ICE MAN
by Patrick Breheny pjbreheny@hotmail.com
“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 described as beautiful, 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. Z said X was pretty, and bemoaned that he 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 little 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 book 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.
As he learned to read English he became voracious, with a special interest in philosophy and religion. He was becoming a scholar, yet without the experience of common ‘street smarts’. 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.
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 eunuch.”
“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 wouldn’t talk to them. They coaxed, they brought him gifts, and they knew he was responsive, but he kept pouting. They tried joking with him about it, said “We love you,” but his shoulder stayed cold.
It was a boy, Baby Jim, X liked him, and was allowed to hold him gently, the way Kate showed. But Jerry observed him doing that one spring afternoon, a little too close to the 10th floor window X had just opened, Jerry raced to the window to prevent…..
X protested, “The air is so stale in here. Air conditioning! It’s beautiful out.”
It was that, a beautiful June day in New York,, clear and sunny. ”Just not so close to a window with Jimmy.”
“Oh?...Oh, I see. No, don’t think that.”
“I won’t but...just, let Kate take care of him.”
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! Its 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 a romantic 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. And 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 Jimmy 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. Her 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. Larina too.”
“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.
About first communion, they gave him a choice: With the first graders, boys in white knee length shorts and white jackets, the girls in white dresses. Or he could do it arranged especially for him. If he preferred, it could be anonymously at any Mass--- Sunday, weekday, Saturday evening.
He really thought the Nuptial Mass event they were planning was enough notoriety, and opted for being unnoticed with the communion. He arrived at a neighborhood church on a Tuesday A.M. with a disguise of cap and sunglasses. He had to take the cap off inside, and remove the shades to see..(He knew now what “shades” were, as opposed to the word for window coverings.).
So he received communion incognito, and when he left the church, going back into a beautiful sunny morning, he was one with God. He felt it. He believed it. They’d converted him. and never felt…hornier. Was Satan doing that, tempting him? No it was the women leaving church who were, and they weren’t Satan. God sent them to the world. Quite perplexing, he thought, in the manner of his new favorite TV character Spock, that he watched in reruns of the original series, and the Star Trek movies.
Of course he wasn’t equipped to DO IT with them, but he wanted to touch them, kiss them, hold them, something them. He was so alive he wanted to….sin? No, what he felt wasn’t from the devil, it was God working through him. “What is the meaning of exact change, Jim?” He hadn’t got the joke from that movie until he actually rode on a city bus and encounter the fare machine. He was with Larina, on a ”field trip” arranged by Kate for a cultural experience.
There were a lot of boisterous teenagers on the bus, and Larina spoke to them in Spanish, after which they couldn’t stop looking at him incredulously. A large white woman who hadn’t objected to their noise then chided them to stop staring. But X defended, saying “I do that too. They’re just like me.”
They had the biggest wedding ever in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Mass celebrated by the cardinal. It was the news event of that day, that year. They were enabled to slip away after, took their honeymoon close to Larina’s home 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, but at least at a five star.”
“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 mid 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 here too. Rape is sometimes 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 or desperate 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 because he’d had trouble getting the hang of that. 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 would all 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 as anybody could get.
And X, if anything, was a survivor. If he just knew, could pass on by examination of his chemistry and the traces of that ages ago treatment that brought him to the future…..maybe… maybe they could even get the fairy tale.
ICE MAN 2
They were told they couldn’t get the fairy tale, and X asked,” What are they?”
They were still living at the Regency Hotel on Park Ave . X was the thawed
castrated Ice Man from millennia ago, still government funded for observation,
living with his bride Larina, former Regency housekeeper, and they were in
the living room section of the giant joint suite that housed their also newly wed
guardians Kate and Dill, and baby Jim.
Larina explained, “It’s old classic children’s literature that always ends, ‘And they lived happily ever after’, because most children have no concept of ending.”
“Well, no, we can’t get immortality, but I can go back.”
“Back?”
“Back to Ice.”
“You CAN? You wouldn’t do that. What about us?”
“Together. I’d need you with me to do it.”
“How?”
“Cryogenics.”
“Whoa! I’m alive. That’s for dead people. Maybe you can take being frozen again,
but I’d die.”
