Dreams, Nightmares and a phone gone silent.

57.

What a strange television telecast! It was in English yet it played on the major Spanish Language Networks with subtitles. CNN and the major networks refused the feed? National Public Radio accepted the audio and played it live on al of its stations. Those kids at C.W. Post had a strange sense of humor. Or did they?

Lydia found herself mesmerized by it when it came over the radio in her kitchen. Some shock jock had started to air it. The Women’s Radio Network soon followed his lead. More than four dozen Christian Radio outlets jumped on the bandwagon as well. They saw an apocalypse forming no doubt. CBN would rebroadcast the interview at midnight and then repeat it on the hour until noon.

Bless you Reggie! And fuck you Reggie! Don’t you know they already want to kill you? Do you want them to try harder? Can you bear it if they take too long to do it?

Gianell watched the broadcast and found the subtitles a bit misleading in spots. They were correct in their essentials. Of course, the Feds and Ivans watching it with her were busy cursing the guy up and down. She adopted a stiff posture inside and out. No apparent reaction at all coming from her! Still Reggie was a reflection of her own image in the past few days?  Outlines of things insane were all over the place and quite familiar on many levels.

Ted has sent the world a meaningful valentine. Crissy capped her career off with a stunning and intense exercise in sensationalism. His bosses were looking for him. Her bosses were delighted with her talent yet clamoring to have her back yesterday if not sooner. Alas, they were nowhere to be found. Not that they had initially strayed at all far from Brookville. Knowing that death or prison awaited him and possibly her as well forced Ted to finish up his gambit.

It fell to the Russian Government to grant the couple asylum in their diplomatic compound near Glen Cove. This was dozen without fan fare. Ted and Crissy went into a fast food place near the Greenvale Train Station, A quiet supper alone resulted in their absenting themselves from the scene. The more naïve and gullible among the assembled troops. Feds and cops wondered about foul play. What could have happened to them? Sage veterans summoned up their blind eyes and their deaf ears.

And, few if any would bother to look for them on the Oyster Bay Line train heading for Sea Cliff? This despite the fact they were the only passengers boarding the train for passage in that direction from Greenvale at this late evening hour! A young Russian wearing an Alpha Z Delta flag football jersey picked them up at the next station, The radio blared Jen Lupo, A yellow Dodge Viper was scarcely the vehicle of choice for spying. It therefore served their needs quite well.

At 0330 hours, Ted and Crissy got their first ever look at the confines of Russian nuclear submarine. Low profile and no profile was assured when the boat submerged. Ted was impressed. Crissy was too.

58..

Chapel Square was still populated by the homeless, hapless and those up to no good at 3:45 a.m.. New Englanders did so relish these commons. Their character underwent radical transformations in modern times? The Puritan Fathers might or might not have objected. At least nobody should be all that likely to recognize Reggie there? Who had a television? Who remembered how to focus on a discourse in any language?

Marian heard what she deemed to be a fateful interview over the radio twice. Fox, CNN and the older networks still ignored it. Much of the rest of the media did not. Celebrity? Notoriety? If Reggie had decided to be a willing martyr, then this all had profound meaning. He did. He cared. She wondered? Was it just hatred of Ivans?

The feeling was mutual. Surely, they would catch up to him. She knew her station in life had been reduced to a seat squarely in the middle of  a potentially awful crossfire. He told her he knew someone at Yale. He asked her to wait. Forty minutes passed. Not an idyllic setting here.

After another half an hour, a Physician’s Assistant with reddish blonde hair and green eyes came up to her, stuck a joint in her mouth and lit it. She was taken a back. Felt like Peyote. Ivy League Tastes? They walked together to a waiting ambulance. The crew drove her out of town to a condo situated on the fringes of Meriden. It was almost dawn. The PA arrived in her Peugeot and came in to throw a blanket over her. She had been put down for a much  needed rest in a friendly feeling family room.

Another ambulance sped toward Uncasville. Inside a now infamous and in some quarters celebrated accountant lay in cardiac inspired shock. Too many highs in too short a time led to a massive mess inside of him? Nobody wanted to give him a hot shot. They let him writhe for a bit. ACLS was not indicated? Politically inspired treatment protocols again? Maybe not. The crew chief swore up and down that Reggie had a DNR order on file with lawyers back in New Haven.

So call it ambulance assisted suicide? The guy lost it all just before he went under? Or did he somehow choose this way out.? No CPR this time around. Marian was safe. His death would keep it that way. His last conscious thought was of Lydia. He kept it to himself and carried it to his unrequited love with him into the next world. A little girl beckoned to him and light shone behind her marking the way.

59.

Nobody stood guard outside the store. There were few if any Frente 26 Julio patrols running through the area on this third day of the New York City wars. Where had the gangsters and gangstas gone? Would there be Ivans coming after her?

You watched the news on the tube. You listened to the news too on the radio. Spanish people knew there was a problem. English speakers had less of a chance of doing so. The right wing crackpots or designated religious  leaders on the air waves secured you your access to the full horrible story.

Denise watched and listened in both languages at once. Babel. Hell. Both. Her fault? Reggie’s lament was far too clear. The demonic majesty of it all hit home ripping at her deeply and forcefully. One call to the wrong place set in motion forces capable of destroying her entire world. They were hard at it too.

It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The History Teacher and a whole host of others had paid the price for her following through on a seemingly decent hobby. A barely teenaged girl did her duty. Hopes, dreams and ideals wound up scrambled like so many broken eggs in the transmission process!

Denise hated this nightmare. No way to know if she would live or die in the next few weeks? But there was hardly anyone left to call! So she couldn’t very well wreck the entire Cosmos once again.