Zelda squirmed, keeping up her polite smile.
“They should’ve let us finish the job,” the woman said loudly, getting appreciative nods from the truck’s occupants. “All those boys and girls dying in vain. I lost two uncles. You know the Allahs are planning on finishing their job.”
“Allahu Akhbar,” Clary growled.
The woman patted her shoulder. “That’s right, girl. Wasn’t us who started this. We know what they do to our children.”
Clary mimed oral sex and the woman flinched, unsure if she were understanding right. The little girl calmly finished her sandwich and reached for another.
Zelda grimaced and re-arranged her legs as the water rolled toward the rear of the truck. Clary laid down her sandwich and lifted up Zelda’s skirt to see where the yellow liquid was coming from.
• • • •
THE TRUCK HONKED its way through traffic, the heavy woman shouting, ”Pregnant woman having a baby, move aside.”
“It’s okay, this doesn’t mean the baby’s hurt.” Annette said soothingly. “Your water broke, that’s all.
She held Zelda’s hand as Clary mopped the liquid with a towel, fascinated. The truck pulled up in front of the emergency room entrance of Ramirez County Hospital, where the heavy woman roared a path, commandeering a wheelchair and leaving them in front of the nurse’s station while she pulled aside curtains until she found a doctor.
The receptionist stared. “Lifecard?”
“We lost it,” Annette said calmly. “My wife and I were at the the soldiers parade with our little girl.” Clary wandered around the waiting room, soaked towel on her shoulder.
“You have no proof?”
Annette shrugged sheepishly.
“Are you giving these folks a hard time?” The hefty woman returned, her voice a club. “They were on their way to honor our soldiers and you’re harassing them about a goddamn Lifecard? Damn hospital’s free anyway.”
“There’s paperwork…”
The woman flung her purse onto the counter. “I’m her aunt.”
The receptionist inhaled bravely. “Do you have proof?”
“You really want to explore that?” She bared her teeth. The receptionist started processing them.
“Thank you,” Zelda said.
The woman waved it off. “Have Diego grow up to be a Tigers fan.”
An orderly took them into a narrow examining room. Another roar from the woman about driving her pickup truck around the emergency room if her niece wasn’t helped right away produced a slightly ruffled Dr. Lera.
“What’ve we got here?” she asked briskly.
“My wife’s water broke,” Annette said.
“Gush or dribble?” The doctor slipped on the stethoscope.
“Gush.”
“Any contractions? And I think Zelda should answer this one.” Zelda shook her head, cringing at the cold stethoscope on her stomach. “What color was the liquid?”
“Yellow,” Annette answered.
The doctor removed the stethoscope from around her neck. “Heartbeat’s normal, thank Grandma’s earlobes. Would you mind if I examined your vagina for any fluids escaping?”
Zelda waited for Annette to approve. The doctor smiled and inserted a speculum, nodding, pleased.
“Everything looks all right for now,” she said cautiously. “We have two choices. Induce labor or wait twenty-four hours for the contractions to begin.”
“We have to get to the baseball game.” Zelda tried sitting up.
The doctor laughed. “I don’t think you’ll make that. But you can watch it here tomorrow. Let’s concentrate on the baby.”
Annette took Zelda’s hand. “We’ll wait.”
“Yes, wait,” Zelda agreed. “The joy of pregnancy isn’t something you want to rush.”
The doctor raised an eyebrow and left them.
“I can’t check in.” Zelda lay on her back.
“You already did. I gave a false name.”
“Oh that’s good.”
“Well, you are an escaped criminal.”
“Who am I?”
“Dara Dinton.”
Zelda laughed until she ached. “Perfect.”
“It was the best I could come up with.”
Zelda kissed her cheek. “I know. Thank you.”
Annette blushed. “De nada.”
“Si, si,” Clary said brightly.
“Just let me rest and then we’ll leave. I’ve got to warn Puppy.”
“I’ve got to warn Puppy,” Annette said mockingly. “Always so noble. Fuck ten guys and get pregnant and you’re still a virgin. You can’t travel.”