“Not with me. And I can only do it with a conjoined mate.”
“We can’t …conjoin.”
“Lips together, holding hands, wrapped around each other the way you like to
sleep.”
“Never hear you complain. What would I do on Ice?”
“What I did here. Learn about it.”
“I’d really miss all of this. You know, kind of used to it.”
“We can go and come back.”
“Like tourists?’
“Sort of. You’ll miss here. I miss Ice.”
“Despite your horrible experiences.”
“I had friends. There were---are---good people there. My cousin Y is one of them.
He preaches forgiveness with what you call justice. It’s endured. I want him to
know that, validate the effect of his ideas on modern society, explain how they’ve
endured.”
“That’s all.”
“And I want to see him again.”
They told Kate and Dill, and Kate informed Cardinal Corcoran, who had married
Larina and X in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Jim Corcoran was originally a Bronx boy
who played stickball and Johnny-on-the pony, and had risen in the Church from
priest to monsignor, to bishop, to cardinal. But it was not until hearing Kate’s
message that he thought knew his vocation. He requested Larina’ s presence for
an audience.
She was greeted informally in the study, a dim shadowy room of soft armchairs,
an old rolltop desk, and bookcases prominently displaying religious titles. Almost
jarring by contrast was a steel table with a computer and printer. A housemaid
brought glasses of water and cups of tea with ceramic side pitchers of sugar and
cream.
“It’s seven evening, but if you’d prefer coffee.”
“No, too late. Tea is fine.”
“Tea it is then. So, Mrs. Marcus tells me your husband is adjusting well. To his new
world.”
“Mrs…..? Oh. Kate. Yes, X is adjusting. Remarkably.”
“But homesick, I hear.”
“He left all he knew behind. He wants to visit.”
“Couldn’t his return be dangerous. Considering they got rid of him in leu of
execution.”
“He thinks he can navigate that.”
“And return again to our time?”
“I’d certainly hope so.”
“He…and you…have a grave responsibility when you go to Ice.”
“I don’t know yet that I will.”
“But you must. Its your purpose, your destiny to go there so he can spread the
faith.”
“So he can…?”
“You can too, but of course would people of his time listen to a woman? History
indicates not, though there have been exceptions. Joan of Arc for one. Do you feel
her fire?”
“Fire is how they killed her. I’m on the chilly side of lukewarm about the
cryogenics. Just the thought of that makes me shiver. And your Excellency, he
doesn’t believe in Christianity. He only professes, practices it for me.”
“Then he professes it and preaches there, even if only for you.”
“Preach a religion that didn’t exist yet? In a time before the Bible. Before Judaism.
Before the Old Testament prophesies.”
“X will pre-prophesize. Tell them in advance the prophecies are coming. Give the
quotes. Then, when it happens, how can they doubt? And you’ll be saving souls in
Ice.”
“Otherwise they’re damned for not knowing?”
“They will know and be saved. Speak to X and have him call my secretary. I need
his bond if he wants this trip arranged. And he’ll have to study the Bible first.”
Kate said the cardinal had the influence to prevent the trip. Larina warned X
he intended a big errand for him, but X went in and met Cardinal Jim----as he
insisted on just being called by male visitors--- in the same private den. That
name distinction wasn’t discriminatory, he insisted. He didn’t want temptation
from being casual with women.
“So, you’re nostalgic. Your wife has told you of a mission but I know you have
reservations.”
“No, I accept I have a calling.”
“I’m not sure I’m relieved you so easily acquiesce. You could go and ignore my
instruction.”
“I want to see my cousin Y.”
There was still some of that early street kid in the cardinal, and without
consciously intending to show condescension to what he couldn’t help thinking,
after all, was a mutilated eunuch refugee from a prehistoric society of barbarians,
he knew he was smirking.
“And why might that be?”
“He’s my cousin, and I want to talk to him”
Pointing, trying to neutralize his expression, he knew he still seemed
ridiculing.
“That’s the reason you’re going to Ice? To see your cousin?”
“Yes.”
“Well, since its up to me if you can go, please indulge me. What you will you
say to him?”
