A Fastball for Freedom by Gary Morgenstein

Lyrics to “Die or Cry” written by John Griebel.

Reprinted by permission of John Griebel. All rights reserved.

Edited by Hannah Ryder

a fastball for freedom Copyright © 2021 Gary Morgenstein All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please write to the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by BHC Press Library of Congress Control Number: 2020936698 ISBN Numbers: Hardcover: 978-1-64397-186-5 Softcover: 978-1-64397-187-2 Ebook: 978-1-64397-188-9 For information, write: BHC Press 885 Penniman #5505 Plymouth, MI 48170

Visit the publisher: www.bhcpress.com

also by gary morgenstein A Mound Over Hell

1

O

n Puppy Nedick’s first morning in the Caliphate of England, he was wakened by a defaced statue of Jesus crashing near his head. But he was too damn sick to care.

“Get up, Puppy.” Annette Ramos yanked him upright, where he wobbled like a very weary doll.

The ground convulsed from another explosion, shattered marble flying around the bleating, terrified goats running through the desecrated Church of All Saints.

Crouching, Annette narrowly avoided a dive-bombing chicken crashing into the pew; the fowl’s blood spurted onto the groggy Puppy’s head. He peered in profound surprise at the red liquid as his ex-wife tugged him along by his right shoulder, which felt like it was about to come off.

Everything hurt down to the roots of his thinning black hair. Staccato bursts of machine gun fire knocked out a stained glass window. A squat priest with clipped gray hair nimbly jumped over the shards like a frantic frog and helped Annette lift Puppy.

“This way. Hurry,” Father John Dempsey shouted, leading them through the animal feces and the pieces of Jesus, Puppy’s rubbery legs pedaling like a cartoon character.

“What’s going on?” Annette asked.

“Someone’s attacking London,” Dempsey said.

London, Puppy’s mind cleared slightly, wishing it hadn’t. He retched.

A chandelier fell, the two-hundred-year old fixture which had survived three world wars finally surrendering and spitting pieces of glass. Kicking aside hysterical goats, Dempsey sidestepped two pigs charging from opposite ends. Annette menacingly waved her fist to warn the animals away from the stumbling Puppy. Another bomb shook the church and the terrified pigs collided; it was like a farm gone wild.

Dempsey knocked over a battered old wooden table, lifting a metal door and frantically gesturing into the dark.

“Can you make it?” Dempsey asked Puppy.

“I struck out fourteen batters at Yankee Stadium,” he said indignantly, his eyes lolling.

Annette shot the priest a worried look. They lowered Puppy down the steps like a really big bag of potatoes, where he landed on his knees in the dank cellar. Following, Annette tenderly rubbed his forehead, frowning at the hot flesh.

“You okay, honey?”

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Puppy shrugged, there being no easy answer, though the pain ripping into his side nurtured some recollection. The priest turned on a small flashlight and slid the overhead door closed, barely muting the screams of dying animals.

Dempsey handed out bottles of water stashed beneath a battered desk. “I’m sorry, there’s no food.”

“It’s okay, he probably shouldn’t eat anyway.”

“Why not?” Puppy grumbled, suddenly starving.

“Because you’re on antibiotics.”

Right. The Arab woman doctor stitching him up on the bathroom floor.

Dempsey looked between them knowingly. “You’ve been married a long time.”

“We’re divorced,” Annette said, tamping down the thick black curls snaking about her shoulders. “But he can’t get along without me.”

She clucked her tongue over the bloodstains on his bandages. Dempsey fumbled for a pack of open gauze on a shelf.

“That’s not clean. Grandma’s bra straps, you’ll give him an infection.” Annette placed herself between the priest and Puppy. “I studied nursing.”

“Four lessons.” Puppy weakly held up his fingers.

“Enough to know not to use old bandages that’ve been exposed to dirt and animal shit.” She cradled his head, glaring at Dempsey.

Dempsey stared a moment, assessing their accents and brash manners. “You’re Americans.”

“Maybe,” Annette answered carefully.

“Maybe’s the most definition I’ve had in a while.” He smiled out a grimace. “John Dempsey. I’m the priest here at the Church of All Saints.” They exchanged cautious stares.

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t trust me, either.“ Dempsey waited for the rolling thunder to pass.

“I’ve not had a parishioner in more than two years.”

“Maybe you’d get more visitors if you cleaned things up a little.”

The priest laughed bitterly. “It’s supposed to be this way. What are your names?”

Annette poked Puppy when he started answering.

Dempsey nodded with sad understanding. “All the churches throughout the Caliphate are used to pen animals, although some are also used as public toilets. We’re supposed to remember the filth of our beliefs. That said, they still encourage worshippers. I know”—he waved off their blank stares—“it might not make sense. The Muslims believe that if you’re a true believer, even in the evil that’s Christianity, you’ll make a sacrifice to continue praying to your God. In a strange way, they think they’re helping us by leading people to God while reminding them we’re worshipping false values. There was actually an Imam I met once at a program called Ilm, which is Arabic for knowledge…”

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 11

Dempsey paused. They had no idea what he was talking about. They really are from America, where they think you can just lock God out of your house. Well, you’ve changed the locks a number of times, haven’t you? Still haven’t found the new key.

The priest continued cheerfully as if they were sitting at Alton’s Wolf and Bear Pub down the block on Great Jones Street, nursing a couple Bud’s Brown Ales around a game of darts.

“There are bi-annual sessions where priests and ministers, the few of us left, are interrogated about Christianity. The Muslims want to see if we can change. There’ve been converts. The Muslims are suspicious, with good reason, so they question people like me who they know will never convert as a benchmark for what constitutes real faith. You two coming to the church when you were in need, now that would qualify as real faith. They respect that, in their brutal way.”

“We’re fine,” Annette said brightly, sleeping on the floor of a church just part of their great European vacation. “We’ll be going soon.”

Dempsey arched an eyebrow. “To where?”

“We have papers.” Puppy swallowed with effort; the ground shook again.

Dempsey answered their uneasy looks. “It could be your missiles. Apparently we’re at war again or a semi-war or thinking of it or the Caliphate has already conquered America or you’ve already surrendered or your new leader, what’s his name…?”

“First Cousin Albert Cheng,” Puppy rasped.

Annette poked Puppy again. “He tricked you into admitting we’re Americans.”

“I sort of already guessed.” Dempsey smiled reassuringly. Though how the hell did you get here? “The news says he’s a madman and will launch all your nuclear missiles.

Though I suspect we would’ve been incinerated by now if that were true. Or it could be the civil war, again there are more rumors. The Grand Mufti is battling his son Abdullah. Or the Mufti’s dead and his allies are fighting Abdullah. Or Abdullah’s dead and his followers are carrying on the fight. Or both the bloody bastards are dead and Lord only knows what happens next.”

