ICE MAN
story by Patrick Breheny
“He’s a killer.”
Kate Madigan was talking about their resuscitated find, known until now in social media, on TV, in newspapers, as the incredible Ice Man, a young blonde long haired adult male, who was found in the Arctic, perhaps frozen before the last Ice Age He was castrated, but they kept that from the media. Found also were the Frozen Ice Tablets, left by a community sophisticated enough to have a written language, Part of Kate’s job was decoding it.
There was no scientific explanation yet of how a human could be frozen alive. If someone freezes, they froze to death, organs failed. But his society had developed a technique for freezing alive. It was referenced in the tablets, though he was the only specimen so far recovered
This meeting with Kate and Dr. Dillaby Marcus was about information from the tablets, with X present to be questioned by Kate. What Dillaby didn’t expect was that the subject would be manacled, with a uniformed deputy intimidatingly close to him..
He asked, “Why is he being treated like a criminal?”
That was when she said, “He’s a killer.”
“This is in their records?”
“Yes. He’s royalty. The second son of the king.so not in line for the throne unless his brother died.”
“And the brother did die?”
“Yes.”
“Killed by X?”
“Yes.”
“He was castrated and frozen for that?”
“No to the first, yes to the second. In his society, the punishment for murder was being drawn and quartered, ripped apart by horses, not by freezing. Freezing was reserved for aging kings and princes, in hopes of transporting them to a time when maybe people were immortal. X’s crime is millenniums old, but to him it just happened.”
. Until Kate’s revelation now, no one knew if he was a sacrificial victim or a criminal. If he was a criminal, there would be a court hearing in the present to determine if he had been adequately punished previously, and if not, he would be. It was part of Dillaby’s function--- to present an opinion of culpability to the court.
He said, “Well turn on the sound and video, and let’s hear it from him. Explain motivation and defense to him.”
They set up for recording, and she spoke to X in her broken Ice., listened to him, then spoke as if she was X.
“Motivation didn’t matter to us. If something happened, it happened. All we did was give our reason for doing it. Now speaking as Ms Madigan, I told him, as you instructed, that’s not like today, when the motive is the prosecutor’s case and often the same motive is the defense.”
“Ask him why he killed his brother.”
She spoke in Ice again, and X became quite emotional, his catharsis seeming immediate to the event. He went on for a long time, maybe fifteen minutes, laughed, cried, coughed, and when he stopped, Kate herself was having breathing difficulty.
“He said ‘I was abused.’”
“He spoke for long minutes, and all he said was ‘I was abused.’”
“It’s all on the tape. He hardly wants to say it again.”
“So play it and translate.”
The technician started playback. X screamed. and. Dillaby said “ Stop the tape. Tell the subject that’s enough.”
The tape was stopped, she spoke to X, .he replied.
“Well?”
“I told him calm down, he’s hurting his future. He said he can’t talk about it or listen and stay calm.””
“Let’s give him a break. Deputy, if you could escort him to the restroom, the canteen, give us a few?”
The deputy took him from the room.
“Play the tape back a little at a time and translate.”
She played some, stopped it, and translated. “My parents hated me. Second born, slim. Everybody was fat. Weight was a badge of royalty, of opulence. The irony was, the greatest warrior first became king, but his progeny couldn’t throw a stone straight. I had a small nose and theirs were all big. My hair and beard were blonde, my complexion fair, and theirs was dark.”
Dillaby said, “He’s another ethnic.”
“He must be, but surely they didn’t know about genetics, and there’s no record of contact with other cultures.”
“Some Viking marauders.”
“As good a speculation as any.”
“So he was second born and different. What happened to him? Play some more.”
She did, then paused the recording. “Beatings from my father, who said ‘You’re not my son.’ Then from my mother, who said the same. How can she deny that when she saw me come from her?” That’s where the cynical laugh comes in.
The deputy came back with X, said “He defecates in the urinal, laps coke from a cup, like an animal, eats with his nose on the plate. The captain says he stays in here.”
Kate said, “They were sophisticated, just used different eating utensils.”
Dillaby ignored the deputy as he sat X down again, and said to Kate. “It’s my job to make judgements like what’s cynical, yours is to translate”.
