CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The six, now eight, plus a small dog, were aware something had happened. But what? For one thing it was no longer cold and damp and they seemed to be seated on a warm wooden floor. Light filtered in through a large window.
García rose and peered out onto the street. Parking meters, a street light, deserted store fronts. “It must be the middle of the night,” he announced, and then his eyes grew used to the dim light. “We’re in a Starbucks. We’re back in Chapel Hill! We made it!”
He pulled Jose from the floor, and the two hugged and improvised a jig. “But we’re locked in and there could be trouble if anyone finds us here. We have a few illegals with us.” He had been speaking in English and the others, still on the floor, had been muttering among themselves in hushed tones. They were obviously dazed by the transformation.
García told Jesus to check the major and Percy for weapons and then untie them. Both carried daggers in their boots, and García handled them with some pleasure. Any artifacts brought back would be more than welcome.
He got all but Jose, now restored to Mary McKay, seated against the wall. Pulling up a chair he addressed them first in Spanish, then English. He told them they were time travelers and had moved from 1588 to the year 2005. He said that would explain his accent and his belly gun, also his fore knowledge of what would befall the Armada.
There was a babble of doubtful English and Spanish when he had finished.
“I’m just giving you the facts,” he reiterated. “You will see for yourself in the days ahead. But we must be careful. You are in the United States of America, and as such you are illegal aliens. You have no passports and no papers. So for the next few days you must remain undercover.”
“What would happen to us if we were captured?” Percy asked.
“Well, normally, the government would jail you and then probably deport you. But to where? The date is also 2005 in Europe. You have no friends there.”
“But we have money in Spain,” Jesus said. The old soldier was the first to take García’s words at face value and he was thinking ahead.
“That was 400 years ago.”
“But it’s still there. I hid it, carefully. I doubt if it has been found.”
“Possibly we could go to Spain at some future date and seek out that money,” Mary McKay tossed in. “Is it gold?”
“Of course. And some silver.”
Mary kept the floor and told the group that all three cadets were women.
“Oh, God!” Percy whined. “You mean I went to all that trouble over a women? They are the root of all evil.”
“Percy, you fag,” Courtney said. “We’re in a big mess and all you care about is your stupid degenerate life style. Something sinister has happened, but I don’t understand it.”
“Take my word for it. It’s true,” García said wearily. “Now we must figure out how to get out of here. We’re not far from my apartment.”
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Mary said. “My God it’ll be good to have a flush toilet again. And hot water with actual soap.”
“Good,” García said. “Take the girls with you and show them how the plumbing works. You can risk a light once you’re inside. I’ll take the men.”
After they had all marveled at the modern conveniences, García found cookies and they sat at tables nibbling in the dim light. Presently there was the sound of a lock being turned and a young lady came in and switched on the lights.
“Don’t be afraid,” García said. “We were locked in here all night.”
The girl stared at García, then saw the rest of them. “Who the hell are you?”
“Re-enactors,” García said quickly. “We’re dressed as characters in the late 1500s at the time of the Spanish Armada. I’m professor Guy King. I head the Spanish speech and history department at UNC. Sorry to startle you.”
“How could you have gotten locked in here?” she asked in disbelief.
“I don’t remember you being here at closing time,” García said. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t know.
“Of course not. I open, I don’t close.”
“Well, we were on the floor in the corner. We had been drinking earlier and it seems we dozed off.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“You bet it is. It sounds impossible, but the truth is often stranger than fiction.”
“I’ve heard that. Anyway, the place looks OK. Are the rest of you with the school?”
“Not all,” García said. “This is Mary McKay, a graduate assistant in my department. The rest are volunteers from different places.”
“Very different,” Percy said. García shot him an angry glance.
“Well, you better get out of here. I have work to do. Shoo.” She made a motion with her hands.
“OK and thanks. We didn’t mean to cause trouble.” Mary led them through the door while García, once again Guy King, brought up the rear, a rapidly breathing Poncho in his arms.
“Nice dog,” the Starbucks employee said as they left the building. It was not yet 6 a.m. and they saw only an occasional car during the walk to García’s apartment. But the cars, the streetlights, the buildings, even the sidewalks were a cause of great wonder to the novitiate time travelers.
Major Wellston was the first to speak after they were safely inside Guy’s condo. “It seems you’ve put one over on us, captain. But what happens next?”
“First off, my name is Guy King and Jose is Mary McKay and Don Diego de Beauvais is Doña María Botella and Francisco is Frenesi. And we are in a fairly small university town in the middle of North Carolina, one of the 50 states of a North American country. Both you and Percy should accept the idea that you are here to stay, I mean in this century. Certainly you’re free to travel after you get oriented.”
“And let’s speak a little Spanish,” Doña María broke in. “Most of us are still in shock. But your plan did work. We are safe from the Irish and English, but God only knows what sort of ogres may be crouched nearby.”
“OK,” Guy went back to Spanish. “I’ll talk to the Spanish speakers and Mary can take the two Brits into the kitchen and field questions. Then later on we’ll get some measurements and Mary can pick up a few duds at K-Mart.”
“What? Shopping?” Frenesi asked. “I’d like to go with her.”