Squawking chickens and bleating goats raged above, masking the pounding of heavy boots. Dempsey motioned for Puppy and Annette to remain quiet, not that they needed any prompting. He extinguished the flashlight.

Bullets pounded through the door, skipping around the floor. Dempsey moaned and tilted over. The door ripped opened. Two snarling black-robed Holy Warriors pointed machine guns.

“Akhraj,” one of them shouted.

Puppy held up his hands. Annette followed.

“Akhraj.”

A burst of gunfire sent them sprawling against the wall.

“It means get out,” the priest whispered, struggling to his feet.

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“Akhraj!”

“Hasananaan, you bastard.” Dempsey held up his wounded arm, shaking his head at Annette’s offer to dab the blood. “Up, up, before they blow our heads off.”

The Warriors jabbed guns into their necks as they climbed up the steps, looking for any excuse to shoot them. A filthy bearded face pressed into Puppy’s chest, backing him against the wall.

“Aljasus, aljasus,” the Warrior spit.

“I don’t speak Arabic,” Puppy said, earning a kick which drove him onto one knee.

“No Aljasus.” The priest pointed at the blood escaping the bandage around Puppy’s side.

“Hurt, hurt.”

“Aljasus.” The Warrior yanked Annette’s hair.

“Leave my hair alone, you son-of-a-bitch,” she shouted.

Puppy had to laugh at the utter absurdity, which baffled the priest and enraged the Warriors. He got jabbed in his side and spun into momentary darkness. Two of the Warriors dragged him beneath the arms down the hallway, a third twisting Annette’s thick curls so she had to walk sideways.

Dempsey trailed, pleading, “No Aljasus.”

An explosion about a hundred feet away sank a nearby building like a punctured concrete balloon. Frightened goats ran, seeking peace in a world with none. Another missile ripped through the sky, landing to the north. The Warriors stared a moment in the church doorway, fascinated or horrified, Puppy couldn’t tell.

If he had any strength, he would’ve grabbed Annette’s hand and ran. Better to be gunned down in the back then on their knees. Sensing his thoughts, Dempsey imperceptibly shook his head.

The Warriors shot some animals, clearing a path and shoving Puppy and Annette forward, slipping on intestines.

“No,” Dempsey shouted, getting butted in the chest as Puppy and Annette were pressed against a broken wall outside the church. “No Aljasus.”

Two of the Warriors pointed their rifles at Puppy and Annette, who gave them a defiant finger.

“Fuck you.” She adjusted her clothes, not about to be murdered looking less than fashionable.

“Hey, come on,” Puppy said firmly, his broad Bronx accent startling the Arabs.

“No Aljesus.”

“Jasus,” Dempsey corrected.

“What?”

“Aljasus. With an ‘a.’ Not an ‘e’ like Jesus Christ.”

The Allahs muttered, bewildered by the exchange.

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 13

“He’s with Jesus.” Puppy stepped forward calmly as if about to demonstrate how to throw a curve ball. “He’s a priest. A holy man. Like an Imam or Sheikh. Very important.

We don’t believe in God. Jesus. No Aljesus. Atheists.” He pointed at himself and Annette.

“Atheists, atheists.”

“You bloody fool, they’re calling you spies,” the priest said wearily.

“Well, we’re not really,” Annette protested.

Well, they kind of were.

The Warriors had quite enough of the Crusaders talking among themselves when they were trying to form a firing squad. The leader exploded with some brusque instructions. Dempsey joined Puppy and Annette against the wall. Puppy squeezed Annette’s hand and shorthanded DV; she nodded bleakly.

They coiled into their knees, ready to rush the guards when, from around the corner, an old NATO model M-50 tank, a devastating prototype back in 2055, rolled to a stop. The top of the turret popped open and a Muslim officer in khaki military uniform began yelling.

Great. Now we’re going to be executed by a tank, Puppy thought.

The Holy Warriors leader stomped forward, angrily gesturing at his prisoners, which inflamed the officer, who hopped out of the tank, landing with lithe arrogance by the ancient Union Jack on the side, obscured by the crescent moon and star. There was more shouting and some chest bumping. The tank turret swiveled slowly until it pointed at the other Warriors, who raised their guns stubbornly.

The officer shouted again. The Warrior leader kicked at the ground, scowling in menacing pride before nodding reluctantly. The prisoners were dragged toward a black van parked crookedly across the sidewalk, the turret carefully following them.

They were tossed inside where a black-robed Warrior shackled their ankles to four disheveled, bruised European men in varying stages of beatings. The Warrior leered at Annette, licking his lips. Annette shrank into Puppy’s chest. His side was on fire, but he wouldn’t faint and frighten her.

Dempsey got down on one knee to pray. Puppy expected the guard to riddle them with bullets, but he only grinned as if at the zoo.

“Let’s all pray.” The priest closed his eyes.

Annette took out the crucifix, which Clary Santiago had given her for luck, and knelt.

“Come on,” she whispered at Puppy’s hesitation.

“Salaa, salaa,” the guard said, laughing.

“I don’t want to,” Puppy insisted.

“Salaa,” the guard shouted, knocking the other prisoners to the floor and pointing his rifle at Puppy.

14 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

Dempsey held his palm toward the guard to calm him. “Salaa. Everyone, salaa. Everyone.” He glared at Puppy, who grudgingly got to one knee. The priest’s eyes fluttered thanks before closing.

“Father in Heaven, watch over us and give us strength.”

The guard slammed his rifle. “Jesus.”

“Jesus Christ…”

The guard grunted in approval.

“Jesus Christ, give us your love and let us love our enemies. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” Dempsey crossed himself; the others followed except Puppy. He shook the chains.

“Still here.”

Dempsey smiled. “Yes. We’re still here. Saved by the Muslim captain. If that’s not enough to warrant faith, what is?”

“What happens when we arrive and there’s no one to protect us?”

“There will be.”

Annette caressed Puppy’s cheek in apology. “Puppy can get grumpy sometimes.”

Dempsey’s eyebrows shot up in sudden recognition. Yes, of course. Jesus, what are you up to?

“Sorry, Priest Dempsey,” Annette said. “We appreciate your helping.”

They waited out a barrage of machine gun fire which wasn’t directed at the van, though the curious guard peered out the metal-laced back window.

“Excuse me, but what’s happening?” Annette asked.

The guard frowned.

“Outside. What’s going on?” she repeated peevishly.

The soldier menacingly shook his rifle.

“Are you going to charm the guard now?” Puppy asked. Grandma’s bra straps, where does she find this courage? She’s as terrified as I am.

“Yes. I’m a salesperson. I own one of the top shoe boutiques in the Bronx,” she announced in case anyone found themselves in the neighborhood eager for a bargain in women’s shoes. She looked at Dempsey. “How do we ask, what’s going on, Father?”