“Are there any recording devices in this room?”
“None.”
“Doors can hide ears.”
“So, Just whisper it in my ear then, lad”
The ‘lad’, as he looked in comparison, even if millennia older, crossed to the
cardinal’s armchair, leaned down and whispered in the old man’s ear.
It was not a short message. Even with his strong athletic body, X’s back
began to ache from bending over. Cardinal Jim tensed. His face contorted. When
X finally finished, he paled. He broke into a cold sweat, fell in a swoon
and slumped back in his chair.
X summoned the housekeeper, and she knew what to do. Lift his head,
reassure, help him drink from the glass of water. Regaining senses, realizing X
was still there, he said,
“Out of my sight. Go.”
“GO?”
“ Study the catechism and read the Bible.”
“But go?”
“Go.”
Cryogenics and the Church are not pals, but the archdiocese raised no objection
to this pair of live freezings. Larina asked X if, by any chance, they could get back
to Ice before Z cut him, but they could only go back to the Freezing Place after
the first dispatch occurred. The Cryogenics Center filmed the event, kept
classified the information that the pair did indeed vanish, and maintained the
pod to which they hoped they’d eventually go back.
Upon landing in Ice, they were not longer frozen.
Larina said, “I feel like I’m dreaming.”
“How do you think I felt? Right now, its like all of it was a strange dream I just
woke up from. I might believe that, except you’re here to confirm it happened.”
“Where in your world are we?”
“Near my home.”
“I’m glad we thought of Arctic clothes.”
“But this modern gear makes us look like space travelers.”
“Well, close, huh? Time travelers. What do we do? Where do we go?”
“We don’t want my father to know I’m here.”
“Won’t be easy to spread Christianity hiding.”
“That’s why we have to find Y.”
“If your father catches you?”
“He’ll do what he wants. Refreeze or execute.”
”And me?”
“We don’t get caught. You want to do some sightseeing, don’t you?”
“Sure, that’s what I’m here for.”
“Everything will be tourism. But first we need to get local clothes. ”
Back in that New York place, X had died his hair black, re-grown his beard and
made that black too. He wouldn’t be the visual outcast he’d been before. Y would
provide them with contemporary garments.
“You made some kind of promise to Cardinal Corcoran?”
“Propagation of the faith. And I’m a true convert to your religion now”
“You’ll get Y to preach for you?”
“ Y is preaching his own belief of forgiveness.”
“Does that contradict Jesus.?”
“Y’s forgiveness is the Ice kind. You find he who wronged you, forgive him, but
teach him forgiveness.”
“That sounds Christian.”
“Hardly. You teach him by doing to him as he did to you, having him pray for
you and ask your forgiveness.”
“Now that’s contradicting the Christ. Do unto others as they do unto you.”
“In Ice, the very idea of forgiving is radical. Only revenge is a virtue. But I lived in
your world. What Y taught remains. You call it justice.”
“Accountability”
“Revenge.”
“In the world we just left, what’s the point of influencing anything? Everything
that happened happened. ”
“But Y is still here, alive. Your Einstein was…is…right.”
“Einstein’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“No one’s seen him lately.”
“Now he hasn’t even been born yet. Neither have you. He exists in other planes.”
“ You think you can convert Y to Christianity?”
X displayed their copy of the Bible that survived the journey.
“I don’t know. Maybe modify his ideas.”
“That you say somewhat endured anyway.”
“ Not as scripture.”
“He won’t be able to read a Bible in English.”
“I’ll interpret.”
“Cardinal Corcoran wants you to do this?”
“He just didn’t tell me how to do it.”
“How will you change Y’s preaching?”
“Not by confronting. And we need him now. You’ll find he’s a good man.”
“And later? Subtly?”
“First things first.”
She could see people didn’t spend a lot of unnecessary time outdoors. The few
they encountered looked like animals, covered in fur, including on their faces.
Over their eyes were transparent oval shapes that look like, but couldn’t be
plastic.
X explained, “They’re shells, kept warm with coals. They carry the coals and more
shells in a pouch. So their eyes don’t freeze.”
People, on foot or horseback, or in dog or horse-pulled sleds and wagons, moved
quickly, seeming too cold to mind others (them) who’d found alternate covering.