“Not hardly,” Guy said, “not in those clothes. Incidentally, your clothing and anything else you’ve brought with you is of great interest to me. This is a research project.”
“What did he say?” Percy demanded.
“That you two are experimental animals,” Mary said. Percy shrugged and said he was hungry. Mary led him and Courtney into the kitchen.
After an hour of long confusing conversations in both rooms, Guy sent out for pizzas. He had to think. The apartment was too small for them all. And how could he explain them? Who would believe him? At that moment Doña María whispered in his ear that she thought she might be pregnant.
“Holy shit,” Guy said in English. No one understood him, so he fell back into Spanish and said, “First we eat. Then Mary buys everyone some clothing. Then she takes the girls aside and explains modern underwear and feminine hygiene.” Back into English, he added, “then maybe I shoot myself.”
Doña María whispered again, “We must marry soon.”
Guy rolled his eyes upward and whispered back, “OK, very soon.” He had time-traveled to Spain partly to seek feminine purity, and now he was stuck with something akin to a female sergeant major. But there was a romantic and physical bond between the two of them. Romantic? Guy thought. He had become convinced that most men were more romantic than most women. Women seemed to him to be the practical sex. A home, a baby, three squares a day, shopping and a TV set. The moonlight and roses stuff was a facade. His mind was unsettled.
The pizza puzzled them, but they ate it, chatting all the while as they stuffed mouths with pepperoni, molten cheese, peppers and black olives.
Guy found clothing for the two Brits, but J
esus had broad shoulders and short stature, so Mary headed for K-Mart in Guy’s car to pick up blue jeans, underwear and so forth.
Later that evening Mary and Guy took turns rotating the crowd through the shower, then they grilled cheese sandwiches, drank almost a case of beer and sacked out. They were still short of sleeping space, but Mary said there was an empty apartment in her building and she would check on it the following day. She took Frenesi to her place. Doña María insisted that she and Guy would have his bed, Jesus and Doria got the fold-out couch in the living room and the Brits were on the floor.
So, what now? Guy said he was working on a plan. Percy pulled him aside to ask if there were homosexuals in Chapel Hill. Guy explained there were many and that the word was “gay.” He said there were many openly gay men and women and there was even a bar, or pub where they regularly assembled. “It sounds like gay heaven,” Percy exclaimed.
“But can be turned into hell,” Guy retorted. He told him about AIDs and said they would get into safe sex a little later.
Assembling the group, pulling the Brits away from the TV screen, Guy said the greatest danger rested in the fact that they were illegals. Illegally in the U.S. and without a country elsewhere.
“But Courtney and I are Englishmen,” Percy insisted. “I have a country estate.”
“Perhaps you did a few hundred years ago, but this is 2005. Maybe you can go back sometime and find some genealogist to tell you about your family, your amazing disappearance from Limerick and so forth. But you’ll play hell convincing anyone that you’re Lord Percy. The same with the Spanish. There is the odd chance that the gold Jesus hid has not been found, but a slim one.”
“It is there,” Jesus said and Doria nodded agreement. “We hid it well.”
“My baby will be an American and grow up with K-Mart and McDonalds,” Doña María tossed in.
“We’ve got to find you a good doctor,” Guy said
“Birth is a natural thing, I need no doctor.”
“We’ll see about that. In the meantime my plan to make you all legitimate will cost a little money. I know most of you have removed gold from your clothing and transferred it to your blue jeans, or done something with it. I propose we place it in a common pot. I will not let anyone go hungry, or without cash. But you must trust me.”
Blank stares. “All right, Courtney. You first.”
“I have a trifling amount.”
“Anything helps. And you can’t spend gold or silver coins. I will give you U.S. cash.”
“What is the exchange rate?”
“The exchange rate,” Guy said, “is that you will be thrown into jail by the immigration people if and when you are caught without a passport or other documents. You are a stateless person. I have no idea what they would do with you. Probably enroll you in an asylum if you told them you were born in the mid 1500s.”
Courtney emptied his pockets, placing gold and silver coins on the coffee table. Percy followed suit. Guy spoke to the others in Spanish and Jesus was the first to come forward followed by Doria who carried a small heavy bag with the largest contribution.
“Surely you don’t expect your intended to donate,” Doña María said.
“Everyone’s in, including myself. I hate to destroy all these coins. I think a dealer might pay dear for a few of them. So we should be able to save some for future study.”
“You wish to study coins?” Jesus asked.
“Yes, as antiquities. It’s part and parcel to the entire experiment.”
“We are then experimental animals,” Percy said.
“I suppose,” Guy answered. “But you Brits are much better off than in Ireland, and the Spanish have improved themselves. We have TV and Mickey Mouse.”
“Who is Mickey Mouse?” Courtney inquired.
“A large rodent. In the fullness of time all things will be revealed.” Guy took the gold and silver from Doña María and then turned to Frenesi who said she had no funds.
“With your charms you won’t need any. Every man on campus will be at our door.”
Mary McKay felt slightly jealous, but she did feel an attraction for Courtney who was older and seemed to show signs of interest in her. Of course he was English so she couldn’t really tell.