Soon everyone was woofing it up. Kenuda reddened, thinking he was being booed, but he kept his balance, anchored by his egomania, and introduced Puppy for the inspirational part. Give him this much, Puppy Thought, Kenuda recognized he was dull.
Puppy talked about his baseball career and how it got him out of the DV, even after he hurt his shoulder, because in Grandma’s Family, we take care of our own, and then about what it was like to play major league baseball again in this last, thrilling season, and how baseball should no longer suffer for the sins of a few, but should rejoin the family of sports. As should everyone be permitted and encouraged to rejoin The Family.
That’s where Kenuda jumped back into the ceremony to formally open Phillies Park. Overnight, DV workers had planted an entire miniature baseball park, about one hundred feet to dead center, with old-style seats, very intimate, probably lifted from a semi-banned book. Two racks of baseball bats stood around home plate, stamped Property of Phillies Park, along with a halved beer barrel filled with balls and a wooden locker brimming with gloves. All new equipment.
Shy kids queued up and Puppy showed them a few basics: a pitcher’s motion, a batting stance, fielding a grounder, while the sullen Hazel, who hadn’t smiled all day and gave no indication he’d start anytime soon, filmed Kenuda holding up a baseball as if it were a piece of real juicy fruit.
After Philadelphia, Puppy dozed as the ‘copter journeyed north, settling behind a clump of trees at the Fenway Garden Society, where they crossed Boylston Street to Yawkey Way. Another large crowd, bigger than Philadelphia, swelled onto Brookline in a semi-circle. Puppy greeted them with a wave of his Yankee cap, earning a few good-natured boos from the sea of bobbing red B caps.
Again, Kenuda jumped onto the stage which overlooked another mini-park, same specifications, as if when they stamped the bats and balls and gloves, they’d somehow stamped an exact replica of what they thought a ballpark should look like.
Better than nothing, Puppy told himself, launching into the same speech which already, inside five hours, had become rote. He was scheduled, somehow between games, to visit Chicago’s Wrigley Field, Pittsburgh’s Forbes Stadium and Cleveland’s Civic Center. Only the sites of the stadiums, he reminded himself.
He finished ad-libbing a crack about the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry when an older woman with tall gray hair shouted, “When do we get the real Fenway back?”
With a big smile, Puppy stepped aside to let Kenuda answer that.
“That’s why we built this little park for you,” the Commissioner said brightly.
“Ain’t Fenway,” she snapped.
The crowd muttered and applauded; Puppy realized the semi-circle was around the ruins of Fenway, as if they were protecting it from further damage, a beaten living thing that could rise again, so don’t even think about removing another stone or a crumpled seat or burnt light.
“What’s important is the notion of forgiving baseball…” Kenuda tried.
“Baseball didn’t do anything,” a man shouted.
“Which is why we’re forgiving you.”
“How can you forgive us if we didn’t do anything?” someone else called out.
The few Blue Shirts on the edge of the crowd smiled nervously.
“Tell Grandma to rebuild Fenway,” a man cried out.
That let loose another chant of “Fenway, Fenway, Fenway.”
Kenuda was about to lose his patience when Puppy finally rescued him, grabbing the microphone.
“First we finish refurbishing Yankee Stadium, then Fenway.”
The crowd cheered.
“You really think you can beat the Yankees?”
A brief chant of “Fuck New York” startled Kenuda, who backed away, expecting to be trampled. Hazel and Puppy exchanged grins.
“You wish.” Puppy waved his Yankee cap to pleasant jeers. “Now let me show the next generation how to play so maybe that can happen someday.” He couldn’t resist and shouted out, “And that’ll be a long time since we got forty-five world championships and you only got nine.”
Rousing boos that only someone who loved baseball could understand showered Puppy as he happily conducted the brief clinic, barely making it back in time for the ‘copter to take them home.
Kenuda grumbled in the far corner, “That was very rude behavior.”
“I thought I was great.”
“Not you, Nedick. The crowd. I can see why.”
Hazel paused, cleaning his camera as if it were a weapon. “Why what, sir?”
“Why the whole damn sport was banned. You’d never see my football or basketball fans behave like that.”
“Aren’t these also your baseball fans?”
Kenuda stared at Hazel. “I don’t want anything from that crowd in your report.”
“Course not, Third Cousin. I’m just here to make you look good.”
Elias grumbled out the window at Connecticut.
“And make Puppy look good.” Hazel smiled.
That earned a resentful glare.
The ‘copter hit some headwinds northeast of the Bronx. Kenuda huffily insisted he had pressing affairs to attend, so they dropped him off onto the roof of the Cousins building, where the wind swept him a few feet off the ground, much to Hazel and Puppy’s delight.
“I was rooting for the wind.” Hazel snickered as they drifted toward Amazon Stadium.
Puppy didn’t disagree. “I thought you guys were buds.”
“No one’s buds with Elias Kenuda unless they can do something for him.” He stored the camera back into his back pack and grabbed the rope as the ‘copter let them down to a desolate playground, four blocks away.
Puppy pressed into the stadium through the mass of fans backed up 161st Street. He hurried down the ramp, humming with slow-moving siblings marveling at the glittering white ceilings or entranced like hungry zombies by the new food stands, curry, barbecue, the wondrous smell of fried foods magnetizing long lines. Lots of excuse me, sorry didn’t see your foot, please don’t spill any more of my beer.
The entire stadium had new seats, top to bottom, all three levels. Even the bleachers. Grass, real green grass. Pale brown infield
