The Last Christmas On Earth

EPISODE V-5

As soon as he had finished checking the cotton candy man, the last one in the line, he turned to go back and collided head-on with a man who was going in the opposite direction. The latter was focused on consulting the introducing brochure of the Festival and had not noticed James' arrival, so their heads had clashed against each other.

"Hey, look where you put your feet," James warned him, bending down to pick up his folder.

"Excuse me," the other replied automatically, picking up his brochure. Immediately afterward the two had simultaneously raised their heads as if obeying an inexplicable call and looked at each other curiously.

"... Andy? Is that really you?"

"James!" Andy said back and then hugged him vigorously.

"What the hell are you doing here, I thought you would travel around the world cooking spaghetti!" Said James, returning the embrace.

"After so many years of distance, I heard the call of the wild," Andy replied.

"Where are you coming from?"

"I've been traveling for years, I've lived in Rome for the last four years," Andy said, and James made a strange face.

"I've always told you, you were born under a lucky star" he considered.

"Yeah, I really got lucky this time," Andy agreed, frowning. A few days after the tragic event that had brought his adoptive city to its knees, he had still not been able to trace even one of the friends he had left there.

"So now you're doing well with Italian cuisine too?" James said.

"You should see: bucatini amatriciana style and Roman veal cutlet as if it were raining ..." replied his friend.

"Have you come back here to set up your own restaurant?"

"If I have to be honest with you, that idea had crossed my mind too, but then I received a very special job offer and I decided to try this new adventure."

"What is it about?"

Andy beckoned him and James leaned over curiously at him.

"Area Fifty-one," Andy whispered in his ear.

"Incredible, have you finally decided to take advantage of your degree?" James congratulated him, but Andy looked away and then looked back at him, visibly embarrassed.

"Actually I'm going to heat soups there too, but who knows what may come out of it ... after all, America is the land of great occasions, isn't it?" He said.

"Yeah," said James, scratching his chin.

"What is it, why do you look at me so strange?"

"Nothing..."

"Come on, I can see a mile away you want to tell me something."

"It is said that many mysterious secrets are kept within the Fifty-one Area."

"Even children know this ..."

"Well, lately there have been enough mysteries here too. These are such big headaches that perhaps not even those brains for which you are going to cook would be able to solve."

"What kind of mysteries are you talking about?"

"Maybe I'll tell you one of these evenings in front of a good beer," said James, pointing to Benelli that in the meantime had finished his tour and was quickly approaching; knowing how meddling and inappropriate he was, he preferred to change the subject.

"How long are you going to stay?"

"Unfortunately I have the plane in the afternoon, tomorrow will be the big day."

"It's a real pity," said James.

"Yeah ... but even if only for a few hours it seemed to me right to come back to pay tribute to this place, in the end, it was just walking on these boards eaten by the salt that I discovered I had a passion for cooking inside."

James nodded, but in reality, he hadn't even heard his answer, his attention had been drawn to Eve, who was standing in front of the First Aid station set up at the top of the main jetty. He was in Harry's company and was listening to Dr. Parker, intent on thickly confabulating with a very fair-haired boy James had never seen before.

"I'm done, what do we do?" Benelli asked as he reached James, then looked at the stranger waiting to be presented. James wanted to find out who was the guy chatting with Eve and the doctor, but he didn't want to take Benelli with him, there was the possibility that he would come up with some of his deleterious jokes, risking to generate further turmoil in his already hard-tested family life. He looked around for a task to assign to him to get him out of the way and spotted some rowdy children on the beach.

"Go and scold them, I wouldn't want them to get hurt by jumping up and down on those dry boats" he promptly dismissed him.

"But those kids spend every afternoon that way, why should they get hurt today?" Benelli replied, spreading his arms.

"Do you know that gentleman down there?" James asked him, pointing to the man on the stage who was about to deliver the opening speech of the Festival.

"And who doesn't know him, that's the Mayor!" Benelli answered.

"Exactly! So since you know who he is, and given that he pays us, we try to give him the impression that he spends the taxpayers' money in the right way. It's better for everyone ..." he ruled without allowing him the possibility of a reply.

"Now I have to be a babysitter too," Benelli muttered in a victimization attitude that made Andy smile; then he walked away, shuffling his feet.

"You don't like him at all, do you?" Andy commented amusedly.

"He's a real pain in the ass, I can't stand him," James explained to him, then he walked away.

"Come with me, here is my wife Eve."

"... is your wife called Eve?"

"Yes, my wife name's Eve, what's so strange about it?" Asked James stiffened, he feared that now Andy would come up with some Mc January-style stories.

"Nothing strange, just that during college we were all convinced that you would marry Helen one day. And if your wife's name is Eve then you didn't marry Helen," Andy replied, rub it in his regret.

