A Mound Over Hell

by Gary Morgenstein

  None of their tosses made it past forty feet; the crowd cheered anyway. They walked off the field while Mooshie tossed the ball into the air.

  “Are you ready?” she shouted.

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  “Yes,” the crowd ratcheted it up.

  “I can’t fucking hear you.”

  The old ballpark shook.

  Mooshie winked at Puppy. “Then let’s play ball.” She flipped her hair side to side, back and forth, winding up and firing the ball into the second level behind third base.

  Play Ball!!! cried an HG umpire.

  • • • •

  ALL THE TRAINS had stopped at 235th Street. Someone, somehow, had relocated one of the forty-foot vidscreens across the tracks at 234th Street. There weren’t enough cops to move it since all of the Bronx’s Blue Shirts were on duty within half a mile of Yankee Stadium.

  At least they wouldn’t get arrested for public defecation, Annette thought, since Clary had threatened to pee on the street unless she found a toilet. Annette jiggled the jiggling child to be still as she searched up and down the jammed block.

  “Hurry.” Clary squirmed and bent her knees.

  “I told you to go on the train.”

  Clary erupted into angry Spanish and took to squatting every few feet.

  Just past what was once a traffic intersection, a thick line poured out of an old ethnic-styled pub, the sort of place Annette’s father would call “a place for people with calluses.”

  Annette pointed hopefully toward the entrance. Clary growled when they didn’t move.

  “El patience,” Annette hissed.

  A loud gagging noise blasted out of Clary like she was a music speaker. Heads turned and the child clutched her stomach, groaning. Annette yanked Clary, feet scraping listlessly along the ground, through the path of drunks unwilling to house someone else’s vomit, and into the bar.

  “Bathroom?” Annette shouted over the deafening noise at the bartender, who jerked his head around the corner to the left.

  “Puppy Beisbol,” Clary shouted at the vidsports screen over the bar where Puppy clenched his fist after striking out a batter.

  “You’re supposed to be dying,” Annette rasped. “Beisbol later, pee now.”

  Clary made scary noises and darted between bodies. A thick-set man sympathetically shook his head.

  “Easier when you could smack them.”

  “Cooking them would be better,” Annette grumbled. The man edged away.

  She watched the game a moment. It was already the third inning. When was this disaster supposed to happen? Annette glanced around impatiently, landing on the two Brown Hats squeezing into the bar.

  Recognizing the Detectives, Annette frantically crouched behind some beefy guys screaming encouragement at Puppy as Buca and Y’or eased through the crowd, eyes narrowed. Looking for someone.

  Relax. There must be other dangerous criminals let loose. Just tell them there’s a terrorist attack about to happen and you’ve done your duty. Have you? It sounded so stupid. Where was the evidence? Look at all those children, she thought as the camera panned over the crowd. They’re terrorists too?

  She ducked as the Brown Hats scanned the bar. Of course if she’s right, she’s uh, what did they used to call them, heroes, back when everyone had to be rewarded to behave selflessly. Kenuda would have to marry her. Her shoes would be required buying. She’d probably get her own vidshow about fashion, Annette warmed to the idea, slowly rising.

  Clary’s head bobbed around the end of the bar. What about her? If they wanted the brat the first time, they’d probably want her more now. So, Annette, so? She’s a demon child. Zelda should’ve kept her.

  If she were supposed to be a mother then she wouldn’t have miscarried.

  The Detectives whispered to each other, moving cautiously towards Clary.

  I hate you, Puppy.

  Annette grabbed Clary around the waist and charged toward the back door.

  “I’m so tired of being chased,” Annette yelled as they scrambled down 233rd Street.

  • • • •

  THAT’S THE TWELFTH STRAIGHT DOUBLE K GAME FOR PUPPY. The scoreboard exhaled a Puppy HG on a horse gunning down Cubbies.

  Ty grunted at Puppy as he sat at the far end of the dugout, passing teammates slapping his knee proudly. “Don’t get carried away.”

  Everything was working. The knuckler was dancing, the occasional fastball dipping, the few curves all breaking at the last minute and dropping into the pitcher’s mystical black hole. Unable to sit still, he leaned on the top step, peering past Mick swinging a couple bats by the on-deck circle as another contingent of soldiers trotted out to home plate.