“Annette…” Puppy started.

“I want to see this, mate,” a shaggy-haired prisoner with a broken nose piped up; his colleagues on the shackles murmured agreement.

“Thank you.” Annette bowed sarcastically.

“Try madha yahduth huna.” Dempsey smiled. He wanted to see this, too.

The guard stared at them.

“Madhop…” Annette started.

“Madha.”

“Madha.”

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 15

“Yahduth.”

“Yahdut.”

“Th. Yahduth.”

The guard yelled at them to be quiet.

“Excuse me?” Annette put her hands on her hips, swaying as the van skidded a moment. “I only know one language. English. Every other language is banned in America so cut me a little slack, would you?” She made a disgusted sound and Puppy just about applauded in delight. “Madha Yahduth…”

“Huna,” Dempsey said.

“Huna.” Annette pressed down her skirt and crouched in pathetic dignity against the strain of the chains. The guard pointed his gun. “Do you mind? I’m trying to be polite. One of us should be. Now. Madha yahduth.” She glanced at Dempsey, who mouthed the last word, “huna.”

Annette finished with great pride. The guard peered in disbelief.

“I asked you a question, sir.”

“Say wabialttali,” Dempsey said.

Annette’s eyes glazed.

“That’s probably not happening” Puppy said, chuckling.

The priest addressed the Muslim. “Wabialttali?”

The guard studied Annette as if she were some new lifeform evolving before his eyes and rattled off a few angry sentences.

“You get all that, sweetie?” Puppy said with a grin.

“Now everyone can see why we’re divorced,” Annette snapped, turning to Dempsey.

“What’d the Allah say?”

“He talked a little fast, but most of it was about traitors and non-Believers spitting on Allah.” Dempsey glanced warily at the guard. “Perhaps we should let this go for now.”

The van lurched to a stop outside the old headquarters of the London Times. Like the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, the offices had been turned into prisons; the Independent and Guardian had joined the Prophet of Truth news site shortly before the war started.

Holy Warriors nearly tore the van doors off their hinges. Machine guns jabbed the still shackled prisoners onto the ground. Roadblocks manned by armored vehicles protected both ends of the street, littered with bricks from the remnants of a bombed building.

Two female Holy Warriors, blazing brown eyes peering out from within their black burqas, wrenched Annette’s leg free from the chains and dragged her away.

“Puppy…” she screamed.

As he tried chasing her, still chained, Puppy was slammed in the head with a rifle butt. He barely remembered how he got into a cell. The priest knelt over him, mopping

16 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

the blood once he woke after a couple semi-dead hours; at least the pain in his skull distracted him from the pain in his side along with the abrasions from the metal restraints.

“You don’t always think before acting, do you?” Dempsey asked softly.

“One of my charms,” Puppy answered, half sitting up in the corner of the small, square cell which reeked of sweat and fear and urine and some smells he didn’t want to know. A very old man with a white beard sprawled in the corner, snoring. Puppy wondered how long he’d been asleep. Down the hall came weary moans, as if whoever had been tortured was too exhausted to scream anymore.

Puppy scrunched his brain, trying to focus. You’re in London. You’re a prisoner of the Caliphate. You don’t have any idea what you’re doing or how to get of this. On the other hand, you’re wanted for treason and murder in America, so there’s no going back.

None of this made him feel better.

“Where’s Annette?”

The priest shrugged. “In the woman’s center, I assume.”

Puppy peered at a filthy cup of water with something half-alive swimming about.

He decided thirst was better.

“What’ll they do to her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Will they hurt her?”

Dempsey shrugged again. This time Puppy jabbed his forearm into the man’s throat.

“That’s not a fucking answer.”

The priest shoved aside his arm with surprising ease. “That’s all I have. They round up Crusaders, sometimes out of pure sport. They beat us, sometimes rape the women.

This is different, what with the fighting going on. The Allahs have a purpose, however hysterical. Does that make sense?”

“No.” He tried shaking his head, but it hurt too much.

“I’ve been a prisoner many times, Puppy. It’s their way of asserting superiority over my religion. They accuse me of subversion, disloyalty, all kinds of nonsense, as if I would or could ever have any loyalty to them. But I’m necessary, as I told you. We represent a failed people, a failed faith. Like relics in a museum to show the world what Christianity once was and how Allah is greater. Without us, their glory isn’t quite as great. In a way, it’s somewhat similar to how early Christianity viewed the stiff-necked Jews, wanting to protect them as witnesses to Jesus as his kin, while punishing them for rejecting him as the Messiah.”

Puppy shrugged dimly; he couldn’t really follow any of that. Dempsey tapped a yellowing front page from the Daily Herald, September 16, 1940: 175 NAZI PLANES DOWN. RAF Triumphs in Biggest Battles of the War. “Each cell has at least one of these newspaper stories. If you spend enough time here, it’s like a small history lesson to remind us of what we once were.” Dempsey’s eyes glazed

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 17

with self-hate. “We’re all aljasus to them. Second class, dhimmi, infidels, whatever they want to call it.”

“They were going to kill us.”

The priest pondered this, finally conceding. “An outright execution would’ve been unusual without some basis. They’re not entirely savages.”

“That’s reassuring.”

He dropped his voice. “There are more decent ones than you’d think, Puppy.”

Puppy looked down. “Who’s Puppy?”

Dempsey sighed. “You’re quite famous for killing Grandma.” He studied him shrewdly. “Remember that there are people in the Caliphate who revere you for just that.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the subway posters.”

“The tube,” Dempsey corrected him with a smile. “Your face was everywhere right after it happened. You couldn’t turn on the Prophet of Truth or BBC without seeing you.

It might be some leverage. Once the Allahs get it into their head to honor someone, it doesn’t just go away. They’re not real strong about admitting mistakes, which is probably why they don’t ever question their dogma. Christians question everything. For a while before the war it seemed the Pope was issuing edicts every week, like allowing priests to marry. The Muslim birthrate had terrified the Church by then. As it turned out, with good reason. I don’t know how much a couple of my children would’ve mattered, but I was a bit too set in my ways to take on a bride.”

“That was the Pope John?” Puppy asked.

“John the XXVII.” “Where is he?”

The priest hesitated. “No one knows. There was a rumor his office pleaded with Grandma for sanctuary, but she turned him down.” Dempsey’s face hardened. “Another had the Holy Father in China. Or living underground in Rome. After the Allahs sacked Italy, stories came out that he’d been captured and beheaded, which apparently set off the Mufti. They were afraid the Christians would rise up if the Pope were really killed. Let him live somewhere as an example of Muslim superiority.”

Dempsey’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why the interest in His Holiness?”

Because that’s why we’re here. To find Pope John and stop World War Four.