“Indeed, Doctor.”
“Dillaby. Alright?”
“Doctor Dillaby.”
“Look, yes, I agree with you, I just can’t have you influencing my calls. We have to get along.?”
“Sure.”
X seemed to be getting the English a bit, or maybe it was like watching a soap opera in a foreign language where you sort of comprehend a scene by interactions, but he burst out laughing at them. The deputy did his best to stifle his mirth with a cough.
She said, “Our charge is advancing quickly. Play more?”
“No, just summarize for me since he can’t stand hearing it. We’ll go word for word later.”
“He said his father suspected infidelity, but there was no villain he could point to. Therefore X was a curse. His mother liked that evaluation too. But the worse experiences came from his older brother, from Z.”
“Z came before X?”
“They never saw our alphabet. Do you want to know about his brother?”
“Continue.”
“He spoke about patterns before he got to specifics. Beatings as a pre-pubescent child., then later, as Z reached puberty, it was rapes. Z justified it---as if he needed to justify---as practice for marriage, and bemoaned that X wasn’t his sister. This gets to the specific of how he’s a eunich. Z did it to him with a blade, so he could fantasize he was a girl. And that’s why X killed him.”
“Could he ever get over such trauma and adjust to our time and society?”
“I’m just a translator. His father couldn’t execute his only remaining son”
“X said this, or you?”
“X. He was banished by freezing, reserved only for those elites soon to die anyway. His father visited him on us. The king punished him as he saw appropriate.”
“Your opinion or his words?”
“His words.”
The District Federal Court in Washington, D.C. was assigned to determine X’s fate, based on the testimony of Dillaby and Kate. Dillaby’s recommendation on his evaluation and consultations with Kate, was that X had not only been proportionately punished in his own time, but unproportionately punished in advance.
The court found that X’s slaying of Z was self defense against further brutality, but it was unsure just what to do with X. Was he dangerous as a result of his experiences? He needed to be monitored and evaluated regularly, was in need of guardians. And the likely candidates for that were Dillaby and Kate, if willing.
They were hardly going to decline. Their designation was defined as surrogates.
A hotel suite in Manhattan was rented, where the surrogates as foster parents could live with X in three separate bedrooms. There would always be two city policeman present, one at the room door, one inside. The budget was justified by the science to be gained. X was introduced to television, as a glimpse into modern society He enjoyed the more slapstick shows with visual gags. Sesame Street was another of his favorite programs. Having seen himself on video during the initial encounters with Dill and Kate, he was not surprised to see himself on news programs, and began to think---quite correctly---that he was a star.
The Regency Hotel was home as well as work, and meals were provided by the hotel. Kate and Dill couldn’t be with him 24/7, and social workers filled in so they’d have time off. Neither were native New Yorkers with connections to the city, so, as co-workers, on their first free evening, they went down to Greenwich Village for dinner at an Italian restaurant. Before they went out, Dill said, in what was his formal manner when working,
“We know this isn’t a date.”
“Of course not. We’re colleagues.”
They both had a glass of vino after placing orders, and when the food arrived, they got another glass. It had a way of making them a l more relaxed together.
Disciplined Dill grew up near L.A., in Sherman Oaks, went to Occidental College, then Stanford, but as a teen loved surfing, dirt bikes, snowboarding and parties. She grew up in rural Nebraska, and hated cold weather, tractors, cornfields and flat terrain. He was eight years older than her, and they were both single and unattached.
They were feeling light and free as they went into a balmy spring evening, and the rhythms and riffs of a good jazz band were filling the street. The music came from behind a plate glass window with neon signage flashing in four colors on the letters, for a club called SIMPLY JAZZ.
It was Dill who said, “Are we in a hurry to go back to babysitting?”
“No, not yet.”
Responsible professionals that they were, they ordered desserts and double espressos, listened to the rest of the set, then learned a little more about each other when the band broke.
Kate revealed, “I had a boyfriend while I got my M.S. at Nebraska State, but he was earth bound to his family and community, farming as science and an institution, and a devout vegan. I had nothing against his ideals, but they weren’t mine. You notice, I ordered meatballs and spaghetti,. skipped those trendy if authentic pasta dishes.”
