puppy hurried into the kitchen, kicking empty beer bottles under the sink and making coffee. The Commissioner forced down a couple sips, studying Ty and Mick wrapping towels around their tubby butts as if the Bronx Zoo had been moved into Puppy’s apartment. The players disappeared into the bedroom; Puppy held his breath, hoping Mooshie really had left already.
He waited a couple beats for screams about naked ghost bits. “Dara’s at the recording studio.”
Kenuda’s eyes gleamed, making Puppy uncomfortable. “Dara’s Dreams. Love the title of her new album. Gems, pure gems, like her. You’re very lucky.”
“So are you.”
“For?”
“Annette.”
“Yes, yes.” Kenuda decided against any more coffee. Puppy brought him the last of the Callison’s Original Peppermint Cookies, which he inspected carefully before attempting a small bite. He shuddered. “You’re wondering what brings me here.”
“I’m figuring something terrible.”
“You have a gloomy mindset, Nedick.”
“Based purely on experience.”
“You can look at life either way. I prefer the optimistic. Rest assured, all goes well. Attendance is booming, not what we get for real sports, but not bad considering.”
Mick and Ty passed by on their way back into the bathroom.
“How do they hit with those guts?” Elias asked.
“A famous player, Babe Ruth, once explained that he didn’t hit home runs with his stomach.”
Elias spent a moment pondering the physiques of baseball players. He shuddered again. “I’m very pleased. First Cousin Cheng is very pleased. He was a well-known player himself.”
“I know, sir.”
“The exhibits your young DV friend suggested are very popular. But are they achieving the objective?”
“Which is?”
“Getting siblings to understand what happened.”
“I think it’s pretty clear. If kind of grim. Attendance has dropped since the exhibits were installed, except for when I pitch,” he paused to make sure that sank in. “Chanting the names of the 10/12 dead by the hot dog concession puts a damper on things.”
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