"Excellent deduction, Watson. Helen is not my wife and she has never been, on the other hand, she commands me as if it were because she is my boss," said James in a voice veiled by subtle anxiety.

"Perfect, thanks to you I've just lost fifty dollars!" Andy said.

"Wait, what does it means "thanks to you I've just lost fifty dollars"?"

"At the base, I met Stewart."

"Stewart the nerd?"

"Just him ... now it's Lieutenant Stewart Harper."

"And what's he doing down there? I was convinced that he was holed up in some cellar to coordinate a handful of geniuses who try to "crack" the Government's computer system," said James.

"And yet it seems he has passed to the enemy ... and you should see how he has changed. Now he is thin and muscular, he stopped stuttering and even took off his glasses ... I told you he is another person now! But he didn't want to tell me exactly what he is doing ..."

"Yes, but I still don't get what he has to do with your money," said James.

"When I met him we talked about the good old days and obviously also about you. I argued that surely Helen is now Mrs. Robinson, Stewart insisted instead that you'd never had the courage to propose. In the end, when I told him that I would jump around here, we bet fifty dollars on you."

"... to propose what?" James asked, almost touchy, Andy had just hit his weakest point.

"Come on, you could see a mile away that you were the two sides of the same coin," Andy raged, slapping him on the back. His words brought back to James's mind a lot of nice situations that made him regret growing up. Meanwhile, talking and walking, they had reached Eve and the others who, seeing them coming, had severed their conversation. The stranger was very tall and very well placed and the very fine perforated shirt he wore gave a glimpse of a sculpted body, a solid and voluminous musculature. His straight blond hair was combed back and his eyes were very light blue.

"Eve, I present my college classmate, his name is Andy," James began, pretending he hadn't noticed their embarrassment.

"Andy, this is my son Harry."

"Nice to meet you ... how's it going?" Andy greeted them.

"We grew up together until he decided to go around the world doing the cook, and in the meantime he also found time to take a degree in Nuclear Physics," said James; then he introduced Andy to the doctor too, after which he stopped waiting for them to do the same with the stranger.

"Ah, foolish me. Cain was a student of mine when I was teaching at the university," Parker said cursing himself for not having prepared a more realistic lie before.

"I expected that at the Festival there would have been a lot more people," the big boy said to divert the conversation.

"To be honest, me too," said James, extending his hand, "but we're only at the beginning. What do you do?"

"I am an instructor of some courses in a remote school in the Rocky Mountains. Free climbing, rafting, survival and so on" he lied without returning the handshake.

"Damn it, that's not a bad job," Andy said.

"Actually, it's a little more challenging than skipping macaroni in the pan," the blond remarked in an unfriendly tone, he was visibly annoyed by the way Andy was continuing to scrutinize him.

"Yeah," Andy replied without picking up the provocation, but inside his veins, he had felt a fire that flared like lava from a volcano ready to erupt.

"In my opinion, you are both lucky enough to do a job that you are passionate about and in the end what really matters is just that," Parker hastened to comment to ease the tension, by glancing at Cain; at such a delicate time he preferred to stay away from problems. "Now please excuse us, the doctors of the first shift have arrived and I have to explain to them some things so that they can open the First Aid stand. It was a real pleasure," he concluded, turning to Andy and then slipping into the mobile clinic followed by the blonde.

"I accompany Harry to the Scout Camp and come home, will you come for lunch?"

"I don't think I'll make it, anyway I'll let you know," said James. "See you later, professor, behave yourself!" He finally said to Harry, who had been absorbed all the time in staring at the sea. Once again the image of him removing the spider's laughing appeared before his eyes and shuddered.

"Goodbye," Andy greeted them, then joined James, who had moved to one of the reception banquets. He took two orange juices and offered one to his friend.

"At good old days," he offered, raising his glass in a toast.

"At good old days," Andy replied.

"What have you done to that guy? If he could, he would have killed you with his eyes," said James, throwing the empty glass into the garbage basket.

"And who knows?" Andy replied, shrugging as he lit a cigarette, but he had begun to brood over that blonde guy because he was convinced that he had already seen him somewhere.

"Sometimes people are really weird," said James, starting to move again. Andy instead didn't move because he knew the revelation would have come in a moment.

"Come back among us," the other called to him, having already walked about ten meters.

"He's a liar," Andy said, snapping his fingers.

"What are you talking about?"

"That man, it's not true that he works in the Rocky Mountains. When I went to Nellis base for the selections he was there too, he was with a woman who was supposed to be his twin."

"What are you talking about?"

"I tell you, I'm sure, those two didn't go unnoticed next to each other!"

"Maybe you are wrong."

"I do not think so."

"How can you be so sure?" James then asked, more and more curious. Andy looked at him undecided because he was afraid his friend wouldn't believe him.

"Come on, speak," James encouraged him.

"I don't know," Andy said.

"Come on, I promise you I'll take it with the benefit of inventory."