“I just need to sleep.”
“No.” Annette leaned on the edge of the cot. “I can move quicker alone.”
Zelda thought a moment before nodding reluctantly, then arched her head at Clary. She cut off Annette’s protests. “If the Black Tops were taking me away, what do you think they’ll do to her?”
Annette frowned. “The idea’s not to have you caught.”
“No. The idea is to stop the Miners. And keep our daughter safe.” They exchanged wry smiles. “Promise you’ll take her.”
Annette nodded unenthusiastically. “I have many faults, but I’m not a liar. You damn DVs rubbed off on me.”
Zelda struggled to a sitting position and cupped Clary’s chin. “You have to go to Puppy Beisbol.”
Clary clapped.
“But I can’t go with you. El bebe.”
“Then Clary stay with el bebe and Zelda.”
“No, honey. You go with Annette.”
“No,” she hissed in horror.
“You have to…”
“No no no,” Clary yelled, shaking her head. “Stay with Zelda.”
“First help Annette. Help Puppy.” Zelda squeezed her tightly. “Go. Before polizia come.” The child stiffened in fear. “I love you.”
“Te amo de una madre.”
The sobbing Clary ran out of the examining room and toward the wide glass exit doors, giving the entire emergency room the finger.
• • • •
IMPROMPTU STORY CENTERS sprouted along the Major Deegan Expressway, snaking down the Grand Concourse. Everyone had a theory about how they started: a soldier stopped to rest, a soldier fainted, a soldier ate some food, a soldier asked where he could poop, kids politely called out a question about the Battle of Copenhagen, Nice, the Kenyan Bloodbath. Or what it was like to have an artificial leg. Arm. Eye. A combination.
Soldiers would climb onto a car, a few hopping DV-style from hood to hood with mischievous grins, and begin answering questions. Modest, they’d call up a colleague when they didn’t know the answer; hey, that’s artillery, that’s for the Navy Seals, I never flew a plane, I’m a Marine, son.
Cars would pull onto the soft shoulders or simply park cock-eyed, funneling lanes and intensifying traffic which barely moved anyway, vehicles scraping each other to allow the marching soldiers to pass. Food would be handed from car to car. Blankets, pillows, sofas were assembled on the spot. Coming to the Bronx for the first night game had been a party, kick down your neighbor’s door and barge in with no questions asked.
This was different. These were guests, strange people who had done strange things in your name, like kill human beings to protect your ass, your way of life. Yet they’d failed. Or had they? What if they hadn’t fought to the last man on the outskirts of Budapest? What if they’d jumped overboard when the suicide boats roared toward them in the Mediterranean? Maybe the crescent moon and star would be flying over Yankee Stadium.
What defined failure for these men and women? They thought they were doing their duty and got nothing except embarrassment and a generous monthly stipend suggesting a nice place in the country, far away, would work for everyone. We don’t have to see you and be reminded of the victory you didn’t win and you don’t have to see us and be reminded of what ungrateful shits your fellow countrymen are.
So they all came, guilty, awkward
, curious to see what the animals did when they were let out of their cages, learning they were just like everyone else, except a little more so. Because they had nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing at all.
Puppy’s apartment had been turned into a Story Center/Hotel since there weren’t enough rooms for all the GIs. Kenuda had found some obscure statute from the war allowing a Cousin to declare any part of the country as a refugee center, last used for Americans fleeing Los Angeles and Washington.
Now throughout the Bronx, subway stations turned into shelters. Apartment building lobbies, schools, office buildings, idle buses, anywhere that had a floor and a roof were Veterans Homes. Mopping brigades formed to sterilize floors. Groceries and liquor stores ran out.
People overran the Clerk’s Office on Burnside Avenue, offering their homes. Soldiers were grabbed on the street, sometimes leading to a brief fistfight, until the vet realized he wasn’t being sent away again, but honored.
Nostalgic food appeared, cheeseburgers and tacos and franks on long festive tables set up just about anywhere, in the middle of a street, at a bus stop; Mooshie’s old music piped out of makeshift speakers. Siblings danced with soldiers. Soldiers kissed siblings.
