“Na’am,” she said softly.
Licking his lips, Hazma reached up to help her down. Clary pulled her knees into her chest and jumped. Her heels drove into his nose, breaking bone and spraying blood. He fell back, groaning. Clary somersaulted over his head, landing and running through the dark forest, panting like a perro for hours until she limped along the beach road. The ocean air salted her drooping eyes.
The sun reared its dim light threateningly. She had to hide. She wanted to dig a hole in the sand, dig a deep deep hole and maybe she could turn it into a tunnel which would take her where? Nowhere. She had nowhere to go except back to the orphanage and she would rather die but she remembered her mother’s stare.
She wished she remembered how to cry.
Clary dragged her bleeding feet across the road, kneeling by the grey van in the driveway. She fainted for a moment and then crawled into the back seat, pulling a thin blanket over her head.
• • • •
PUPPY CARRIED THREE beers to the rear table. They had to celebrate something. Maybe just surviving was enough.
They’d only made it to the third inning when the alarm went off in the dugouts, signaling that it was time to haul butt off the field after the allotted hour of play. By then, the Hawks had rolled to a 10-1 lead.
How runs were scored, who scored, who hit, who even threw the ball was a blur and Puppy would be up half the night trying to sort it all out for his report. He wasn’t entirely sure if the Hawks Dante Tifaldo or Vernon Jackson had collapsed at second base.
“Wasn’t bad for the first game with real balls, right?” Puppy asked hesitantly.
“Except for the skulls,” Mick muttered.
“I’d take skeletons over what we got,” Ty snarled. “Embarrassing. Worse than I could imagine.”
Behind the bar, Jimmy suspiciously monitored their table. Puppy hoisted the glass reassuringly.
“You have to lower expectations a little.”
“A little?” Ty snapped. “They didn’t even know where their positions were.”
“Now they do,” Puppy said. “Shortstop isn’t really self-defining. It’s short compared to what and how is it stopping anything? And left field, is that left field from the perspective of home plate or left field from the perspective of the outfielder? Like stage right, stage left…”
Cobb shook his head. “We got reputations.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re used to playing at a certain level of competition,” Mick said.
“You were drunk today. You struck out four times.”
Mantle reddened. “I always get off to slow starts.”
Puppy calmed himself. “If we’re patient with you, then you have to be patient with them.”
“And I had to pitch,” Ty jumped in. “I ain’t a pitcher. Least when the alarm clock went off we could all go home.”
Puppy angrily pushed through the dancing crowd to the bar. He picked up a bowl of nuts.
Jimmy wiped the counter. “You watching them? I don’t want Blue Shirts here.”
“You know, this is supposed to be a happy day. An historic day.”
“It was. You made the sportsvid.”
Puppy paused. “We did? What’d they say?” The bartender wiped a glass like he was about to serve Grandma. “Just tell me, Jimmy.”
“It was on the funny spot in sports.”
“Where they show clips of people running their skis into trees?”
Jimmy attended to a couple of customers. “Guess it’s the same thing.”
As if cued, the vidnews rolled into the sportsvid. The charming presenter with the dimples introduced a repeat of the “Funny Side of Sports.” Jimmy yanked the music plug out of the wall, generating disappointed protests. He turned up the sound of the vidnews.
“Shut up,” he yelled. “One of our own is on.”
That quieted the bar.
“John Hazel has a charming report about a sport that’s about to finally die. John.”
Hazel stood in front of Amazon Stadium at night. Asshole must’ve gone there right from the warehouse, Puppy thought.
“Thanks, Chip. Some of you probably think baseball’s already gone. Don’t worry. The cesspool of treachery has about five months to go. But a baseball historian, Puppy Nedick…”
Puppy in his Bronx College uniform flashed onto the screen, throwing a pitch.
“…a former ballplayer himself, petitioned Third Cousin Kenuda, our Sport Commissioner, with an idea to highlight the game so no one would ever forget. Ready for this? Use real players.”
Quick shots of lumbering, fat players over the years accompanied by HGs flashed across the screen.
Kenuda stood in front of his desk, twirling a football. “Mr. Nedick asked if we would allow humans instead of HGs to finish up. We thought it would be amusing. That is mockery turned inside out.”
A few clips flashed of Vernon crawling towards home plate and Neal getting hit in the head with a throw.
Prick. You snuck in and filmed the game.
Hazel returned. “So if you want a good laugh and have an hour to kill with nothing better to do, check out this historical monstrosity from a time of hatred and false pride in being an American.”
The sportscaster stepped aside for the iconic shot of part of the Amazon Stadium scoreboard collapsing on 10/12, which silenced the bar.
Jimmy plugged the music back in and the dancing slowly resumed, the report lingering in the air. The bartender gave Puppy a searching look filled with disappointment.
“You really making fun of baseball?”
“No, just the opposite,” Puppy tried explaining, but Jimmy walked away. A few patrons passed with curious stares, not quite knowing what to make of Puppy, but leaning toward disdain.
He slammed the nuts bowl onto their table. Cobb looked up, fuming.
“How come they didn’t interview us? We’re the stars.”
“You know what, fuck you, too.”
Puppy stormed out of the bar and back home. Mooshie was in the bathroom, singing. That lightened him up quickly. Mooshie Lopez, urinating on the same toilet. He sat on the couch, propping the computer on his lap, and started his report.
“Game Three. April 25, 2098. This was historic and astonishing. For the first time in thirty-three years, men and women ran the bases of Amazon Stadium. They hit the