  “The Army 31st Regiment held out for five days without resupply, enabling their buddies to withdraw safely into Scotland,” Mooshie solemnly said. “They were taken prisoner by the Allahs,” she was supposed to say Arabs, “for four years.”

  Mooshie bit her lip. “You can imagine.”

  The crowd murmured angrily, but a glance toward the box showed a very calm and serene Grandma. Clearly she expected a certain temperature. You don’t forgive overnight.

  “We salute you.” Mooshie tipped her hand to her brow. The men, backs erect, returned the salutes, pausing grudgingly before Grandma.

  “Going well, don’t you think?” Cheng whispered as the soldiers shuffled down the steps into the Yankees dugout.

  Grandma kept her smile. “They hate my guts.”

  Cheng shrugged. “That’ll never change.”

  Grandma gave him a sharp look.

  They went to the top of the fifth, the game scoreless. Puppy had struck out ten of the first twelve batters, but the Cubs’ Hsen was nearly matching him, fanning six and allowing only a scratch hit by Ty.

  Puppy got the leadoff batter to feebly chase an oh-two knuckler. A Puppy HG in a wizard’s robe bewitched a Cubs batter.

  In the control room, Dale whooped it up. Puppy doffed his cap in admiration.

  The next batter went down on a fastball at the knees which beaded pain on Puppy’s upper lip. He walked off the mound, rubbing up the ball. Ty and Mick watched very carefully from their outfield positions. Puppy managed a weak smile and dug back into the mound.

  His mind was briefly on the pain, not the pitch, and he threw a wobbly knuckler which forgot to skip. The Cubs shortstop Santiago ripped the ball into right center. Ty and Mick converged, both leaving their feet. The shot sailed over Mick’s outstretched glove, but Ty snatched the would-be extra base hit in the tip of the webbing. Together the two old-timers ran gleefully into the dugout.

  “Perfect game’s still alive,” Jackson shouted.

  Cobb jabbed the catcher in the ribs with the handle of his bat. “Never say that again. Any of you.” To underscore the message, Cobb chased Vern down the runway and ito the clubhouse.

  “Is he crazy?” Shannon whispered to Puppy, towel draped around his neck.

  “Well yeah. But it’s an old baseball superstition. Never jinx a you-know-what by talking about it.”

  Ty slammed the bat near Puppy’s knee. “That means everyone.”

  An Air Force wing commander was honored in the last of the fifth, HG F-26s gliding over the stands, so lifelike children tried pulling them out of the sky. The Yankees went down in order, Puppy ending the inning by bouncing out to third; Ty screamed at him for not running out the ball.

  He almost showed him a clenched groin. Gimme a break, skip.

  In the top of the sixth, the first Cub trickled out to short and the next batter swung fitfully at a curve way outside.

  THAT’S THIRTEEN, FOLKS. Puppy galloped across the outfield and lassoed a Cubs hitter.

  He went to three-and-two on the Cubbies left fielder, who fouled off three straight pitches before swinging an inch over a sinking fastball.

  FOURTEEN! The Puppy HG dove toward the real one, who pretended to chase his alter ego around the infield, which didn’t amuse Ty.

  I
n the last of the sixth, Vernon smacked a hanging curve into the right field corner, huffing into second with a lead-off double.

  Dale concentrated on her console, punching in a gasping Jackson HG wheezing on hands and knees into the base. As always, she made herself laugh. She had to come up with more funny HGs for the Cubs. But they were boring. Well, If anyone could make them unboring, it was her. Dale was so intent thinking of ways to make the Cubs HGs interesting that she didn’t hear the three men in orange wigs sneak into the control room.

  When Dale looked up, she was clubbed in the head with the butt of a rifle. A Miner dragged her into the corner while his comrades studied the console. They nodded, pleased. It looked just like they planned.

  Dmitri grounded out to second, sending Vern to third. The Cubs drew their infield in. Dante tried too hard and popped up to the first baseman, flinging the bat in disgust. Ty broke the discarded bat over his knee.

  Ty dug into the left-handed hitter’s box and missed a bunt attempt on the first pitch.

  “He never misses.” Puppy nudged Mickey.

  “Who said he was trying?” Mantle grinned.

