Looking Backward from the Tricentennial

Chapter Twenty-Five (part 1)

Delroy's apartment in the Pennypack Retirement Community was a simple one-bedroom on the eleventh floor. "It's not much, but it's home," he said as Julian looked around the open area that doubled as a living room and dining room. The kitchen contained a humble stack of dirty dishes, but overall, the space looked well kept.

Pictures on the wall showed Delroy and Minnie over the decades, often with their daughter Alba. Julian smiled at an image from their wedding. "I remember this," he said, tapping at the frame. His finger struck the wall beneath, startling him. All the pictures were holograms.

"We were happily married for forty-seven years," the octogenarian said. "That's a pretty good percent out of fifty-four." The friends settled down on opposite ends of a couch that had seen a significant portion of those years, and Delroy's face became serious. "Julian, if I tell you what happened back then, will it change that?"

"You know more about this than me," Julian replied. "For real, I'm still not sold you're telling the truth. I wrote you from inside all those years ago. You could have copied my handwriting. But I can't figure why you would or how you'd know Idabee." He hesitated. "Plus, there are other things that don't square."

"We were happily married for forty-seven years," Delroy said again. "If it wasn't for you, it probably would have been three. Remember our old place on Sparks Street? You showed up at my door; I was half in the bag, fighting with Minnie, and you calmed me down. We sat on my front porch, and you explained I was the man to help with a long-term project, but I was going to have to get sober to do it."

"What, delivering envelopes?" Julian scoffed. "You don't have to be sober for that."

"You really don't know?" Delroy said quietly. "You also wanted me to give up food for twenty-four hours. Not just food! But also"—he punctuated the phrase with air quotes—"'recreational intoxicants.'" He waggled a finger at the young man. "I was still buzzed enough that it sounded plausible."

Julian grinned. "The fast for peace. Idabee's the one who told me about it." His expression fell slack as he remembered how things now stood between them. "When was that?"

"Bastille Day," Delroy answered cryptically.

"What?"

Delroy cackled, a series of short coughs dripping with amusement. "Right? Why would we know anything about a French holiday? But when I pushed you on what this mysterious project was, you said that it was Bastille Day and asked if I knew the significance."

"Did you?" Julian asked. Delroy cackled again. "What is it?"

"It's July 14, when the people of Paris rose up and stormed the Bastille, a prison fortress, to free the unjustly incarcerated. You said it was time to free the unjustly incarcerated here."

"Long past time," Julian said. A fist bump emphasized agreement. "So we fasted together."

"Minnie too; she'd been listening from the front room. Cooked us a fine meal to break it the next night, and after, the three of us talked for hours. You described how the American Union of swing voters would work—how it could change everything."

"The American Union?" Julian rubbed his temples, trying to make sense of it. Edith claimed to have put him in cryonic suspension before it was founded, but Ray had said there was nothing seriously wrong with him. Had he left the hospital after the reparations rally, only to have Edith freeze him at a later point? A discrepancy in the records would explain Ray's recalcitrance and the tension between him and his mother. But what had happened to his memories?

"You asked me to be the treasurer for the political action committee," Delroy continued, "but it meant leading by example and living a sober life. When I offered you a beer, you laid that Annie Grace quote on me: 'Alcohol is the only drug you have to justify not taking.' Finally, you persuaded me to give it a shot, and Minnie backed me up. We poured out all our booze that night and flushed the rest. Then you gave me twenty-five thousand in cash, asked me to find a lawyer who knew election law, and get the PAC set up."