Ignoring Dempsey’s steady stare, Puppy peered through the bars of the square window. Four floors below, Holy Warriors passed in three man foot patrols. It was suddenly quiet for a war. “What’s that?”

Dempsey followed Puppy’s finger toward a break in the dark, billowing smoke clouds; otherwise, it’d be a nice, crisp fall day.

“That was Big Ben,” he said sadly.

Half the tower had been sheared off, the torn crescent moon and star flag holding on like a stubborn viper to a gutted floor.

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“May 31, 1859,” the priest whispered as if praying. “That’s when Big Ben first rang its chimes. A fire had destroyed most of the Palace of Westminster where the Houses of Parliament were headquartered, back in 1834. When they were rebuilt, it was decided they wanted a clock with pinpoint accuracy. Everyone scoffed, but we are the bloody British and we found a way.”

Dempsey paused with pride. At least you had a history you could believe, unlike America, Puppy thought enviously.

“Big Ben weighed thirteen tons. At night, each of the clock’s four faces was illuminated. There was also a light which told everyone Parliament was in session. It went out the day the Arab Legion marched in. January 8, 2073, I’d just gotten out of the seminary.

The Grand Mufti rode a horse up the steps of Parliament and into the House of Commons, where he let the animal take a dump and then called Parliament into session.

“None of the Members would go inside until the horse shit was cleaned up.”

Dempsey paused again. “You’ve not heard this?”

Puppy shook his head. “I don’t think we always heard the truth about what really happened.”

“I imagine not. Otherwise, you’d look really bad for abandoning us.” Dempsey waited for the resentment to pass. “Instead of getting some janitor or the like, the Allahs insisted that one of the Christian Members do the honor. They all refused. The Allahs shot one hundred and fifteen Members and piled their bodies outside the entrance so it looked like sandbags after a while, the corpses were stacked so high. Finally they just stopped. I don’t really know why. One story had it that the Mufti didn’t realized just how tough we could be, especially since he’d just conquered our country and figured we’d bow down. Bowing?

The bloody English Allahs already controlled Parliament. Who the hell unlocked the door by conceding to the Caliphate, insisting they only wanted peace? Just like the bloody Nazis tried except back then we had Winston Churchill. This time we had Prime Minister Anwar Maheen. Always claimed he was a real Englishmen. Real Englishmen fight.”

Dempsey twirled his knuckles around.

“In 2075, when the Allahs formed the puppet government, like it wasn’t before the war”—Dempsey’s mouth twisted—“they reopened Parliament. Of course, Parliament is all Muslim now, the will of Allah showing the way, which helps when only Allahs can vote.

They scrubbed the floors and polished the bronze and wood and apparently, it’s been fully restored like back in the days of Queen Victoria. And if any Brit ever sets foot there, you can bet we’ll make sure he’s floating facedown in the Thames the next day.”

Dempsey’s jaw squared.

“Now the clock’s gone,” Puppy said quietly.

“It’s just a clock. They can take that from us. But not this.” He tapped his heart.

“What do you think of the view now?”

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 19

Puppy watched another patrol pass. Overhead, a trio of fighter jets fanned out, impulsively firing at some point in the distance, triggering more explosions.

“I’m here to find the Pope,” he whispered.

Dempsey face turned into a cold mask. “Why would you do that?”

“I kind of have my own reasons I can’t share.”

“Understandable, coming all this way looking for the Pope.”

“Sarcasm really isn’t helpful in these circumstances, Father. Can you help?”

Dempsey stared through him. “Do I look like I can help?”

“Yes. And you’re the only priest I know.”

The priest laughed. “John died back in 2078, 2079. We’re not sure.”

“You just said he was alive.”

“I lied.”

“Are you supposed to do that, being a Catholic priest and all?”

Dempsey smiled. “Faith doesn’t make you a good person. Look around.”

“You sound a little self-doubting.”

“When you tend a flock of goats before a defaced Jesus, it tends to shake your confidence just a little.”

“So you won’t help?” Puppy persisted.

“To find a dead man, no.”

“Because you don’t trust me?”

“It’s very convenient that you ended up in my church and then were rescued by a Muslim soldier.”

“I thought that was thanks to your prayer asking Jesus to send the tank.”

Dempsey reddened. “Or they planted you here.”

“To find a dead man?”

The priest scowled and wandered into the far corner by the snoring old man. Fed up, Puppy shook the bars until a Warrior guard with the eyes of a hungry snake wandered over.

“Where’s my wife?” Puppy shouted.

Dempsey held up his palms and rolled his eyes to convey Puppy was a crazy man best ignored. The guard sneered.

“I said, where’s my wife, asshole?” Puppy futilely shook the unmoving bars one last time, pressing his nose through the bars.

The Warrior made an obscene gesture requiring no translation, swiping aside Puppy’s outstretched hand with his rifle. His vicious laughs echoed down the hallway, swallowed by the screams of a prisoner.

At sunrise, two burly Holy Warriors hooded Father Dempsey, cuffing his hands behind his back to his ankles and carting him off like an animal about to be roasted. In a deep pain-intoxicated sleep, Puppy imagined for a moment Dempsey was his dead, drunk, abu-

20 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

sive father Alvin, former head of the Blue Wigs terrorist group, so of course he didn’t help.

But prisoners across the way watched until the priest’s shoes screeched in fading protest along the floor before cowering back into their corners, their time coming.

The open cells in the former newspaper offices had glass doors, allowing other prisoners to witness beatings, such as the two men whose heads were bashed bloody during the night. Puppy had forced himself to watch because he realized those were the rules.

Like one of those bad old vident shows which popped up occasionally where people were packed into a house and a camera spied on their unguarded moments, the Allahs gleefully beat the prisoners and then looked across the hall with malevolent patience for a response. Puppy almost applauded, but whatever his expression, it was sufficiently horrified. The point was to induce fear and disgust. Even in Hell there was logic; evil was so simple and basic.

He had to think more clearly. But that wasn’t easy between the moans and screams and the relentless explosions and gunfire, and occasionally toppling into agonized hallucinations, a naked Beth dancing, Zelda beheaded, Annette raped, Frecklie falling off the top of Yankee Stadium.

In between whatever hazy reality he stumbled into, Puppy re-read the Daily Herald from September 1940, marveling at the British courage, wondering where that had all gone, angry because that was the point of mockingly posting the article on the wall.

He tried ripping the story off, but it was glued or soldered” or something defying human strength, the ancient black-and-white newspaper taunting from the past.

A rocket or missile landed nearby, shaking the jail and sending Allahs running down the halls swearing at the prisoners as if it were their fault. Maybe it was. Maybe America had really struck back. Puppy’s sense of disquiet at World War Four had vanished. He didn’t care about keeping any peace. He wanted to see Allahs blown up. He wanted to watch their limbs fly into the air.

