“When they say they want you
“They really want this.”
Her voice lashed out in pain. She tossed aside her bra and grabbed her large breasts, legs spread defiantly, hair flipping side to side, back and forth.
“Because I will never let them have this
That is mine.”
Mooshie’s hands fell to her side and she waited. Zelda’s mouth trembled. That was the voice, the anguish. She’d played that song over and over, falling asleep to it, waking up to it. An anthem of adolescent agony. If Mooshie could have her heart broken, maybe she could survive, too.
“I sound like shit,” Mooshie rasped.
“Well, you’ve been dead for thirty-two years,” Zelda said softly, slowly clapping.
Puppy stood by his dresser, hands clasped, trying not to stare at Mooshie’s incredible breasts. He’d also had his own anthem of adolescent needs.
14
Mooshie wrapped Puppy’s bulky jacket tighter around her waist, trying to stop the shivering as she hurried past the unfamiliar buildings she should recognize along the desolate Grand Concourse.
165th Street. 166th Street.
She looked around cautiously before approaching the 167th Street subway entrance. Rotting wooden boards covered the staircase. Lopez slid sideways around and underneath; her legs gave out and she stumbled down the last few steps, landing hard on her wrists and knees. She vibrated, standing slowly.
You’ve been dead for a while. Take it easy.
The dark couldn’t conceal the stink. Lopez lifted her slim, muscular legs over discarded bottles and down another flight of steps. She stopped, peering at the platform.
Nothing. Just the cold.
Mooshie tripped on the cracked floor, wincing. Pain feels good, she smiled shakily. She stood there waiting for a memory, finding nothing but a wary passing rat; they’d clearly sent out the word to avoid the crazy human.
Even in the inky stillness, she could see the edge of the platform ten feet away. Mooshie walked gingerly and stopped, waiting again. For what? There’d been a sensation. A knee? The back of a chair, a thick cushion, a shoulder, some touch.
Nothing disembodied drifted towards her. Ghoulish curled fingers, upraised palms. Maybe it had been an accident. A bump, jostle, crowded subway platform, commuters eager to get home. She probably had been drinking.
All pure guesses except the sensation and the long dark and here she was again. She waited a foot from the edge, looking around. Panic started. Clammy hands and a skipping heart. Steady, she told herself. Mooshie leaned over, peering down at the tracks. Her shoulders arched together, trying to feel something. She’d been twenty-five pounds heavier over the thick muscles. One nudge wouldn’t have worked.
She could easily imagine the rest. If it had happened like that. What if the sensation in the small of the back had been from landing on the tracks? Maybe those black metal lines were the memory. Maybe she’d stumbled backwards, tripped. Maybe she had been drinking really heavily. Mooshie had done a lot of that. Maybe she toppled and the train roared over her. Pureed Lopez.
Mooshie fitfully clutched her groin at the platform. Empty, filthy, smelly rat home. Think this was a meeting place for anything other than memories you can’t remember? She kicked some bottles onto the tracks, wildly dumping over a garbage can and shoving all the refuse onto the rail. Cans, bottles, chicken wings.
A fat appreciative rat trotted over to check out the panting intruder in the oversized jacket who was feeding the brothers and sisters on the tracks. Mooshie knelt, beckoning with a finger.
Did you see anything?
The rodent suddenly squeaked an unpleasant sound of dread, jumping over the platform and disappearing onto the tracks.
I hear you, she muttered. I hear you.
• • • •
VERNON JACKSON’S UPPER lip disappeared somewhere into his hairline.
“Run?”
Standing between home and the dugout, the other seven members of the Hawks murmured uneasily.
Puppy silently warned Ty and Mick to shut up, which only deepened the rest of the team’s anxiety. Something wasn’t right. Called in an off-day. Told the HGs were gone. Now there was that weird leathery glove on the really old guy’s hand while the second really old guy swung the bat as if measuring their foreheads.
“Yes. Run, Vern.” Puppy hopped in place like he was stamping out a fire. “You hit the ball…”
Neal Shen, whose HG had played first, raised his hand. “A real ball?”
Ty yanked the baseball out of his dried-out glove and threw it at Shen, who barely ducked. “Yeah, that. And stop your belly aching. In the old days I would’ve hit you in the nose.”
The team tightened their ranks, butt to butt.
“Run. Hit.” Puppy paused. “Catch. Throw. Like real baseball players.”
Dimitri Izansky nervously raised his hand halfway, figuring that’d only get him hit in the leg and then he wouldn’t have to run. “Why?”
“Excellent question, Dmitri.” Puppy clapped enthusiastically as if Izansky had discovered a way to make real cream-filled donuts. “Because we’re turning back the clocks.”
Everyone looked at Ty and Mickey.
“We want, in this good-bye, lights out and sleep well my darlings, to play the game the way it was once played.”
Ty spit on the ground.
“Commissioner Kenuda thinks it’s a great idea. We got permission to practice here because I know you’re not used to running. Or throwing. Catching. Hitting a real ball.”
“Which is the hardest thing in sports,” Mickey added.
That set off another round of anxious mutters.
“But you can do it. Yes, Shannon?”
The gangly bald woman retreated behind Shen, who panicked, thinking he was a target again. He ran into the dugout, falling down the steps.
Puppy waved aside their concerns about the loud crying in the runway. “Shannon, you played real baseball, didn’t you?”
“High school in Dallas, Texas.”
“I died there,” Mick called out happily. “You know where I’m buried?”
Shannon stepped behind Vernon. Actually all the remaining players hid behind the wide catcher.
“You’re a pro, then.” Puppy craned his head to find Shannon, who was kneeling. “All of you are. You know the game. You’re committed. You’ve done this for years, watching the HGs. They were you. Their