“Like mine?”
“Ha-ha-ha”
“I had couple of Valley girls as flames growing up, but I outgrew the San Fernando Valley, adrenalin sports, heavy metal and groupies.”
“Did you play a guitar?”
“Only learned how to hold one.”
“It’s a while since you were a teen.”
“Yeah, I’ve dedicated myself to my field since. I’ve been too busy for the social..”
She smiled at that. ”Really?”
“Really.”
“Don’t you get lonely?”
“In New York?”
“Especially in New York.”
“I don’t have time to get lonely.”
“Do testing on that and write a paper. You might have a solution for all the people on the internet searching for soul mates”
“I might. You have to find yourself first.”.
“But what’s second?”
“Maybe you’ll be ready then.’
The band looked like they were returning from their short break.
She said, “Should we be getting back?”
“Yeah, let’s get the bill.”
Outside, she commented, “It’s a lovely night. A taxi or walk back?”
“ Its not far. Let’s walk.”.”
“Clear our heads.”
“We only had two glasses of wine.”
“Make us loquacious though.”
They kept a distance walking, certainly didn’t hold hands, but their elbows brushed a couple of times and her long her hair fell on his shoulder when they leaned closer to hear each other over NYC, such conversations being about an intriguing now closed used books store, and a likewise closed vintage thrift shop, both of which they vowed to explore another time..
X’s English quickly improved, and while he had no innate vocabulary for modern technology, he began to mostly comprehend thirty minute TV programs. One of his favorites was the re-runs (how could a re-run be old to him?) with a couple of guys travelling around the U.S. on “Route 66”. He also became a Yankees fan because he knew everybody was. And he wanted to see this world that existed beyond the hotel suite.
By now, due to a city budget objection he knew about from his ‘foster parents’ discussion of it, the cops had been replaced by private security. And one 4:00 AM, when Dill and Kate were asleep in their rooms, and Harry the guard watching X was on the soft armchair snoring as usual, X quietly opened the suite’s front door. The chair was there. Only the chair. He knew enough about modernity to understand there were camera everywhere, had been informed about them to keep him from considering what he was doing now. but if nobody was watching him here at the moment, was anybody anywhere?
He wore his Yankee’s cap backwards, and the huge illuminated blue sunglasses Kate had left in the dining nook. He was dressed in jogging pants and a plaid shirt. Present in the lobby was one groggy bellman who paid scant notice of a rich heavy metal dude at a five star hotel, going out for dope or a hamburger. There was a general in the vestibule, who escorted X outside, and for a second he thought he was apprehended. But X went to the curb and prepared, right on Park Avenue, to make that gesture with the thumb that he’d seen on “Route 66..” Before he could, the general got in front of him, waved at one of the horseless enclosed wagons, and it stopped. The general opened the door for him. These people knew he was a prince!
He got into the wagon, so soft and cushioned he could sleep in it, Should X close the door? If the general knew he was prince, he should.
But he didn’t. He said, “How about a tip”
That he knew. A tip was passing on confidential information
“The Yankees are going to win tomorrow.”
“They’re not favored, You sure?”
The Yankees didn’t lose. “Of course.”
“That’s a good tip if you got it from the horse’s mouth. I’ll talk to my bookie.”
His anger, whatever caused it, seemed gone, and X decided it best not to question what he meant about a talking horse as the general gently closed the door without slamming it.
The wagon master in the front looked like he’d been steering it for 48 hours, and asked, “Where to, pal?”
‘Pal’ was like buddy, friend People were so congenial here.
“And I don’t want no ‘Yankees will win’ for a tip/”
No, of course not. Why would he want information he’d just heard?
“I’m going to Route 66.”
“I just know the highways by name. Is that the Cross Bronx Expressway? The Deegan?”
“No, its Route 66 that goes across the country.”
“Oh, hey, my boss loses his medallion I go out of New York City. I can drop you at the Lincoln.”
“What’s the Lincoln?”
“Not a New Yorker. The tunnel. You got any money, before I flip the meter? You look like a cross between a biker and a hippie.”