You were wrong, Grandma. Hate always wins. It’s just easier.

He wasn’t sure how long he was unconscious, a day or two, an hour or two; his face burned with fever. Where was Annette. How was Annette. The prisoners seemed segregated by sex and race; there were no Allah prisoners. Maybe there were and he just missed them. Maybe he should ask one of the guards. What were the Arab words?

Puppy yelled and a boot drove him back into the corner of the cell, where he fainted again, waking slowly, his vision more blurred this time.

He was a little out of his head, he realized, staring across into an empty cell for quite a while, disappointed there wasn’t a show. The stream of blood on the bandage was now an ocean. You might be dying, Puppy. How about that. Coming to London was a great idea. He’d have to get a different travel agent.

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 21

A black-robed hand slid a tiny tray of foul smelling vegetables beneath the glass.

Famished, Puppy scooped up the food with his blood-stained hands, shoveling it down.

The guard laughed as Puppy puked it right back onto the floor.

“Clean.” The guard pointed at the vomit.

Puppy searched his pockets for a tissue.

“Clean.”

Nodding with irritation at the impatient guard, Puppy desperately looked around the cell for something to use. They hadn’t even given him a pillow. Then what, the blanket? He slept poorly as is. The guard stormed in and, shoving his rifle butt against the back of Puppy’s skull, pressed his mouth onto the floor.

“Clean.”

Puppy sensed the eyes of his fellow prisoners across the hall. If they’re paying good money to come out to Yankee Stadium, he couldn’t disappoint them. Puppy barked and yanked the guard’s ankle, flipping him onto his back. He scooped up the vomit and flung it into the Allah’s eyes.

A Holy Warrior clubbed Puppy unconscious.

He expected to be dead when he woke, but the awful pain in his head told him not yet. His limbs were free. There wasn’t even a black hood covering his face. He almost toppled off the narrow wooden chair, finally focusing on a heavy-set man in a tan military uniform, somewhere in his early 40s with a shrewd, amused expression behind a thick black moustache, who was scribbling on a pad behind a huge oak desk shadowed by a large painting of the smirking Grand Mufti.

Outside the wide window, flames ate a skyscraper.

Puppy coughed up a little blood and the man held out his palm for another minute until he finished writing.

“There’s always so much paperwork.” He made it sound like an apology for keeping Puppy waiting.

“Where’s Annette?” Puppy rasped.

“She’s fine. Would you like some water?”

He greedily gulped the cold water, taking in the cluttered office.

“I’m Colonel Ali Basa.” The pleasant officer held out a plate of sweets. “Please.”

Puppy hesitated before cautiously biting into a piece of cake whose beige and brown colors complemented the Captain’s uniform.

“This is basbousa. You’re tasting coconut. Good, yes?” Ali popped a piece into his mouth to show Puppy he wasn’t being poisoned. “It’s originally from the Caliphate of Egypt, but you can find variations elsewhere. The French make it, gabelouze, the Greeks, I cannot pronounce, and the Armenians, shamali. The Egyptian Crusaders used it for their feasts such as Lent. That stays between us. Some would take offense, as if even dessert must have only a perfect history before Allah.”

22 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

He chewed on another basbousa. “Not as good as my grandmother would make, but perhaps memories from our childhood should never be eclipsed. What do you think, Mr. Nedick?”

Puppy tensed. It hurt.

“Have more. I am fat enough.” Basa held out the plate; this was an order. Puppy greedily shoved three more cakes down his throat. He thought of how much Zelda would enjoy this and smiled crookedly.

“Yes, delicious.” Cleaning the plate with his finger, Basa licked off the crumbs with a noisy sucking sound.

An air raid alarm screamed as if it were under the desk. Puppy flinched, but the Colonel merely shrugged and poured them two cups of tea.

“Be careful, that is hot. Sugar, milk, honey?”

Puppy waved him off, his stare lingering on the half-open window between the desk and the filing cabinets.

“We are four floors up. I doubt even a great athlete like you would survive the fall. I hope you’ll not try, Mr. Nedick.”

Not yet, he thought.

“That must hurt.” Ali touched his head. “As well as that.” He pulled aside Puppy’s shirt, stained with blood. “That must be a fresh wound for the stitches to tear so soon.”

“I’m fine.”

“I doubt it. You very much need a doctor. Who helped you originally?”

Puppy just stared. He was going to die anyway, he realized. Bleed to death, fall on his head escaping from four stories.

“No one. Annette was a nurse.” Puppy’s voice sounded slightly distant. He shook his head, trying to bring it closer.

“And she happened to have a needle and surgical thread, bandages?”

“She’s always prepared.”

“Which doctor helped you?”

“Annette.”

“Was it a Muslim?”

“Annette has no religion.”

“A Crusader doctor?

Anger brought its cousin, clarity. “Annette’s only faith is shoes. Where is she?”

“As I said, I believe she’s fine. I’m told when a prisoner has a fatal accident.”

“Accident. Cute.”

“Thank you.”

“I want to see her.”

“Certainly, Mr. Nedick…”

“Why do you keeping calling me that?”

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 23

Ali burst out laughing and returned behind his desk, thinking Puppy was one funny guy. “If you’re not Puppy Nedick, then who are you?”

“Elias Kenuda.” He recited the fake papers that got them on the mail plane over.

“With Annette Ramos. We are, I am, a member of Grandma’s Family, a Third fucking Cousin, and I, we, expect to be treated with official courtesy.”

Basa stared to make sure Puppy was serious before laughing again. He tossed their passports on the desk. “You mean these?”

“Yes.” “Ah.” The colonel thumbed through the passports. “Annette is your fianceé, not wife.”

“Close enough. We’re in love.”

“Of course, there should be nothing else.” Basa flipped a few photos of Kenuda into Puppy’s lap, taken by one of the Shurta agents who’d managed to cross the Canadian border into America during its recent little civil war. “This is Elias Kenuda.”

“No, that’s me.”

“No, Mr. Nedick.” He swung around his laptop so Puppy could see himself on the vidnews, pitching. A few weeks ago. Two weeks ago. There is no sense of time in a nightmare.

Kenuda turned up the sound on the vidnews clip. He grinned approvingly. “It’s a fascinating game. Hitting is quite an amazing feat. I salute you. Oh, I know your forte is throwing. Pitching.”

“Your video’s wrong. That’s not me.”

Ali feigned bewilderment and peered at the screen. “You don’t think so?”

“Nope. You’re confused because Puppy and I are both of African descent.”

“I can tell Africans apart. That continent now walks with Allah.” He sneered. “You’re Puppy Nedick. You and Annette, your ex-wife who is the fianceé of the real Third Cousin Kenuda, came to the Caliphate for some reason. You can understand I’m curious why.”

Puppy wavered in his seat, the blood dripping onto his thigh.

