Mick smiled that illuminating boyish smile. “I got another chance.”
“You ain’t screwed it up yet.”
“Leading the fucking team in homers,” he grumbled.
“And RBIs.” Puppy clasped his shoulder. “Go on, see if it fits.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Mickey spent a few minutes sucking in his stomach to loop the black belt.
Ty stomped out of his locker in his Yankee pinstripes, dampening the enthusiasm of the room. “Whose goddamn idea was this? Oh wait, I hear a voice. Could it have been my star pitcher who thinks his crap melts in your mouth because he struck out ten worthless pieces of shit last time?”
“Yes, skip.”
Cobb pressed his nose into Puppy’s throat. “You gave me a Yankee uniform?”
“Yes, skip. ‘Cause we are the Yankees again.”
Mickey pounded his bat against the locker and the team whooped it up. Ty cut out their tongues with a glare, returning to Puppy.
“I hated the fucking Yankees.”
“I know. Success breeds envy.”
Mickey snickered.
“I don’t want to be a Yankee. I want to be a Tiger. That was my team.”
Puppy leaned forward. “Maybe someday they’ll come back.”
“Yeah, along with banks and white people.” Ty scowled around the clubhouse. “And what about this number?”
“Thirty-seven. Casey Stengel. Great Yankee manager.”
“I know who he was and that clown couldn’t hold a candle to Joe McCarthy.” Ty fingered the sleeve. “Is this real cotton?”
“As close as we’ll get.”
Cobb grunted at the silent, anxious team. “Are you all happy with your little stripes and numbers like you’re in a fucking prison?”
They all nodded happily about their little stripes and numbers.
“Then say some thanks, you goddamn heathens. Down.”
Ty knelt and the team eagerly followed, clasping their hands and closing their eyes. Puppy suddenly realized they’d been praying regularly.
“Lord Jesus, thank you for these uniforms even if Puppy Nedick thinks he did it. We appreciate what you’ve done working with what you got, which ain’t much. We ask you to help us out and make us,” Ty paused, pained by his own prayers, “make us worthy to wear these uniforms of real major leaguers. Amen.”
The team mumbled amens.
“All right, assholes.” Cobb kicked over a stool. “Show me what you got.”
As the players headed toward the dugout, they mouthed thanks to Puppy.
Batting practice wasn’t much since the two teams spent most of the time examining each other’s uniforms, the Cubs nee Falcons proudly showing off their navy blue colors. Ty angrily separated the teams, though every time he turned away, he smiled like a four-year-old swimming in a bowl of chocolate pudding.
Since Lydia was pitching today, Puppy wandered down to the bullpen to loosen up his stiff arm. Frecklie waited with a catcher’s mitt by the back row of skeletons.
“Can’t we ever move them?”
“Not yet.” Puppy said, soft tossing. He jerked his head toward the stands. “How’s Miss Cuddly?”
Frecklie sighed. “She told me she’d slice off my testicles if I bothered her.”
“I love the tender mating rituals of young lovers.”
“She’s really sweet, Puppy. Except when stressed.”
“I have faith in your judgment, kid.”
The boy blushed. “Thank you. That means a lot.”
Puppy twirled around to show off Mooshie’s number 88 on his back. “Thanks for getting Beth to do this.”
“She wants me to be happy, sometimes.”
“Your Mom’s talented.”
The boy frowned again, figuring out the notion of being proud of his mother. Frecklie squatted behind home plate and Puppy threw ten pitches, none of them close to the strike zone, all of them producing a wince.
Puppy slipped off his glove. “Maybe that’s it for now.”
Frecklie walked back. “How much does it hurt?”
“I just pitched a couple days ago. Probably should’ve rested…”
“Muscles should be stretched,” Frecklie interrupted. “Not be in pain.”
“You’re a doctor now?”
“No, but my great-grandma is.” He paused. “Didn’t she help?”
Puppy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not supposed to know about that. It’s dangerous.”
“So’s everything we seem to do.”
Puppy couldn’t argue that. He stared at the new second level, adverts for Hal’s Healthy Hot Dogs and Munchkin’s Golden Ale flanking the Basil Hayden’s Funeral Home sign on the first base side. Work continued on the upper level, jackhammers singing. Just a few more days.
“When are you going back to my great-grandma?” Frecklie persisted.
“It was only a one-time visit.”
“You can’t do acupuncture that way.”
“You can if you’ll go to jail.”
Frecklie’s anger grew. “Who said just once?”
“I did.”
Frecklie threw down the catcher’s mitt. Puppy sighed. “Your Mom. I appreciated even that much.”
“She did it for me.”
“I figured. Be thankful you have someone who loves you that much.”
Frecklie’s eyes suggested he could do very well without such love. “You’re going back to my great-grandma until your arm’s better.”
Puppy traced circles in the dirt; he didn’t know why, maybe it was the simple closure of it all. “And lie to your mother?”
He snorted. “I do it all the time.”
An HG demon soared overhead, severing Puppy’s pulse for a moment. The demon swirled, firing exploding baseballs in all directions as the early arriving crowd, around twenty thousand, cheered wildly.
Puppy and Frecklie gingerly stepped into the outfield for a better look.
Hissing on its hooved hind legs, the demon cackled; Frecklie smiled, recognizing one of Dale’s crazy late night voices. A dog in a Yankee uniform trotted over and sniffed disdainfully, growling; the howling demon fired more fiery baseballs.
The Yankee dog ducked and grew bigger and bigger, barking loudly, deafeningly, joined by the fans. The demon covered its ears. The Yankee dog threw its own baseball which smashed into the demon; the incinerated remains flew all over the field.
The dog puffed its chest and became Puppy with canine features.
“Do I look like that?” Puppy cringed.
Frecklie nodded.
WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE dangled in the air. The crowd roared as the show ended. In the control room on the second deck, Dale took bows, blonde curls flapping in all directions.
“You’re going to marry her, aren’t you?” Puppy asked.
“Sure.” Frecklie’s eyes glistened.
He gave the boy a long look. Hey, friends tried talking you out of Annette, too. But none are so blind as those who get sex regularly.
• • • •
THE IMPERIOUS A8 librarian bulged its round metal eyes and returned Pablo’s