“Money?”
“Out.”
“I just don’t understand.”
“That’s the problem. Why me?”
“Where’s this tunnel?”
“Shit. I’m going home, to the depot, uptown where I live. The way to the bridge. I’ll take you, but if I see a fare on the way you have to get out.”
A fair at night? There was so much he had yet to learn. The TV wasn’t telling it all.
He knew it was the wagon that was moving, but so smoothly it seemed the buildings were rolling by the window. The experience mesmerized him, as he observed the façades of the enormous structures and the streets lit at night.
Then they stopped, “I hate to break your reverie, mushroom man, but we’re here. George Washington came back as a bridge. Good luck out there. Everybody’s not as nice as me.”
He stood and took that pose with his thumb pointed toward the bridge. A wagon quickly stopped and he got in. A man was driving it, and said,
“Across?”
A strange question, he thought. “Yes.”
The driver moved the wagon forward to one of the glass houses, then threw some round metal things into a hole there. X shouted, “Hello!” to the man in the house, but he didn’t answer him. .Must see a lot of wagons.
They were on a road above water, and X marveled that the road could stay up with nothing underneath holding it. He again experienced the euphoria of the world moving past him. He didn’t want that interrupted by conversation, but the driver asked, “How much you want?”
There was so much he didn’t understand. How much of what?
Then there was a hand where Z used to put his., but there was nothing there Z didn’t want left.
“Holy shit. Having surgery?”
“Stop.”
“No problem, but it doesn’t matter to me.”
“Stop the wagon.”
“What wagon”
X opened the door with the car moving.
“I can’t stop on the bridge. I’ll let you out on the other side. Close the fuckin’ door.”
He closed it but his pleasant journey though the moving world was finished. He’d have to keep his mind in the wagon.
The driver told him he couldn’t hitchhike on the New Jersey Turnpike, so he stood a distance away from its entrance. He got picked up again by a man, who said, “You shouldn’t wear that Yankees hat backwards, that means you want us to lose.” He’d never heard that, but he turned the cap around.
“Sunglasses at night? Are they translucent? Make the world bluer?”
“Just darker.”
“Where are you going?”
“Route 66.”
“I think it still exists, but you’ll get faster on 40 to anywhere 66 will take you.” “What’s forty?”
“From the end of the Penn turnpike it takes you to St. Louis..”
“I want to go the Route 66.”
“Well, Harrisburg is where I’m going.”
“Is that in New Jersey?”
“Pennsylvania. What country are you from?
“Ice.”
“Iceland?”
“Um, yes. Ice land.”
“Things must be different to you.”
X missed the rolling panorama, but the world was mostly dark beyond the highway, so he wasn’t disinclined to talking.
“Everything is.”
“Must be.”
“Like, how does it go?”
“You mean---How’s it going?”
“Yes. How’s it going without horses?”
“You psychic? You know I sold my horses?”
“Then how does the wagon go without them?”
“What wagon?”
“The one we’re in.”
“Are you messing with my head?”
“I didn’t touch it.”
“You must have cars in Iceland.”
“What are cars?”
“I don’t know whether to just drop you off or take you to a hospital.”
“I was in a hospital.”
“I’ll bet.
“They were nice, and fed me, and asked a lot of questions.”
“Yeah, they do that. There’s a trooper sub-station ahead in a few minutes. I don’t think you’re a bad guy, but you definitely need some help.”
“They’ll help me get to Route 66?”
“Sure,.. Sure, they’ll do that.”
Considering his naivete, Dell and Kate felt fortunate that was all he experienced. The guards got fired and replaced, and locks were placed on the suite door where, from the inside, you needed a key and a code. It would automatically unlock if the fire detectors were triggered.
They couldn’t ignore his zeal to know his new world. He deserved to get out in it, but he’d have to be chaperoned. They thought Central Park, a nice walk away, might be a good start to fill him in on what he’d missed all these millennia. What they didn’t take into account was that his first outing had been nocturnal, and most people, even in the city that never sleeps, were asleep. t
Park Ave was orderly enough, but when they reached a crosstown street, the wind off the East River blew his Yankee’s hat off. Considering where he came from, one would think he’d be familiar with such gusts, but the traffic was also erratic. He now knew what a car was, but he’d never heard horns, and these were so frequent it seemed the drivers were saluting each other, except that they looked angry.