“Please, Mr. Nedick. I only want to help.”

He scooped up a couple fingertips worth of his blood. “I can see.”

“The Holy Warriors would’ve killed you and Annette already. They’re not really curious about much. You’re an infidel with fake papers so you must mean us harm. They kill for far less reasons.”

“And you?’

“I am not Mutaween,” he said, slightly offended. “They enforce the Sharia, our laws, so, God willing, everyone knows what’s expected of them according to the Qoran. Mostly it’s about morals, which doesn’t interest me. I’m concerned with the secular world, not the practices of our faith.”

“Wouldn’t that be the same?”

24 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

Basa smiled thinly. “It could be. Should be. But not always. Following the law and invoking the law are very different, Mr. Nedick. It’s enough for the Mutaween to shoot you on sight because you’re here. I want to know why.”

“Before you shoot me?”

The colonel shrugged.

“My wife and I have never been to Europe before. She likes shoes and heard there are some terrific bargains.”

Basa sighed impatiently. “I don’t want to hurt you, Mr. Nedick.”

Again, Puppy gestured at the blood.

“Nor to hurt Annette.”

Puppy stiffened. “I want to see her.”

“When you explain yourself.”

“Now,” he shouted.

Basa gashed Puppy with the tip of a pen; ink smeared with blood on his left cheek, forming a quizzical ‘I.’ “Like the Mutaween, the Shurta also do what they must. We are an ancient tradition from the middle of the Seventh Century, just after the Prophet joined Allah. In the Caliphate of Uthman, we had police powers, security powers, even some judicial authority.

The Sahib al-shurta, the head, was a powerful figure in the government. But by the Tenth Century, the Army took over many of these roles. The Grand Mufti restored us, as he restored so much of the earlier glory.”

Ali looked reverentially at the painting. “Don’t confuse my kindness with weakness, Mr. Nedick. I much prefer that you don’t watch Annette raped and tortured.”

Colonel Basa was an honest man occasionally and that was an honest admission, he thought after the African Crusader had been returned to his cell. Finishing the last of the basbousa by the window, he watched the firefight along the Thames, bodies forming barricades between the Hazmi Eighth Martyr Brigade and the renegade Southern Army of the English Caliphate. A few kilometers away from the London Bridge, ancient M-40 tanks seemingly fired on both positions.

A fighter jet suddenly dove toward the Bridge as if falling off a cloud. The plane spun slightly, making it unclear if the pilot were in control. As if anyone was, Basa sighed, watching the aircraft hurtle toward the Bridge.

The plane exploded into a tank, setting off a fireball. The middle of London Bridge collapsed, sucking in armored vehicles and tiny flailing figures beating off the flames scorching their bodies before plunging amid the steel and concrete into the Thames River.

From a floor below, cheers broke out, silenced quickly by rapid gunshots as guards killed prisoners.

Was that a suicide pilot from Abdullah’s rebel forces, a jet on automatic for death, one of the Holy Warrior brigades loyal to the Mufti, or someone else? Who was who any-

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 25

more? Basa shook his head as he took the staircase for a few minutes of blessed solitude for his thoughts, and to work off the basbousa. He nodded curtly to a black burqa by the entrance near the woman’s holding area. Steely eyes briefly challenged him; there was no deference in the Khawlah Holy Guards, named after the fabled Muslim warrior princess of the Seventh Century.

“Peace be upon you, brother.”

“Peace be upon you, sister. I want to see the Crusader woman.”

A moment’s hesitation produced a slight smirk beneath the black fabric before Basa was led down the stinking hall of empty cells; females were quickly transferred to sex traders or put on convoys as part of pleasure battalions for troops.

Annette was sprawled face down in the cell.

“Open the door,” Ali said coldly.

“She is only for viewing.”

The colonel’s blazing eyes were met in kind.

“Clearly not.” He gestured at the torn blouse opening onto welts. “Open the door, sister.”

“The Crusader whore is property of the Khawlah Holy Guards,” the soldier firmly replied.

“And this is a Shurta prison…”

“Which we are using…”

“Temporarily.” Something nasty exploded nearby, sending ceiling dust onto their heads. The woman didn’t blink.

“We handle the traitors,” she snapped.

“No, that’s an internal security matter. Since they’re dhimmi, they have no morals.

She’s here under my authority and my jurisdiction. Now open the door, sister.” He drew out the word with more syllables than there were letters.

The woman hesitated again, hands by her side, not in meekness but, Basa knew, searching for the knives on the hips beneath the robe. There were slits which enabled a skilled Khawlah to slice an opponent like a goat.

“We have more important things to worry about than a Christian whore.” Ali found some amiability.

The woman nodded reluctantly and opened the door. Ali kicked at Annette’s rib, rolling her over. Buttons were torn off; more welts covered her upper chest and stomach.

“The whore attacked us with her claws. She needed to learn obedience,” the guard explained from the doorway.

Basa noticed a bloody fingernail lying a few feet away. “And you succeeded. God is grateful. But I have need of her.”

The woman smirked again. “Of course.”

26 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

Basa reddened, turning away to catch his anger before returning with a chilly smile.

“Have her cleaned and brought to me.”

2

Z

elda Jones looked as sad as she ever had at the trickle of pee dripping out of the bottom of the stolen diaper. She was sad because once again, she hadn’t put the diaper on Diego Junior correctly. Sad because she doubted she’d ever learn. Sad because her only clean pair of pants were now wet with the urine of a week-old child.

Diego cried. It’s all about you; Zelda smiled at such a thought since her own life had been built on that very premise. But now she had to take care of another human being.

She had to make another person happy without considering how that made her feel. That worked because for the most part none of this “I’m a Mommy” routine was going well so far. She was hungry and thirsty and scared and her breasts were about deflated from Diego’s sucking on the nipples.

Zelda peered at the baby, still mystified by it all, it being motherhood, responsibility, loving someone beyond you. A lover, a friend, they could respond, help, guide, offer insights, say when you screwed up. Not this one.

But for all his egotism, Diego Junior was the bahm diggity. She gave him that.

Zelda dabbed her stinky pants with a Billow’s Barbecued Chicken napkin and risked feeding him. Easy, little guy, I might need these breasts again someday. She maneuvered beneath the doctor’s stolen white coat to fend off the biting cool fall air. Out of the dusk rumbled another caravan of pick-up trucks. Since the amnesty of baseball fans ended the brief fighting across the country last week, siblings had taken to the roads offering help to anyone displaced by the conflict. Zelda had ducked into the woods a few miles back when she saw a medical emergency tent set up, just in case they were looking for the supplies she’d lifted. There’d been food tables, clothing stands, which Zelda had also avoided.

