As part of his annual superstition, Puppy stepped on the pile of broken concrete forming a jagged path outside Amazon Stadium and handed his baseball historian’s pass to the A30 on the stool by Gate Six. The robot grunted in one bored breath, returning Puppy’s card.
“You’re new?” Puppy asked.
The robot nodded. “Lucky me.”
“We’ll go out with a bang.”
The A30’s eyes swiveled back and forth in faint sarcasm. All ‘bots had the same face. Which was no face. Could never tell what the ‘bots were thinking, though you were supposed to.
“Nice to meet you.” Puppy surprised the A30 by shaking its hand.
“Oh. Okay. Nice to meet you, Mr. Nedick.”
“Just Puppy.” He paused just inside. “Anyone else here?”
The A30 shrugged. “A few.”
Inside, a lone A31 swept the long, filthy pavilion, corralling piles of dirt around a gutted hole five inches deep. There were similar piles of dirt near the other craters; maybe the robot thought the blasted pockmarks of the floor were bins.
Along the interior wall was the famous mural of the legendary Three Amigos, Mooshie Lopez, Easy Sun Yen and Derek Singh, blotched with grime and dotted with bullet holes, the recognizable faces of the New York Yankees greats nearly faded from neglect; indifference is a brutal enemy. The shattered windows of the gift shops had long since collapsed inward onto hazy dark interiors, a few items remaining on the floor: a torn t-shirt, a miniature bat, broken pieces of something stepped on, stomped on, crushed amid the otherwise barren dusty shelves.
A small condiments table blocked an old customer service booth. Puppy examined the soiled packets of mustard and ketchup.
“Excuse me,” he called over to the A31 with the broom. “There’s no food.”
The robot gestured, sending dust onto Puppy’s jeans.
“This is not food.”
“Yes it is,” it answered stubbornly. “Says so on the packets.”
“I mean, real food. These go with real food, but you don’t just eat them like they’re a meal.”
The robot waited patiently.
“It’s opening day. We always have one stand selling hot dogs.”
The ‘bot shrugged and wandered off with its broom, shoving dirt into the holes.
Puppy sighed and headed through Section 116. The brown infield and outfield glistened with the morning shower, slowly drying off under the reluctant sun. They’d have rays until 10:40AM; games rarely went more than an hour anyway. A couple of young boys sat expectantly behind the Falcons’ visiting dugout on the third base side. Probably cutting school; this was about the safest place in the Bronx, hell, the entire country to hide. An older man slept a few rows up, snoring noisily.
Sitting off to the first base side, the Blue Shirt Officer Brennan tipped his blue cap.
“Top of the morning, Mr. Nedick.”
“Happy opening day, Officer.”
“Hopefully the crowd will be respectful of the occasion.”
Puppy looked around the lower field boxes, seats torn out in chunks, a six-foot mortar wound some twenty rows behind the Hawks home dugout.
On the scoreboard in center field, flanked by the gutted remnants clinging to the main screen, the ancient Grandma, head of The Family which governed America, smiled down. Slightly wrinkled yellow face, slightly smiling, never any disappointment. Do not worry, her expression said, filling the entire screen. I’m always here.
Puppy laid his backpack by his seat behind home plate, a weather-scarred, blackened orange wig rustling feebly beneath the broken adjoining seat, which was forbidden to be moved like everything else in the stadium.
“What’re we doing this year?” Puppy tapped the A29’s shoulder in the front row. The robot continued studying the squat machine on its lap.
“Same as last year.”
“Which was the same as the year before.”
“Same as the year you and me started.” The A29 frowned at the dials. “Fifteen springs and summers.” The robot was pleased by its efforts and, now relaxed, turned toward Puppy. “Folks know what they’re getting when they come here.” He gestured to the nearly empty ballpark.
“But this is the final season.”
“And you thought, let’s jazz this up. Me, too.”
“Really?” Puppy’s spirits lifted.
“They killed it.” The A29 jerked its head toward the second level of executive offices behind first base, where the Hawks and Falcons owners hid.
“Why?”
“Why do they do anything? Money.”
“Even to do a little something different? Like make the Falcons outfielders triplets…”
“Can’t do.”
“A pitcher with a personality? One player with personality.”
The Falcons lead-off hitter B’run Campanis dozed at the on-deck circle. The A28 umpire headed toward home plate.
The A29 rubbed its metallic fingers together and pressed a button, pointing at the HG players suddenly filling the outfield, stretching their legs. “They wanted to get rid of the them.”
“And if a ball was hit into the outfield…”
“They didn’t care.” The A29 rubbed its nose knowingly at the thought processes of humans. The HG pitcher and catcher materialized on the field, joined by the Hawks infielders, laconically tossing a ball as if slowly thawing out.
“Well, I want to say something before the game,” Puppy insisted.
“What about a special graphic on the scoreboard?”
“Can you do that?”
“I wish.”
Puppy waited respectfully while Officer Brennan, standing at home plate, led the crowd in Grandma’s Blessing, all eyes upraised, chins lifted toward the scoreboard:
“May our love always be for love
May we think of the Family as ourselves
May we work hard and reward effort
May we help those who cannot succeed.”
At the robot umpire’s call of “play ball,” the portly Campanis, buttons undone on his red jersey like he’d dressed in the dugout, waddled to home plate. Puppy gingerly hopped onto the top of the Hawks home dugout and motioned for a couple arriving fans to move closer. The two young women seemed to prefer their privacy and each other’s tongues, and took seats down the first base line.
Puppy waved his arms to get the attention of the eight fans. Campanis stepped into the batter’s box and scratched his stubble. “B’run, could you wait a second?”
“We got a timetable,” the umpire said, irritated.
“Just one second.”
The HG pitcher fired a fastball anyway.
“Hello everyone.” Puppy silently begged the A29 to freeze the action. “I want to welcome you to the start of