They were soon at Central Park, and his mentors hoped that pastoral environment would calm him. At the beginning of the park, there were benches, and the first two had people who seemed to be office workers at lunch or on a break. Such tradition had been explained to him, and, confirming his perceived belief in his star status, one of the men said,
“Hey, X!”
In his former country a proper return greeting was to grunt loudly. The man on the bench flinched in jest. “Don’t get mad. Just saying hello. I’d ask for your autograph, but, we-el”
X asked Kate, “What is an autograph?” “You write your name.”
“I need ice and a pick.”
“Don’t worry. It’s okay.”
The requester confirmed, “Yeah, I’ll accept that excuse.”
They went on, crossed a lane, then came to more benches. These were further into the park, and the people on those seemed, even to X, to be rough lived types. Almost warriors. Former ones. Beaten. Most were reclining but one who was upright shouted, “Got any spare change?” X had seen so much change he could share ‘tons of it” an expression he had learned but didn’t quite understand. A ton was an extreme weight, but the term didn’t apply to weight, and was mysterious like that question “How much?” from the man in the car , who didn’t specify what he was inquiring an amount of.
Dill told the petitioner, “He doesn’t have any change.”
X protested. “Are you kidding me?” He was getting those phrases. “If I don’t have change, nobody does.”
This amused the guy on the bench. “Gave you up, didn’t he? How much change you got, kiddo?”
“How much you want?”
“All of it.”
Dill and Kate, on each side. pulled X with them. She said, “Trust us, you couldn’t handle it.”
They moved on, and Dill said, “Even with all the publicity, no one sems to know he’s castrated.”
“He has enough to deal with without that knowledge out. What would that smart ass have said just now?”
“Some people know. There was that first car he rode across the bridge in.”
“The driver didn’t recognize him. Its deniable if he ever does. And what would he be have to reveal about himself?”
They continued spending their free time together, at movies, restaurants, music and dancing venues, held hands, and several nights smooched in front of their own hotel before going in.
On one of those occasions, Dill confessed an identification with X. in that he couldn’t do more either with ‘the baby’ around.
To make it worse, X took to embraces of Kate. To one that seemed too long and passionate, he objected with
“STOP!”
“Dill, he’s human..”
Later, alone with Kate, he said “It freaks me out.”
“He can’t do anything, remember?”
“You mean there’s nothing he can do?”
“Oh for God’s sake, he needs somebody.”
“Maybe we can find him another eunich.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can.”
“I was joking.”
“I’m not.”
One night leaving a club, just a little intoxicated, they both acknowledged a need for ‘more” Kate said, “My only issue with that is--- where?”
“Hotel.”
We can’t…”
“Not there.”
“Okay…Where?”
“How about here?”
“THIS one?”
“I’m sorry its not a palace.” He was sincere.
“No, no, its royal enough. In fact its grand”.
It was. The sign said so. It was The Grand Hotel.
If only New York had love hotels like Tokyo. They planned better after that, made reservations, not at five stars like the Regency, but nice places within their budgets.
And they were a bit careless, kind of on purpose, so it wasn’t long before Kate was pregnant. They married fast in a City Hall ceremony, and were then given a separate suite at the Regency in preparation, with X in a smaller but adjoining suite. A crib was put in Dill and Kate’s room. Dill liked rubbing her belly, then so did X,.
She ran an ad from an anonymous email address for a ‘part time friend ‘, a friend without sexual inclinations, for a youthful recovering male patient
Most of the respondents were women. She hoped to divert him, but X had to decide. It was his life, and he turned them all down. He still fancied Kate.
Then Jerry replied. He was clear of arrests and mental health issues. He’d had a horrible interaction between his genitals and a motorcycle handlebar, so X could relate to the unwillingness of it. And X accepted him “as a friend”, somebody who’d actually understand. Kate didn’t see this resolving sexual inclinations, but at least it could be a distraction.