  The Cubs third baseman edged in a foot closer and Cobb whacked a shot past him into left field, Jackson chugging down the line for the first run of the game. Puppy was a little surprised not to see the old white-haired Ty HG skipping around, mocking his opponents. Guess The Perfect One has to miss sometimes.

  Shannon flied to left for the third out. Puppy took the mound for the top of the seventh, waiting to begin his warm-ups until Mooshie was done with that inning’s salute. The crowd settled in for the new treat.

  “I’d like to sing a wonderful old song. It’s another song you haven’t heard for a while. Not since the last time we all got together, back on October 12, 2065. As you know, it was also outlawed.”

  She tipped her head toward the tight-lipped Grandma. An HG orchestra floated gracefully out of the scoreboard.

  “It’s called God Bless America,” Mooshie said.

  God. When’s the last time anyone heard that publicly. Privately.

  Grandma turned to Cheng, “They only sing this once, right?”

  The First Cousin nodded with a vague smile. “That’s all that’s needed.”

  “God bless America, land that I love,” Mooshie sang.

  “Stand beside her, and guide her

  Through the night with the light from above.”

  The orchestra members turned into soldiers.

  “From the mountains to the prairies

  To the oceans white with foam.”

  Mooshie faced Grandma.

  “God bless America, my home, sweet home.”

  Mooshie’s voice turned hard, savage.

  “God bless America, my home, sweet home.”

  Now the words flew out of the HG soldiers’ mouths and the crowd saluted the flag flying over the field. The song ended and, as the cheers faded, a voice echoed.

  “We’ve been lied to.”

  One of Hazel’s kids stood behind the Cubs’ dugout, the red-haired girl seen simultaneously on the scoreboard.

  “My name is Hanna Duchin,” she said with a heavy Dutch accent. “I’m an orphan. I was abandoned by America and raped by the Allahs.”

  A gasp rippled across the stands. Mooshie stared at the stunned Grandma.

  A little boy stood. In Italian, he said, “My name is Francis Mangella. The Allahs killed my parents by scooping out their insides.”

  Now another girl said in German, “My name is Alycia Stine. I was tortured in an orphanage.”

  All over the stadium, Hazel’s kids talked about the brutality of the Allahs. A contingent of Black Tops rushed toward the control room; so did Frecklie.

  The scoreboard filled with vids of the crescent moon and star over Britain’s Parliament building, Paris, the Eiffel Tower festooned in Arabic wording. Stumbling lines of unkempt children marched at the point of Holy Warrior bayonets through a swamp. Dead nuns and dead priests. The lush beaches of Hawaii filled with vacationing Allahs, while Islamic soldiers snow-boarded in Alaska. The mushroom cloud floated over Los Angeles. The White House collapsed.

  “This is the peace Grandma gave us,” the voice said quietly, because there was no need to shout.

  On the second level between home and first, Miners ambushed the approaching BT squad with a few quick shots outside the control room. They fired at Frecklie, who barely ducked behind the corner.

  “This is the peace she wants to continue,” the voice continued.

  Grandma and Abdullah, in his white robes, smiled together from the scoreboard. One horrified gasp seized the ballpark.

  Puppy saw orange wigged heads fill both bullpens.

  “Hello, my darlings. This is the most important talk we’ll ever have. You and I and our new friend, Abdullah bin-Nasr. Yes, his father is the Grand Mufti. Yes, our old enemy. Which means you must listen. Because peace isn’t enough, my darlings. We sit here, American and Arab, in our secure homes and believe a world which is forever on the verge of a holocaust will last. It can’t. Hate doesn’t work, even when we have a reason to hate. We had a reason to hate Islam.”

  “And we, a reason to hate the West,” added Abdullah.

  Some fans in the bleachers threw food at the scoreboard.

  “You oppressed us, but you didn’t understand how,” the Son continued. “We oppressed you, and justified it. You deported us. We blew up your cities. You blew up ours. We won.”

  Miners ran to their positions along the foul lines. Faintly, ‘copter blades approached.

  “Yes they did,” Grandma said. “Oh, we could’ve settled the score by using our nuclear weapons, but that would’ve meant the end of humanity. There were many who wanted that, who hated so much that destruction seemed sensible. I chose otherwise because we all are one people who have a duty to everyone on this planet to survive until we can figure it all out. Abdullah and I are making a start.”