Ice itself was beautiful. Walking paths looked to be dug every day, lined with
high shoulders of shoveled snow and ice. There were small dome ice
structures, igloos. “For non-royals,” X said. There were rectangular buildings,
also of ice, the size of three story apartment buildings, windowless but with
chimneys, and many palaces of ice rose majestically like cathedrals.
X informed her, “We have fire for warmth and cooking. That causes melting, but
with the speed everything freezes again, the fires don’t do lasting damage. We’re
mostly carnivores, hunters, but eat herbs and leaves and nuts, Besides dogs and
horses, we keep cows for cheese and milk, and chickens for eggs. All the animals
are housed indoors or they’d die, the cattle are fed from human foraging. That’s
what those rectangular buildings are for, people upstairs, separated animals
below. The castles are for royals. The very poor live in the igloos with the
animals, but make partitions. Y has two igloos, the extra one for animals. Two
igloos is an upper lower class convention of status.”
“But he’s your cousin. Royalty.”
“His choice, to not live with more than he needs. Of the people.”
When they got to Y’s igloo, there were bear and deer carcasses outside. X told
her, “That means he just came home from hunting.”
X called out in his language. The building had a wooden door so covered with Ice it looked to be of ice, except that it opened on timber hinges. Y and X shouted greetings to each other. X took her arm and they went in. It wasn’t so cold inside. The edifice broke the wind, there was a fire. The two men continued shouting, bumped chests, then X made an arm reference to Larina. Y approached her and rubbed his nose across her forehead. The act was warm and consoling. Then a woman appeared. X brushed his nose across her forehead, made that introductory arm gesture again toward Larina, and told her, “This is El, his wife.” El approached Larina and did the same nose-forehead greeting.
“What do I do?”
“As she did.. She’s the host so she went first.”
Larina complied. “This is so strange. What did you tell them about me?”
“That you are royalty too. La Reina. The Queen. That’s what they’ll call you in Ice.”
“The QUEEN?”
“Here. My queen.”
“But your father is the king.”
“On Ice, every man is king.
“Oh. Well…”
Maybe in confirmation of that, she realized there seemed to be a dozen pre-teens running around. El wasn’t old enough to have had all of them, and on closer examination the count was seven. They just moved so much she’d thought a dozen.
They sat at a low table, and she had her first meal of bear meet, a bit chewy at first, but flavored with herbs, twigs, nuts, butter and cheese, served on flat wooden plates. Utensils were fingers, and they drank warmed milk from wooden mugs. There were no whole vegetables, and she thought of vitamin deficiencies. In these hardy people? A very modern consideration.
There was a homemade alcoholic brew made from seaweed, and they imbibed, if not exactly enjoyed, it. A bit bitter, but it made the men talkative. X presented Y with his holy book from the future, opened it to the beginning, and began to interpret. She fell asleep on her fur cushion long before X was even into the first quarter of the lesson.
The floor was also fur, and she’d found the sleeping arrangement. You slept where you were, under a fur wrap. Your former dinner cushion was also your pillow. Under such living arrangements, it was not likely the children needed sex education There was a slit in the ceiling that let smoke out, and the fire was left burning.
When she awoke, she guessed there hadn’t been any conjugal activity unless she slept through it, and X was beside her.
He said, “El is foraging with the children, and Y is giving a preach before he goes to work with his fellow hunters.”
“Do you think you convinced him?”
“I know I aroused his curiosity.”
But Y had had instant conversion. He asked Z to baptize him. He wanted to preach this new word, these gospels of the future, except…
X told her. “His problem is, by teaching forgiveness through God, he’ll contradict his previous teaching of human forgiveness with retaliation. That itself was a blasphemous idea for people who believe revenge is a virtue”
Y could no longer believe his old truth. He was a Christian, but there was no Christ yet. They couldn’t comprehend a God, much less God as man, who could forgive, and people could only try. God was sun, an impersonal life giver. Asking forgiveness from the sun was laughable.
One evening soon after, Y returned tired. Tired from the hunt, and demoralized by the reception to his new message.
