Better than Sugared Mutfruit Pie
by Piper Wright
Abernathy Farm – At first glance, you see the simplicity of the settlement and boy sitting on a picnic before me. We are sitting at a beat-up old picnic table on the west side of the Abernathy Shack, as the locals call it, in the middle of Abernathy Farm. On the east side, you can see the rows of tato plants and beyond it the namesake stadium, Tato Field. Large rows of shacks, barely above the level of slums dot the northern and southern horizons of the settlement. This is far outside the city feel.
“I don’t mind it,” he says. His chin is drenched in melon juice. To the west of us, there are other crops: melons, mutfruit trees, a handful of rows of corn. Three brahmin graze lazily among the crops and workers. “This place is a little different than home, but not by much.”
The settlement is Abernathy Farm, the namesake of the owner and patriarch, Blake Abernathy. The boy I am interviewing is Joel Mutfruit. He’s gangly and looks too tall at 6’4” to fit in power armor, yet he plays the hot corner for the Independent League’s Adamantium.
Before joining the Commonwealth Baseball Organization, Mutfruit earned his namesake based on his grandfather’s passion, mutfruit. Born on Nahant Beach, Mutfruit’s memories were of two things: sand and mutfruiit.
“We ate mutfruit every meal of every day, well mostly,” he said. More juice dripping onto the table. “I think my mom must have had a recipe for every different way you could possibly combine mutfruit into something.
Sometimes, there would be a lone mirelurk happening by and that would give us a chance to eat something else than mutfruit. But mostly mutfruit.”
While the little mutfruit farm on the small island southeast of Salem was not the same kind of moneymaker the Abernathy Farm is, Mutfruit’s family still lived well. While Mutfruit’s grandfather, Barren Mutfruit, developed his farm and raised his family there that is now on its fourth generation of mutfruit farmers, Joel’s father was adept in construction.
Joel explained, “Dad was supposedly a natural at building things. According to Paw [Joel’s name for his father], he once built a beach fort out of driftwood he picked up on the family property.”
Though that fort eventually burned during a radstorm, Joel’s father, Joseph, continued building. In time, he turned the rows of shacks on the beach into a full beach house, emulating the designs of pre-war beach houses. Though Barren and Joel’s grandmother have long passed away, the remaining Mutfruit family mostly still lives there.
According to Joel, the beach house had 25 people living in it. The Mutfruit family is big. Joseph had five siblings who lived to adulthood. Four of those siblings were male, all of whom married and had children. Joel has three sisters and a brother, all older than he. His brother lives in the beach house, too, with his 13-year-old son now helping on the farm.
“Yeah, my nephew, Bucky, looks like he may be running the farm one day,” Mutfruit says. He raises his checkered shirt from the waist to wipe the melon juice from his lips and chin. A few seeds are stuck between his teeth, making it look like he has huge gaps. He smiles a wide, innocent smile. In a week, he will be 18. “I wasn’t going to be the one running the farm. I was too, how do you say, antsy.”
While the family went through the daily grind of caring for the mutfruit trees, collecting crops, preparing them for cooking and for selling to traveling caravans, and other business, Joel was the only mutfruit living on the farm that expressed his dislike for the life. One of his uncles was the same way. He ended up leaving the farm and joining a mercenary group to fight roving raider and super mutant groups. That uncle was never seen again, but his wife and daughter still live at the Mutfruit house.
For Joel, his aptitude was one different, like his father. While the family took care of the mutfruit and Joseph built and repaired equipment around the farm, Joel patrolled the beach, always on the lookout for mirelurks and pirates. He never did find any pirates, but he did spot several mirelurks who got too close to the farm. Joel sometimes was the one to put them down, but he sometimes needed help from others on the farm.
One of his skills, was using projectiles to get the mirelurks in a rage. Apparently, a raged mirelurk will expose its vulnerable parts, especially its face, for easier killing.
“Yeah, when they sneak up on you, they are dangerous because they will keep low and just cut you with their claws,” Mutfruit says. He reaches for a carrot to munch for more. Teenage boys are always hungry. “But,” he pauses between bites, “when you piss them off, they come charging, head up. I would pick up just about anything, but mostly rocks and concrete chunks, and just peg them. One time, I even caught one in the eye. It didn’t kill it, but it was the easiest mirelurk we ever put down. It was also the most delicious.”
Mutfruit used his mirelurk “pegging” skills to build an arm, something that turned him into one of the best players in the Charlestown Youth League. Though travel was often difficult, he would play with and sometimes against the Salem team. Now, he probably has one of the strongest arms in the entirety of the CBO. That gives him not only a strong arm to throw across the diamond from third base, but he also has one of the better bat speeds in the league, too. That has led to a few more home runs, which could boost him into a bigger spotlight.
Right now, Mutfruit is batting .250 (9 of 41) in nine games, but he is second in the Institute League in home runs (4) behind Cocnord’s Ricky Ticky Laughy’s five and second in runs batted in (12) behind Fort Hagen’s Safety Langer.
Going forward, the 11th-round pick is looking to keep playing above his grade for the first-place Adamantium. “I know people don’t have high expectations for me,” he says, still chewing on a carrot. “That’s where I can take advantage. I mean, we have [first-round pick] Austin [Engill], ‘Hirshey’ [Chris Hirshfield], and [Steve] Settler in the middle. And here I am batting 7th where no one expects me to blast one. I think it helps to have a strong team.”
For now, Mutfruit is enjoying himself still far outside Boston. He likes patrolling the farm when not practicing or playing ball, and of course, he loves his fruits. “Not mutfruit, though. I ate them so much when I was a kid, I want to give them a break. I can’t get enough melon, though. It’s better than Ma's sugared mutfruit pie.”
Now, this writer has never tried Mutfruit’s mother’s sugared mutfruit pie, but I am pretty sure his ability at baseball is better than her pie.