side. Time and the weather. The devout disliked kneeling on gravel and being blessed through a chain-link fence in a downpour. The priests found that living in makeshift tents and, though the Old Dictator provided them with adequate food, cooking over open fires, and having limited bathing and toilet facilities, and no replacements for worn out cassocks, was not to their liking. One by one they allowed as how a visit to their native land was not a bad idea. The few native-born Courteguayan priests were allowed to choose a country of their liking, and all chose the United States, a country that while niggardly with humanitarian aid, is always a sucker for a religious refugee, fake or genuine.
TWENTY-TWO
THE GRINGO JOURNALIST
C ourteguay from the air: centuries-old baseball diamonds visible. The Wizard crammed them all into the gondola of the balloon, Julio and Esteban, Hector and Fernandella, the dwarf Aguirre home for a short visit, and a woman who claimed to be a psychic artist able to draw pictures of the future. The balloon, striped like a candy cane, hissed into the air over San Barnabas, the sky was turquoise blue, the wind soft as a rabbit’s nose. What they saw below them as they swung out over Lake Verde and the jungle-like land in the direction of the Dominican Republic were baseball diamonds, not active ones where the Courteguayan boys of endless summer played ball from dawn to dusk, but baseball diamonds centuries old, appearing from the sky to be covered with layers and layers of gentle, verdant moss. They were unmistakable.
“Look!” cried the Wizard. “Look!” He pointed down at the mossy land where the ancient baseball diamonds were clearly visible.
“How do you explain it?” asked Fernandella. “You … that is Sandor Boatly brought baseball to Courteguay. We all know that. Who played on those diamonds?”
“Baseball was not unique to Sandor Boatly. He discovered it in America. Perhaps it came originally from Courteguay to America and not vice versa. Perhaps baseball originally came from another galaxy. Thousands of years ago a space ship arrived here with bats and balls and laid out these diamonds where our ancestors enjoyed the game. How did it become extinct? I don’t know. Like birds, animals, insects that have certain life spans then disappear into history, maybe that is what happened to baseball.”
“Ever the charlatan,” said Fernandella.
“You have a better explanation?”
“I do,” said Esteban. “It is God’s will. God allows us to fly above Courteguay to see it as few ever have. There need not be an explanation. God’s will does not need explaining.”
TWENTY-THREE
THE GRINGO JOURNALIST
T he urchins of the green, that is how Julio, Esteban, and their boyhood friends were referred to by parents and neighbors.
In Courteguay, where it was always summer, where the word
snow
was used only to describe a type of daisy, the boys played baseball from dawn to dusk, with teams forming, fragmenting, merging again, all in the space of a few hours. Some boys would leave to eat, run errands, or take a siesta, then reappear a few minutes or hours later, always welcome to fit into the loose structure of the game, like an extra bat on a bat rack.
Only Julio and Esteban never left, their bolted breakfast of pheasant burritos lasting them all day. They never tired or rested or even answered nature’s call. Only when the ball became invisible in the blueberry darkness of evening would they slog off home, with the slim Julio, tall and straight as a post, leading the way, and squat, muscular Esteban trailing him.
Even after it was dark the brothers would still toss the ball back and forth in the dim interior of their home. Julio liked to catch fireflies in a jar and watch the misty, dreamlike glow from behind theice-colored glass. He would leave the jar beside his straw pallet, and as he went to sleep the baseball would slip from his grip and roll away a few inches until it nestled
TWENTY-TWO
THE GRINGO JOURNALIST
C ourteguay from the air: centuries-old baseball diamonds visible. The Wizard crammed them all into the gondola of the balloon, Julio and Esteban, Hector and Fernandella, the dwarf Aguirre home for a short visit, and a woman who claimed to be a psychic artist able to draw pictures of the future. The balloon, striped like a candy cane, hissed into the air over San Barnabas, the sky was turquoise blue, the wind soft as a rabbit’s nose. What they saw below them as they swung out over Lake Verde and the jungle-like land in the direction of the Dominican Republic were baseball diamonds, not active ones where the Courteguayan boys of endless summer played ball from dawn to dusk, but baseball diamonds centuries old, appearing from the sky to be covered with layers and layers of gentle, verdant moss. They were unmistakable.
“Look!” cried the Wizard. “Look!” He pointed down at the mossy land where the ancient baseball diamonds were clearly visible.
“How do you explain it?” asked Fernandella. “You … that is Sandor Boatly brought baseball to Courteguay. We all know that. Who played on those diamonds?”
“Baseball was not unique to Sandor Boatly. He discovered it in America. Perhaps it came originally from Courteguay to America and not vice versa. Perhaps baseball originally came from another galaxy. Thousands of years ago a space ship arrived here with bats and balls and laid out these diamonds where our ancestors enjoyed the game. How did it become extinct? I don’t know. Like birds, animals, insects that have certain life spans then disappear into history, maybe that is what happened to baseball.”
“Ever the charlatan,” said Fernandella.
“You have a better explanation?”
“I do,” said Esteban. “It is God’s will. God allows us to fly above Courteguay to see it as few ever have. There need not be an explanation. God’s will does not need explaining.”
TWENTY-THREE
THE GRINGO JOURNALIST
T he urchins of the green, that is how Julio, Esteban, and their boyhood friends were referred to by parents and neighbors.
In Courteguay, where it was always summer, where the word
snow
was used only to describe a type of daisy, the boys played baseball from dawn to dusk, with teams forming, fragmenting, merging again, all in the space of a few hours. Some boys would leave to eat, run errands, or take a siesta, then reappear a few minutes or hours later, always welcome to fit into the loose structure of the game, like an extra bat on a bat rack.
Only Julio and Esteban never left, their bolted breakfast of pheasant burritos lasting them all day. They never tired or rested or even answered nature’s call. Only when the ball became invisible in the blueberry darkness of evening would they slog off home, with the slim Julio, tall and straight as a post, leading the way, and squat, muscular Esteban trailing him.
Even after it was dark the brothers would still toss the ball back and forth in the dim interior of their home. Julio liked to catch fireflies in a jar and watch the misty, dreamlike glow from behind theice-colored glass. He would leave the jar beside his straw pallet, and as he went to sleep the baseball would slip from his grip and roll away a few inches until it nestled
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