Jerry was told who his ‘friend’ was, and was required to sign an NDA. He was a “support au pair”. Still physically recovering Jerry had a home of his own and a family, was paid a good hourly salary just for hanging around, and inadvertently became another America language and culture instructor for X
Dill and Kate stopped renting extra rooms, but continued to go out, and came home one night to ---X curled up asleep in the crib. They gently awoke him and sent him to his own quarter.
Kate explained it to Dill with the obvious. “He knows he won’t be the star anymore.”
X changed. He sulked. He felt left out. He stopped talking to them.
It was a boy, Baby Jim. X liked to hold him gently, the way Kate allowed and showed him, but Jerry observed him doing that one spring afternoon, a little too close to the 10th floor window that X had opened, Jerry raced to the window to prevent…..
X protested, “The air is so stale in here. Air conditioning!”
It was, a beautiful day in New York for winter, clear and sunny outside. ”Just not so close to a window with Jimmy.”
“Oh?...Oh, I see. No, don’t think that.”
“I won’t. Just, let Kate take care of him from now on.”
Of course Jerry had to tell Dill and Kate. She said, “He wouldn’t”
Dill pointed out, “Jealous children have been known to try. Jerry’s right. We have to keep him away from Jimmy.”
Then they awoke one morning to X sleeping on the floor beside their bed.
Later that day, Kate told him, “Our room is our room. You have to sleep in your suite.”
“Its lonely.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll try to think of something else.””
The bathroom was between suites, a share, and from the alcove, on another night, she saw X go in with a long pair of shears. She nudged Dill awake and said, “He’s in there with a huge scissors.”
They listened to the frantic snipping of the blades. Baby Jim was safely asleep in his crib.
When X came out, his hair was cut, his beard trimmed. and he went back to his suite.
Kate whispered, “He wants to look contemporary.”
“He already did.”
“ He’s competing with you.”
“He needs a girlfriend.”
“We can do callbacks on some of the applicants he’s already seen.”
”He didn’t want any of them.”
“Right. So he might want to see new ones.”
Larina was cleaning, running the vacuum. X was half in the refrigerator, and, upon discovering her, began unabashedly gawking.
She said lightly, “Never seen a girl before?”
“You’re the new cleaner. You’re pretty.”
“Well, thank you. Is it really that cold where you come from?”
“How did you guess?”
“I suppose because you had your head in the freezer.”
“I know there’s a word for it.”
“I wouldn’t insult you with weird, peculiar.”
“I am those, but I was thinking nostalgic.”
“That I get, just mine’s the opposite of yours. I hate cold weather, but I don’t put my butt in the oven. Except on really cold nights when the super doesn’t give us heat. But that’s survival, not nostalgia.”
“Why did you come to New York?”
“For work. Money.”
“You could find a man here.”
“We women have to fend for ourselves in these times, even without the big education of those who say we do. And besides…well..don’t be offended… but I’m not attracted to men.”
“To women?”
“Not them either. I mean, I’m attracted to nice people. Like you. Just not for sex. I have no inclination. … I bet you do.”
“I used to. Just not now. I mean, the impulse is there, but I can’t.”
“That must be difficult.
“Something that is and can’t be changed isn’t a problem. It just is.”
“A shrink?”
“A what?”
“A psychiatrist. Maybe it’s just your change in…the time zones.”
“No, it just is. I can express desire with physical closeness. That’s gratifying.”
“Did you dream during all those millennia asleep?”
“I don’t remember.”
“It’s like you went to sleep, no time passed, and you woke up?.”
“Exactly.”
“A rebirth.”
“No, just me in another time.”
“The same thing.”
“Nothing spiritual about it. It was planned.”
“Well. I am finished here. Four down, sixteen to go.”
“Don’t go yet.”
“I have other rooms to clean.”
“You’ll come here every day like the last one?.”
“My job. Did you flirt with her too?”
“No.”
“I’m special?’
“Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“I’ll be back. Stay “cool’, baby.”
“Baby? I’m not…”
“Oh my God! It’s slang meaning ‘my friend’. But in this land and time, you really kind of are.”