In addition to the thousands dead in the original Miners terrorist attack at Yankee Stadium, another hundred or so had died from “Allah-agitations,” according to the vidnews report Zelda had caught outside the crowded bar last night. In his nightly Chat With The Family, First Cousin Cheng admitted there’d been excesses from the Black Tops which he justified as unfortunately necessary until all the traitors responsible were found so decent baseball fans could resume their decent lives as decent and loyal Americans and help defeat the Islamic Empire.

Including nearly twenty decent baseball fans who’d died by the ruins of Fenway Park, someone had muttered beside Zelda in the frosty pub doorway.

The “Allah-agitations” had brought Puppy’s face briefly onscreen wearing an Allah scarf, what was it called, a keffiyeh, kaffir. Puppy wearing a towel instead of a baseball cap

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 27

made her laugh, which earned suspicious stares from bar patrons, so Zelda, who spent her life saying and doing the wrong thing, suddenly turned the tender laugh into a derisive snort about traitors and hurried into the shadows.

But right now Zelda didn’t give a shit about any Miners or Allahs or baseball fans.

She was cold and stinky and she had a child she wouldn’t let The Family ever take away.

Zelda adjusted Diego’s mouth around her aching breast.

“Need anything?” A ruddy guy with a bent nose peered out of the driver’s window by the bus stop.

Zelda shook her head. The driver frowned.

“You sure? We got room.” He pounded the side door to indicate a nearly empty truck bed.

She almost asked for food but thought better of it. Zelda Jones turning down a meal, something for her diary. The driver grunted and pulled away.

“Hey,” she suddenly called out. The truck stopped. “Where am I?” “You don’t know?”

“I had to leave the hospital suddenly. BTs hit it. I’ve just been walking.”

The driver nodded sympathetically in instant kinship with anyone surviving a Black Top attack. “Emerson.”

Diego squirmed. You pooped, didn’t you? Thank you.

“Emerson. Where’s that?”

The man smiled faintly. “Just outside Boston.”

Diego started crying.

“It gets cold at night,” the driver said.

“We’ll be fine.” Zelda wrapped the jacket tighter.

A thin woman got out of the passenger side and stopped about ten feet away. “We don’t ask questions.”

“What makes you think I’m afraid of your questions? Or my answers.”

The woman stared leadenly.

Zelda hugged Diego. “I’m kind of out of diapers.”

As the woman held out her arms for Diego, Zelda raised a knee in defense.

“It’s okay, honey,” the woman said. “You can hold her.”

“Him. Diego Junior. Actually Diego Pablo Junior. That’s a boy.”

“Nice name. You can sit in the front. I’ll go in the back.”

If Zelda were alone, she would’ve jabbed the woman’s eye and run. But she had this fat little smelly mess, crying again. I don’t know what I’m doing except none of it seems right.

Zelda’s stomach and Diego’s wails won for the moment; she slid into the front seat, leaning as far away from the driver as she could without falling out the door.

28 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

Ruddy Face handed her half a sandwich. He grunted at her hesitation. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“We had a big breakfast this morning.”

From the truck bed, his wife pounded on the window, angrily gesturing for Zelda to eat the damn sandwich.

Don’t want to be murdered over some alleged chicken, Zelda thought, taking big bites; it was the best thing she’d ever eaten. The woman abruptly pounded on the window again, indicating to her thick-headed husband to give Zelda some cookies.

“Sorry.” The driver steered with one hand as he tossed a baggie of homemade chocolate chip cookies on Zelda’s lap.

She ate slowly, nodding thanks to the man and his wife, who still glared through the window.

“I figure we won’t do names,” the driver said.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Norma,” the woman shouted through the window. “That’s Doug.”

Zelda sighed and ate another cookie. She was a whore for sugar. “Zelda.”

“Music okay?” Doug asked after a mile or so on the dark road, the caravan of trucks firing funnels of headlights. Zelda shrugged. The man slipped in a musdisc; “Hills Over Hell” blasted out.

“Love this song.” Doug jiggled a little, scowling as Norma motioned for him to concentrate on driving.

Zelda closed her eyes. Oh Mooshie, where are you? Where is anyone? Puppy, Clary, Pablo. Beth. She blinked back tears, remembering their last kiss.

“I saw Dara Dinton one night in a Westchester supper club.” His eyes firmed stubbornly at Norma’s pounding on the window. “She sang all of them Mooshie Lopez oldies.

I heard she died at Yankee Stadium.”

Zelda bit her lower lip. “You sure?”

“Anyone sure of anything anymore?”

Doug ignored Norma’s cautioning finger and flexed his right leg, which was tucked into a shin-high thick boot. The Gelinnium wiggle. Zelda recognized the veteran’s trademark artificial leg. The handle of a baseball bat stuck out beneath a pile of dirty rags by the gas pedal.

“For protection,” Doug said simply. “Who the hell knows what’s what. Like Mooshie’s songs.”

Zelda listened intently, stroking the sleeping baby’s head.

“Her music was banned for so long because she was associated with the Miners, then everything’s okay, then the Miners blow up Yankee Stadium, so you figure…” He shrugged, waiting for Zelda to say something. She continued attending to the baby. “You figure they’d ban ‘em again. But now Mooshie’s all over the rad. More popular than ever.

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 29

That make sense? Miners are bad, but are they really? Baseball fans are good again, but are we? Is baseball really coming back, or is Cheng jerking us off? Grandma promised to build ten stadiums, Albert agrees, but where the hell are they ’cept Fenway and Wrigley? Well, I’m just asking, Norma.” He futilely tried drowning out Norma’s shouts.

“I heard outside fans outside the Wrigley Field site set up these humongous speakers”—he took his hands off the wheel to demonstrate the humongous size—“and blasted Mooshie’s music. Supposedly, and this is all just between us…” “’Course,” Zelda said, putting her hand on the steering wheel to keep them in the lane.

“Some of the BTs joined in. The Black Tops are plowing forward, firing away. The fans, sympathizers, vets like me, which I can admit proudly now…”

Zelda held her breath as a truck coming in the opposite direction came awfully close to tearing off their side view mirror.

“The BTs are singing Mooshie’s ‘Dark Depths.’ The fans are singing ‘Dark Depths.’

Shooting at each other and singing. What the you-know-what.”

Zelda grinned, imagining Mooshie between the two sides, flipping her hair and clenching her groin.

“I know, right?” Doug asked. “Did I have a point?”

“No,” Norma yelled.

Zelda slept uneasily for a few minutes before waking to a gentle nudge from a smiling Norma; Doug was pumping gas.

“I think Diego Pablo Jr. could use a cleaning up.”

“Course, sure,” she mumbled and, tucking the infant under her arm, headed into the bathroom on the side of the convenience store. She unsuccessfully tried rinsing off the diaper. Faced with re-using a soaking, poop-stained diaper, Zelda wrapped his little red butt in paper towels yanked from the dispenser by the sink.

