Puppy nodded, tenderly touching the edge of the flag. “Every morning, singing the song.”
“The song being The Star Spangled Banner,” Hazel said tartly. “Remember any of the words?”
“Pretty much. Almost got it perfectly, but I screwed up a few and my father threatened to throw me off the roof if I ever got it wrong again. I figured it wasn’t worth it.”
“It’s always worth it,” Hazel said coldly. “After 10/12 they took the flag from us, too. Here we were getting mowed down by Allahs using American weapons from NATO since the damn Allahs had been voted, fucking voted, as head of NATO countries and you couldn’t even have a flag on your sleeve. In your pocket. You’re an American soldier and…that’s how the term red stripes started.”
“Tearing the stripes and putting them into your boots.” Puppy said, surprising Hazel. “Like I said, there were a lot of vets in my DV.”
“We sang it anyway,” Hazel lowered his voice; the death penalty for flying the flag was still on the books, though not prosecuted since the late ‘80s. “Backwards. Like the Chinese or the Jews.” Hazel gently rolled the flag back into the bag and shoved it deep onto the shelf.
They silently sorted through a few more bags of equipment, Hazel peering sadly at a stiffened batting glove. Puppy gave him a careful look.
“I didn’t figure you for a lover of baseball.”
“I’m not.” He laughed disdainfully. “I’m just a reporter. Not allowed to have strong opinions anymore. Actually any opinions. Otherwise how could you trust what I report?”
“Then why’d you suggest we come here?”
“Because it’s a great story.”
Puppy leaned on a bat. “I don’t want you making fun of us on the news.”
“Freedom of the press, Mr. Nedick,” Hazel said, his face tightening.
“Not freedom to mock. Not freedom to twist. Freedom to tell,” Puppy quoted Grandma’s Twenty Second Insight.
Hazel sneered. “You going to quote her all the way back in the car?”
“Nah. I’m taking the subway.”
• • • •
THE THREE BOYS stood patiently outside Gate Six in their ill-fitting dark suits and ties, stiff like scarecrows. They would’ve waited for hours, soaked, frozen. Nothing was supposed to dissuade you. Puppy had waited for three hours, also in his father’s suit, for his first job at fifteen, digging up dead trees. Never once had he loosened the tie or even wiped dirt from the crisp white shirt. Head drenched in sweat, he’d shoveled for nine hours, never looking up. His hands bled for two days and he had to wash the shirt three times to get it back into some form of usable wear; he also wore that same shirt and tie the day he left the DV for Bronx College. His father had already sold the suit for booze.
Puppy glanced questioningly at Frecklie’s pals.
“Jobs. Now three.” Frecklie shrugged at the simple math and introduced Paquette and Ariel, twins.
“Nice to meet you.”
Ty pushed past them dragging the unsteady Mickey, who wore the dim and delighted smile of a man still drunk after six hours of sleep. The teens frowned. Such behavior got you into the DV, not out.
“That’s two of the players, one of them ovbviously ill,” Puppy explained, leading them into the stadium.
Frecklie compressed his widened eyes into a casual glance around the empty pavillion. He was disappointed, annoying Puppy. What did you expect?
Puppy gave Frecklie the ticket box with the Lifecard swiper; the boy waved off the stool with a roll of his eyes. Paquette got the broom and Ariel was shown the concession stand.
“Chips.” Puppy held up two bags of Jordan’s Chimp Chips.
Ariel held his thumb and forefinger apart. Puppy grinned and told him to borrow Frecklie’s swiper if he had a customer. The kid’s face could’ve lit up the sunrise.
An unmarked truck idled along River Avenue. The A22 driver honked the horn. Puppy, trailed by Frecklie, came back outside and walked up to the driver’s window.
“Delivery.” The driver said, a second ‘bot staring with that shrewd aimless quality.
“Great. Just pull up.”
The A22s exchanged smirks. “Far as we go.”
“You can just drive up…”
“Far as we go.”
Puppy caught the driver sneering at Frecklie. Okay, that’s what this is about, he nodded to himself. “Need me to sign something?”
“Long as you got lots of proof.”
It took about twenty minutes for Puppy’s Lifecard to process; the security machine kept jamming for some odd reason. The A22s slowly, very slowly, opened the back door.
“You got five minutes to unload, otherwise we take it with us to the next stop.” The A22 leaned against the subway pillar, setting the alarm on its watch.
Frecklie fetched his friends and the three teens helped Puppy lug the equipment to the gate. An alarm buzzed and the truck door closed.
“Hey.” Puppy pounded on the driver’s door. “There’s still a couple bags.”
“You see any?” the driver asked its colleague in the front seat, who shook its head with grave certainty.
“Open the back door.”
“I got stops and a schedule.”
The truck edged away.
Puppy grabbed the robot’s head. It howled and the vehicle lurched to a stop. “This is borrowed from a Black Top security center. You want to explain to them at the end of the season why all the equipment hasn’t been returned?”
The A22’s eyes rolled around nervously. Its colleague nodded quickly. Puppy walked, slowly, very slowly, to the back of the truck and pulled out the last of the bags. The automatic door closed and the truck backed up, stopping a couple inches from Puppy, before rumbling away.
Inside of fifteen minutes, the equipment was stacked by home plate. The Hawks and Falcons players milled around as if expecting the bats, balls and gloves to start dancing. Ty examined a bat, shaking his head.
“What’s this made of?”
“Wood,” Puppy said.
Ty flipped it aside. “This the good stuff?”
“Best we got.”
Cobb held a glove away with his fingertips. “Supposed to be real leather?”
“It was once.” Puppy sighed. “There are no more baseball equipment companies, Ty. They were outlawed. This is it.” He grew frustrated. Holding the gloves and bats in the