He told X, “They aren’t ready. And It negates what I already taught. I lose credibility. There was today something I never encountered before---ridicule.”
“You have to persist.”
“I’ll lose them completely. From the book you’ve shown me, I believe I can convince them with martyrdom. But I have no enemies.”
“The ridiculers?”
“A few who entertain themselves by not taking me seriously. Not with the incentive to martyr me, and smart enough to know doing such would give legitimacy. But X, you.”
“Me? Me, what?”
“Can you martyr me, then leave again?”
“I can’t kill you. My cousin. You have done nothing to be killed for. And killing is against the commandments, a sin.”
Even if staged as a murder, suicide was not to be considered. In Ice, that was the ultimate disgrace. In the new religion, it was the unforgivable sin, because it was too late then for repentance.
Y chose freezing, having his previously never used attendants arrange it, on the basis he had finished his preaching here, and was going into the future to spread the message. That would save his legacy, and he believed in the stated possibility of a continuation later in time. It wasn’t physically possible to go with X and Larina to their New York pod. There was no way to know when, where, or if he would ever be found and thawed. He requested, and X gave him, the Bible to take wherever he’d end up, in a maybe more opportune place. Y also took El and their children with him. Who knew what those children might accomplish somewhere else?
There was no grieving allowed, no sad goodbyes to express, because Y said this was God’s will. He left final instructions for his attendants for when he was gone. They were to prepare X and Larina for freezing and transport, in their embrace, at the exact spot they arrived, and from where X had been first dispatched.
The attendants fulfilled their last obligation to Y.
Facing the long coma, X and Larina needed a little levity with each other.
She said, “It may not seem later like much time has passed, but we’ll be down a long time. I hope I have some dreams.”
“I didn’t have, that I remember. But while we’re lying waiting for the new world again, a lot of things will happen. Long before our arrival, Y could come as John the Baptist”
“Oh, you’re blending religions. That’s Buddhist talk.”
“No, he can’t reincarnate. He hasn’t died. More like Einstein talk.
“Time and space. But Einstein was Jewish.”
“Irrelevant to his ideas. He was a scientist, a scholar.”
“That Old Testament is pretty historical.”
“He wasn’t religious, but his theory encourages the possibility of
alternate realities. And so, if such exist, of immortality.”
“But you can only know the one you’re in.”
They awoke. They still thought independently but their consciousnesses were conjoined. A uniformed guide led them to an elevator, then out of the Cryogenics facility to the street. The sky was blue, the day clear and sunny, the city displaying the usually hidden vibrant colors and pastel hues it reveals of itself on such a day. Dill and Kate were waiting. Cardinal Corcoran was smiling beside a rabbi, a monk, a mullah and a minister, like they were principals in a joke they’d tell about themselves. The mayor was there. They could see Saint Patrick’s, and all the grand skyscrapers that are midtown. On a giant screen set against the side of a corporate office building, by video link they saw President East. The mayor said, “Today, City Hall, tomorrow the White House.” The police were gently restraining young autograph seekers. A blizzard of confetti, to imitate ticker tape, was falling from the office windows. The celebration had the passion of old black and white film footage Kate had seen of New York at the end of World War Two.
And oh, they had so much to tell everybody, and to ask. Had Y been found? If not, would they look for him, and for El and their family?
But the structure that they just came from, that housed the pod, wasn’t there. Then neither was the street. Everything had turned black and white like in the old newsreel she remembered. They were beside a big rock in a weedy lot. Early New York buildings remained, old and damaged, much smaller than the skyscrapers they just saw, no longer repaired nor maintained, and those were dissolving. There were no people. New York was a ghost town, then it disappeared. New York never was. Kate and Dill didn’t exist. St Patrick’s wasn’t there, so no Cardinal Corcoran. Y and Ice were very distant. Were they anywhere? Were they ever?
They were vanishing in front of each other. Maybe they existed somewhere. Maybe in a lot of somewheres. Not here. Not now. She thought what they had just seen, first modern New York, then early New York, auld acquaintances brought to mind, must have been ethereal memories or hallucinations.
Here and now, where they were…where they weren’t….there was…wasn’…was…n’t…an…y…thi…ng…