Norma was standing in the truck bed, stretching. She pointed to the lights ahead.

“Boston. There’s a couch in our basement, all clean.”

Zelda clutched Diego. “Thanks anyway, but I’d better not.”

“If it’s because my foolish husband ran off his mouth…”

“No, Norma, really. I’m not the sort of person you want around. I might bring some trouble.”

It took Norma a doubtful moment to believe this chubby terrified woman with the baby was a menace. “How bad?”

“That’s hard to say. Enough.”

“Lots of folks are in that spot these days. But the baby…”

“He’s mine,” Zelda said savagely, hurrying in the opposite direction.

“I didn’t mean anything,” Norma shouted.

30 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

After a last hopeful honk, Doug and Norma drove off. That was immensely smart, Zelda thought, returning to the gas station. You could’ve done with one night of sleep.

But better to be noble and not put someone else at risk. Your mother’s an idiot, Zelda whispered to Diego. Get used to it.

Inside the gas station market, she laid the package of Clemen’s Clean ’N Fresh Diapers onto the counter. The teenager rang up the purchase and held out his hand for her Lifecard.

“I lost it,” she said with her very best innocent smile.

The boy frowned; he wasn’t sure how to void a sale. Zelda stopped the clerk from taking back the diapers. “But I need them. The baby smells.”

“Not my problem.”

In Grandma’s House, it was all about individual responsibility. If you couldn’t care for yourself then you had to find a way. Your child’s poop never became someone else’s shit.

“What if you look away and I just steal it?”

The teenager was now absolutely horrified. He snatched the diapers, expecting Zelda to pull a blade as part of this crime spree.

Diego cried.

“It’s a real baby?” the teen suddenly asked.

“What the hell did you think I needed the diapers for?”

The teen considered various sinister reasons before dismissively shaking his head.

“You gotta go, ma’am.”

“Miss. I’m a single Miss which makes me a single mother.”

The boy really didn’t want to hear this, either.

“I escaped from jail.”

“Please…”

“Then from a Miners camp…”

The boy paled.

“All these clothes are stolen. According to law, so is the baby. I have no partner. I’m an outlaw.”

He had to report all this. He’d be on the vidnews. His friends would desert him for being a rat.

“Or,” Zelda and Diego leaned onto the counter, “I’m just a crazy bitch. Who wouldn’t understand you doing anything to get rid of me before I…” her voice trailed off ominously.

A path beamed before the boy. He shoved the package at her.

“Thanks.” Zelda pocketed a couple of Doug’s Dainty Caramel Pops. She needed some breakfast tomorrow. “Can you lend me bus fare?”

A FASTBALL FOR FREEDOM | 31

Fleeing did narrow the options, Zelda thought, cradling the exhausted baby as the purple bus rattled through Boston. Lights flickered to the east piercing the black night like a yellowed brocade.

“Curfew’s at ten, everyone has half an hour. Get home safely,” the A24 bus driver said with as much warmth as a robot could muster at the passengers hustling down the steps toward the South End Station.

“The whole city closes?” Zelda asked, panicking. “’Cept for there.”

Zelda followed the light, which was closer than she thought. Siblings rushed past, slowing with resentful respect for an armored BT patrol vehicle. On the corner, a scarecrow oozing stuffing dangled from a hook above a shuttered haberdashery, a red B cap stuck atop its clown-like face. On its chest was a sign, “Give Me Baseball Or Give Me Death.”

Zelda walked quickly along Boylston Street toward the hammering humming. A BT tank was parked to the side as if unsure about being there; fans passed by quietly, bumping into her with muttered apologies. More scarecrows hung on both sides of the street mutely proclaiming “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of a Fastball” and, at the corner of Yawkey Way, “All baseball fans are created equal.”

The scarecrows were nothing compared to the light.

It was as if the illumination were coming from underground, bathing the construction site like an upside down volcano. Workers in red B baseball caps scurried up and down immense steel ladders, while others dug with shovels and picks into the frozen ground. Buckets of concrete flew by on wheelbarrows pushed by singing fans in Red Sox warm-up jackets; from somewhere, a medley of Mooshie’s songs played. Makeshift stands stood patiently amid stacks of paint cans. Zelda thought it was a viewing area, but she was the only one just watching. Everyone came to work at the only place in America, along with the site of the new Wrigley Field in Chicago, where the 10 p.m. curfew was lifted.

“What’s going on?” Zelda asked an old woman in a floppy t-shirt.

The woman sighed disapprovingly at such an idiotic question, gesturing at the huge, hand-lettered red sign atop a flag pole jammed defiantly into the ground: “Welcome to the New Fenway Park.”

“Hopefully we can re-open next summer if everyone pitches in,” she said accusingly, heading off with a paint brush.

A BT tank squatted at the north end of the construction site, bored soldiers sprawled on the front of the vehicle occasionally exchanging good-natured suggestions with passing workers about how best to build a ballpark.

All around the site, the lights of Boston went out for the ten o’clock curfew, setting off a loud cheer of pride. For a moment, BT ’copter blades lost their stealth and glittered.

32 | GARY MORGENSTEIN

Zelda hushed Diego, stirring noisily to tell the whole world he had gas, and edged toward a trench of concrete being poured into the ground.

“What’s this?” Zelda asked a heavy-set man in a Yaz sweatshirt.

“It’ll be the home plate side.” He pointed to some rickety chairs off to the right.

“There’s a seat over there for you and the baby.”

“Thanks, but if everyone else is helping, we can, too.”

He moved off with a skeptical look. Zelda tucked Diego under her arm and tipped over the sparse remains of concrete from a can into the trench, drawing quickly with her right forefinger while jiggling Diego Pablo Junior as a shield until “Puppy Nedick was here” had dried.

Mooshie’s song “Bats and Balls” thumped somewhere in the distance: Poke me with your lumber But don’t throw me a curve If you’ve got any thunder Then show me your nerve Bats and balls And clouds in the sky Make me a wish And I’ll make you a star.

••••

aBOUT THE AUTHOR Gary Morgenstein is the critically acclaimed author of The Dark Depths series (A Mound Over Hell, A Fastball for Freedom), a unique dystopian science fiction baseball saga. He has appeared on several podcasts and science fiction roundtables at the popular Fan Boy Nation and Fellowship of Fools.

An accomplished playwright, his humorous new play about racial harmony, A Black and White Cookie, is slated for premiere in 2021. He is also the author of the stage dramas Saving Stan, A Tomato Can’t Grow in the Bronx, and the off-Broadway sci-fi rock musical The Anthem.

His work has been featured in The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Parade Magazine, The New York Post, Sports Illustrated, Fox News Radio, and NPR. He enjoys sports, yoga, and taking care of his beloved pug. Gary lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, playwright-director-theater critic Marcina Zaccaria.