It was like they’d won the war. Except for the medals. There were none. Dress uniforms, sure, but not a glitter of gold or silver, a thread of a ribbon. Save your tin, the soldiers had said. Show us something that matters. America finally had.
Unlike most of the Bronx, Puppy had somewhere to go. He and Mooshie left Ty and Mick, hobbling on a bad toe, to serve as hosts for about twenty soldiers. Puppy didn’t want to think what the place would look like. For all the anti-privilege sentiment, he was the star player and he was pitching tomorrow night and he needed sleep. It was nearly midnight and he wasn’t even close to tired.
“How long did you live here?” Mooshie gave herself a tour of Annette’s apartment.
“Thirteen years.”
Mooshie admired a painting of ducks attacking a child. “That a LeBeau?”
“Look who you’re asking.” Puppy searched the liquor cabinet, finding an unopen bottle of Boulder Brandy. He poured them shots.
“Is it hard to be here?”
He shrugged. Over there by the bookcase, Annette had smashed his baseball bat. They’d screwed in that corner where there used to be a divan. She’d thrown many glasses of wine at the dining room table, along with telling him she was pregnant, until the miscarriage decided otherwise. Like any relationship, memories to pick and choose, allowing you to fool yourself into thinking you were always happy or always miserable; gray was not a good color for love.
Mooshie sat cross-legged on the couch, the brandy between her thighs.
“How’s the arm?”
“Good enough.” He could barely brush his hair anymore.
They listened to the discordant songs rising up from the street. “I should sing for them.”
“You’ll sing enough tomorrow. What’s the play list?”
“Typical Mooshie brilliance.”
“Meaning I should mind my own business.”
“You’re so insightful, my fiancé.”
Puppy laid his weary head against the chair, tapping his feet. “Why do you think she’s really doing it?”
“Who?”
“What other she or her do we have?”
Mooshie sipped from the bottle. “It’s not for us.”
“C’mon, Moosh. Where would we be without Grandma?” He waited for Mooshie to answer. “She kept us alive.”
“For what?”
“To survive. Twenty-five years. Look how we’ve rebuilt.”
“Again, for what? A society so scared they hide behind false love?”
Someone set up a really noisy sound system right below the window, blasting Griebel’s Spirit Wind.
“Better than the hate, Moosh. Grandma at least makes us think in the right direction. Hate does nothing.”
“Hate settles scores.”
“No. Hate’s contagious.” Puppy took the bottle away and sipped. “Look how the Allahs hate us. What’s it got them?”
Mooshie stared hard. “The fucking world.”
“For how long? All the great empires collapse.”
“Like America’s?”
“We were never an empire, Moosh. That was probably our downfall. We acted like we ruled the place, but we were never willing to punish people. To be real assholes. We’re too nice to be tyrants. The mirrors of democracy got in the way.”
“We got soft, Pup. Bad guys don’t respect soft.”
“Maybe they respect love.” Mooshie snorted derisively. “I’m serious. Maybe once baseball’s really back, we can offer to play the Allahs. How’s about that for a real World Series.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Remember the great Allah players Edi Badr, Ali Sadat.”
She sneered. “Mediocre.”
“Bullshit. Badr hit .400 three straight years. Sadat had a career 1.87 ERA. You never did that.”
Her glass shattered against the wall. “I wasn’t a traitor.”
“People thought you were.”
“For speaking up.”
“Yeah. For what you believed in. So did they. There were innocent people deported, Moosh. Not everyone was a terrorist.”
“If they prayed to Mecca, they believed in sharia, which means world conquest. I was there. None of them fought for America.”
“Not true,” he said softly. “There was the Prayer Brigade.”
“Which turned on us.”
“Because the Marines Second Company attacked them at Fort Bragg.”
“After their friends took out Washington. They found traitors in the brigade.”
“Some. A few. Not all.”
Mooshie shook her head pityingly. “We could do this all night.”