X wanted to go to a club with them. They forewent an evening together and brought him to Simply Jazz. They warned him what alcohol could do, but he knew. He’d experienced a strong brew from fermented seaweed, though as with everyone, a modern cocktail made him even a bit more uninhibited.
Kate approached the idea of more interviews, with different women this time.
X said, “Larina.”
“Larina?”
“I’m in love.”
“Is she?”
“I think so.”
“All we can do is ask her.”
The initial inquiry was in the building’s all purpose meeting room
Larina said, “I want you to understand I’m asexual.”
“Do you pay much attention to the news?”
“No.”
“Do you know who X is?”
“One interesting guy. But yeah, the Ice Man.”
“Don’t worry about the sexual issue. He’s…asexual…too.””
“ I’ve been praying for somebody like that.”
They had the next discussion with all four parties present in the parlor.
Kate told her “Larina, you’d be hired full time as a…a.. consort. Platonically.”
“My family are in New York. We’re Catholics. I don’t know if they’d go for it.”
X didn’t have that concept of ‘ being cool” Larina had suggested to him. He just said, “Let’s get married.”
That would solve the family matter for Larina., Of course he wasn’t a Catholic. Born B.C how could he be? Unless he’d convert? Whatever creed his people had embraced, there were no congregants left that anybody knew of. Raising children Catholic wasn’t going to be an issue.
Kate did advise “You might want to adopt kids some time, but you can cross that bridge when you get to it.”
“I went across the Washington Gorge Bridge, but what’s that have to do with…?”
Larina said, “Crossing a bridge is an expression too.”
“Why don’t people say what they mean? I want to cross a real bridge with you?”
“We can do it on our honeymoon You have to cross a bridge to get to my town.”
“Honey moon? What?”
“Jerry can explain it.”
When Dill and Kate were in their room that night he asked,
“What about you and…”
“Yes?”
“Me.”
“We’ll have a big family, that’s all.”
“Won’t Jim be confused?”
“Not if we’re not.”
X got to meet Larina’s family in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx, off 201st Street on Valentine Avenue. The caretaker disbursement people agreed the subway wasn’t a good idea, and provided a chauffeured limo and a security guy to guard it when it parked.
Her parents, two brothers and two sisters were present, very nice people who spoke English.
And religion WAS an issue. He father said,
“We’re Catholics.”
“With respect, sir, I don’t believe that. Our religion was before it.”
“Do you love my daughter?”
“Oh yes.”
“So you don’t have to believe it. Just profess that you do.”
X took instruction, and before his First Holy Communion, had his first Confession.
Usually there are penitents in slots on each side of the priest, but X was a solo. The priest, just a shadowy outline after he slid the panel open, waited. He seemed to creak or did his seat?
X said nothing.
The priest prompted, “You’ve been taught how to begin.”
“Bless me father for I have not sinned.”
“No, its ‘for I have sinned.”
“I haven’t.”
“Everybody does. It’s in the ten commandments. Let’s got through some. Ever lie?”
“No.”
“Steal?”
“ No.”
“Take the Lord’s name in vain?”
“No. But that first one. The false gods. My old religion.”
“You’re not accountable for that. You have to intend to sin for it to be a sin.”
“Then I know I never committed a sin. Do you mean just here or in my old life too?”
“Your old life doesn’t matter…or, well, what was it?”
“Not getting even was a sin. But I did. I got even and that’s a sin here.””
“Right, our teaching, but you didn’t intend to sin. I can only give absolution if you’ve sinned.”
“Your rules don’t always coincide with civil law.”
“Sometimes not.”
“And in Buddhism, you are punished for actions in previous lives.”
“You are not reincarnated and you have not resurrected. You were preserved.”
“This is true. Can I try for a sin even if I don’t feel its one.”?
“Please.”
”I coveted my neighbor’s wife.”
“Ahhh”
“I lusted for Kate and Larina.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. And you’re contrite.?”
“We-el.”
“You don’t feel sorry?”
“No.”
“But can you say you’re sorry for offending God?.”
“Okay, if God was offended, I’m sorry, God.”