  Abdullah fussed with his robes.

  “I have taken control of the Caliphate of Europe and expect the Caliphate of Our Ancestors in the Middle East and Africa to follow suit,” he said calmly. “Not all my people want to hate. Our religion has been corrupted by the pursuit of power, greed and corruption. Allah teaches us to love.”

  Abdullah paused, as if he could hear the angry shouts.

  “It’s difficult for you to believe that. It’s difficult for us to believe many things about you, too. But we need to move ahead together. We need to live together. To trust each other. To see each other. Touch each other. Share meals. Laughter. To learn together.”

  “It will take time.” Grandma smiled. “But we must forgive.”

  “Rabbi aghfir li,” Abdullah said in Arabic.

  “Rabbi aghfir li,“ Grandma repeated, the sound of her speaking Arabic shocking. “We need not fear. The love we’ve shown in rebuilding a new world must be shared. We don’t need weapons anymore. Our hearts and our minds are the strongest guns we can ever have. I know this is a lot to ask and a lot to understand. I have faith in all of you. I love you all. May we show the same love to our enemies that we show to each other. Let us build a new Family.”

  Everyone in the stadium stared at the real Grandma, white-faced, dimly looking at the the video she and Abdullah taped in the secret Manhattan location fade away.

  “Is this what we want again?” the voice asked over more grisly scenes of American soldiers bodies washing ashore. “Our survival is at stake. We must take back our freedoms before they’re surrendered forever. Finish the job.”

  In red, white and blue, FINISH THE JOB spurted out of the scoreboard as oranged-wigged Miners poured onto the field, firing at the arriving ‘copters. Artito’s security team rushed protectively toward Grandma. Miners leaped out of both dugouts and butchered them with a volley.

  A ‘copter crashed by first base and a second aircraft was blown up by a surface-to-air missile. Puppy dashed around the burning debris, plunging through the rebels toward Grandma.

>   Ty tossed Puppy a bat; he winged a Miner. Mick brought down another with a blow to the head.

  Mooshie reached under her dress for the .38. One shot, two maybe. The bitch was only ten feet away. She aimed, but Puppy was in the way. Damn you, she thought.

  Out of the chaos, she saw Hazel rush toward Grandma, raising his pistol. She hesitated and fired two shots; Hazel fell. She jumped over his body, kicking him in the groin.

  “C’mon.” Puppy grabbed Grandma’s arm.

  “There’s no way out,” Kenuda shouted as hysterical fans ran in all directions amid the slaughter.

  “Yes there is,” Mooshie said grimly. She smashed a bat against the Yankee insignia by the on-deck circle; a door slid open. Ty and Mickey nodded for them to go, turning back to the Miners with bats cocked.

  Puppy, Cheng and Kenuda led Grandma down the steps while Mooshie fired a few last covering shots. She smacked a button and the door closed. The tunnel shuddered with an explosion directly above.

  They ran through the black underground for about two hundred yards, dirt and concrete falling, then up a steep passage onto River Avenue.

  Police cars and fire engines roared through the panicked crowd. Fiery balls illuminated thick clouds of smoke. Blue Shirts pulled Grandma into a squad car.

  Her face twisted. “I want it destroyed. Once and for all.”

  The cop car sped toward a phalanx of ‘copters landing on 161st Street on top of scorched vehicles, flaming tents, shrieking people.

  Fighter jets lashed the ballpark with rockets, waves of debris crashing onto the burning infield, where Miners fell beneath the withering counter-attack. The upper deck in right field collapsed, burying screaming fans. The dugouts exploded. Concrete blocks tumbled mindlessly onto the street, trapping more screeching people. Guns fired without any targets other than to kill.

  Puppy watched Yankee Stadium burn before Kenuda and Mooshie were able to drag him up a ladder into a ‘copter. A Miner staggered beneath the blades and fired two shots; a Black Top, perched by the open door, riddled the body with bullets.

  They stealthed themselves, but not the carnage.

  The Bronx burned, but so did the rest of the country. For the first time since the end of the war, Black Tops patrolled the streets to secure dawn-to-dusk curfews.