He conceded with a nod, crawling onto her lap. Mooshie took the bottle over his mild protest.
“You’re pitching tomorrow.”
She switched off the lights and they listened to the singing on the street. It lasted all night.
• • • •
TOMAS STRETCHED OUT his aching good leg in the back seat of the ‘copter. To make the last exchange between the aircraft, he’d slid along the retractable ladder at five thousand feet, not a good place to unwind muscles, dangling somewhere over the Atlantic.
“Any patrols?” He leaned forward into the cockpit.
The young pilot shook his head. “They’re either sloppy or so overwhelming we see them miles away. We’ll stealth in three klicks.”
“You’re my last flight. Make it smooth.”
Stilton patted the boy’s shoulder, nodding at the mute co-pilot and returning to the cabin. Eleven hours and he was edgy. Reviewing the security details for the game didn’t help. Artito had whisked them out of a pouch in Cheng’s office. Just picking up for Grandma, he’d insisted, bullying the A10 into handing over a copy.
There’d been a top to bottom search of the stadium last night. Old tunnels, passageways, crawl up the butt of every nook in every crevice. Sniff the seats. Two wings of ‘copters, overhead and outside the ballpark. Fighters on alert at Mariah Air Base near Montclair. Navy Seals on stand-by at City Island.
Except for the additional phrase “no visible presence of armed military or police personnel to avoid inflammation,” Cheng had used every bit of the emergency contingency plan that Tomas had devised and updated for thirty years. How to get Grandma in and out of every situation.
Yet he was worried. He wasn’t there, he had no control. Let it go. Cheng’s an ass, but Artito knows what he’s doing. Their shadow security will work. You trained him. It’s only a baseball game. With twenty thousand soldiers who hate Grandma’s guts for surrendering. Why should you be worried?
The ‘copter tipped southeast and the pilot let him know the stealth procedure was being implemented. A hazy buzzing enveloped the craft. Maybe another hour, he thought, closing his eyes, drifting against his instincts.
&nb
sp; He felt the co-pilot walk into the cabin and pause, shifting weight into the back foot.
Tomas dove to the left as the heavy knife plunged into the thick seat. He kicked the pilot’s knee out of joint, grabbed a small blade from his hip pocket and slit the attacker’s throat. The pilot turned and fired through the mesh of spurting blood; the bullet ricocheted around the cabin.
Stilton winced at the flesh wound on his thigh. Half-hopping into the cockpit, he shattered the pilot’s right arm; the ‘copter wobbled.
“You’re going to land us, son.” Tomas held the dripping blade against the pilot’s neck.
The young man bit down and convulsed; foam sputtered over his lips. Tomas shoved the body into the other seat and steadied the ‘copter, glancing at the board and easing the craft around, west.
He steadied his breath. When’s the last time you killed someone?
The fuel gauge flickered warning red. Damn bullet must’ve hit a line. The board told him he didn’t have enough fuel to make it home.
A white Allah patrol boat cruised below. Tomas deliberated, cutting the engines and letting the ‘copter glide overhead soundlessly. The boat puttered along obliviously until it was out of sight.
He had enough fuel for about half an hour. He had to get close enough to land.
You couldn’t just send me away, Lenora. You had to kill me, too?
He headed towards the curving coastline of Spain. You said you wanted me to find Abdullah. Well here I am.
• • • •
THE DEVIL CHILD saw them first and tugged at Annette’s sleeve, muttering in Spanish and gesturing with that mop of hair. The same two Miners from the camp were now standing at the back of the unwieldy line at the bus stop. Annette tightened her grip on Clary’s hand and casually led her another few blocks, squirming around the massive crowds who seemed to be swimming in place, punctuated by the blaring of drums now. She had an immense headache.
It was a miracle they made it this far. First there was the fight over the lollies Clary had stolen from the hospital, which she refused to share. Then the little evil thing obstinately standing on the side of the road, insisting on waving to the marching soldiers and shouting “Puppy Beisbol,” defying Annette, daring Annette.
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