“Good! Very good. For your penance, say one Hail Mary. Go in peace. Your sins are forgiven.”
The priest said a bunch of words more X didn’t understand, then left first, sighing with relief.
They had the biggest wedding ever in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. It was the news event of that day, that year. They took their honeymoon close to Larina’s home town and visited. They did have to park and walk across a plank bridge. For that part of the honeymoon, her parents and four siblings came back from New York. Locals were her aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews. Few of them spoke English and none spoke Ice. Her family weren’t poor. SUVs were parked on the other side of the foot bridge, and somehow somebody had brought materials across it and built a town house They were hospitable, ate, drank and sang, and he did understand by the frequency of several telling her, “No Jolo” and “Jolo Nada” that there would be no Jolo.
When the party was over and they were back in the rental car, she driving, he said, “You didn’t come from poverty.”
“No, I left memory.”
“You worked as a maid.”
“No resume.”
“They’re such nice people, your family.”
“Most are. Just not all.”
“What is Jolo?”
“Yes, ‘what’? An uncle. My father’s brother. He did to me what Z did to you, except of course I was a girl so he didn’t have to cut me up”
“How long did that go on?”
“From about 12 into my teens, until my father found out.”
“Then what happened?”
“My father wanted to kill him. I didn’t want that. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but for my father. Murder is illegal down here too. Rape’s not taken too seriously.”
“What did he do?”
“Oh, believe me, he made sure it wouldn’t happen again. And he banished him”
“I want to find this Jolo.”
“X, like I said, murder is against the law.”
“Just…confront him again.”
“He lives in a shack of corrugated tin. He’s a pariah, an outcast here. My family’s influence.”
“Where’s his house?”
“I’ll show you but I won’t go with you.”
X left her to shop at a supermarket from where he could walk to Jolo’s abode. He stopped at a convenience store and bought a clothesline rope and a long carving knife, put them in his backpack. He knew well what would keep Jolo from doing it to anybody else.
When Jolo answered the flimsy door, he said “No.”
Whatever it is, NO. It seemed he’d heard X and Larina were in the neighborhood.. X just pushed his way in. He was bigger and stronger, pushed Jolo down and tied him up. Then he pulled is trousers down
BUT:
Jolo said it for him. “You’re too late.”
It seemed her father had got there already. X raised the knife toward Jolo’s chest.
Suddenly Larina was beside him.
“Don’t!. He won’t suffer dead. We have a life to share. Leave him to this misery.”
“He might meet someone, like I did.”
“She’ll know if she’s from here. And if she’s not, she’ll sense what he is. Its on him like skunk spray”
“Someone lonely enough…”
“We have a saying here that translates: ‘Better alone than in bad company.’”
As they left Jolo, bound and weeping, he cried out, “Larina, please forgive me.”
“No. And no, I won’t untie you.”
She drove, He said, “This crazy stuff about forgiveness in your---our---religion is illogical. In Ice religion, revenge was a virtue, forgiveness was a sin. What I see of the modern world is that while everybody expresses forgiveness, in reality they’re Iceists, from personal relationships to countries disagreeing. At least my people owned that.”
Larina could only reply, “There’s some truth in what you say.”
When they came back, they were all to live at the Regency, .and Jim would call them Uncle X and Aunt Larina. Something they saw no need to confide to Kate and Dill was that Larina could have orgasms with X. He couldn’t physically, but he’d arrive with her psychically.
They continued living at the Regency for a long time Sure, the government was going to stop paying and examining X at some point, and they’d have to move on, but X already had income from TV interviews. He was a celebrity, he had a Hollywood film agent, and of course book offers. Larina was receiving scripts. Dill and Kate had resumes-to-die-for in their respective fields. Jerry had gotten the notoriety too, and job overtures in his former profession as an engineer. He accepted one in France.
It was all going to be fine. Not lived happily ever after, that never happens, but they’d be okay, at least until they got old and older like everybody else. It wasn’t a fairy tale, but it was as close to one as anybody could get.
X, if anything, was a survivor. If he just knew how----could pass it on---that technique that brought him to the future…..maybe… maybe they could even get the fairy tale.