The Good Old Days

Pain was first, the feeling and then the word. It turns out the body comes back before the mind, so my body hurt and my eyes really hurt, but I didn’t have words for it.

And now I am naked in a metal box.

I feel like a kid must feel, discovering their body and the words for things at the same time: hand, hair, arm, palm. I run my hand through the hair on my arm down to my palm. Everything feels cold.

I open the door of the thing I’m in and step in water. It’s freezing, and I remember: they froze me. You have to, Jack, the men said. We’ll come every day, they said as the cold blast hit.

Jack.

The room is huge, cluttered. Boxes equipment and stuff. I cough as my lungs adjust to the air, or it maybe it’s the dust. There’s a locker nearby, with a checked shirt and pants. They must be mine, they feel right. There’s also a pair of shoes and a wallet, with a State of Pennsylvania Driver’s License. Jack Zielinski.

No one is here to talk to this Jack Zielinski, so I start walking.

The sun hurts. The blue sky hurts more and I don’t know why, but it’s wrong. I walk a while. My legs feel strange, and I cough, and I walk. I half see some buildings and people, but I can only focus on the voice I keep hearing in my head. Zielinski! the man calls. Hey, Zielinski! and I can’t see him, but I feel it, and then I say, “Yeah?” and grin and know that’s me, that I’m Jack Zielinski, and then I can look around and see. I can start to take things in.

An old colored woman looks at me with fear, and as she ducks around me on the sidewalk I think, Well that makes sense, but I realize I had said “Yeah” out loud and I’m grinning like a crazy bastard. I laugh.

There weren’t this many cars or people before. Some buildings look familiar and more don’t, and they hadn’t been this tall. There’s this huge black tower above everything. I wonder how much steel it took to build it, and then I know what’s wrong with the sky. Where am I? I panic a little and look all over the place, and there’s a newspaper box. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The sky’s too clear. There’s no smoke. There should be smoke from the mills.

Hey, Zielinski! my boss calls again in my head. I grin and say, Yeah? I’m at the blast furnace.

So this is Pittsburgh. Do they even still have the steel mills? I look closer at the Post-Gazette. July 17, 2019.

The docs put me under in 1952.

It’s the only way. You have to, Jack, the men said. They wore white coats. We’ll come every day, they said as the cold blast hit.

Over sixty years.

I’m goddamn hungry. I see a food cart way up ahead. I start to run, but my legs wobble and I cough, so I just walk as fast as I can and pull out the wallet as I go. There’s a five.

The sign says “Hot dog $3, Sausage $5, Pop/Water $2.”

It’s ridiculous. “Seriously, a hot dog costs three bucks?”

The vendor scowls. “That a problem, buddy?”

It is, but I gotta eat. “We could’ve eaten for a week on that,” I tell him, handing over my five. “Gimme a dog and a water.”

“Whatever you say, buddy.”

I understand the cost a lot more once he hands me the bottle. It’s clear like glass but flexible, and I couldn’t break it if I tried. It must cost a fortune. I down half the bottle immediately to try to do something about that damn cough—so much for the benefits of clean air—and sit down on a low wall at the end of a little park. The dog is good and hot, but I barely taste it because I’m asking myself what I meant. We could’ve eaten for a week on that.

Who’s we?

With something in my belly I sit and think, and watch. Lotta Steeler stuff around, and a couple things of the Pirates, so that’s still the same. Lotta people in t-shirts and shorts, some in suits, that there’s a nice suit like I could never afford, that’s—

I almost spit out my water. That’s a colored guy wearing that suit. And the one in that suit, over there, is a woman. What the hell kind of a man lets his wife walk around wearing a suit?

Wife. We. I have a wife. I have a wife. And I don’t know her name.

I’m crying now. This place… what the hell is this place? A bright red hat catches my eye: “Make America Great Again.” You said it, pal. This woman pushing a stroller looks at me like she pities me, and I start to feel angry, but the stroller, that nose—Angie. My wife’s name is Angie, and—

I start running again, and my legs wobble and I cough, but I don’t care because I’ve got to find a phone booth. KE3-154. I’ve got to call KE3-154. But I can’t find a phone booth anywhere, and even if I could would they be there? I keep running and I remember Mercy Hospital. She was going to have the baby in Mercy Hospital.

I stop and I scream. “Where is Mercy Hospital!” I cough and when I catch my breath enough I scream again. “Where is Mercy Hospital!” This lady looks really afraid of me—I must look awful—but she points down the street and I run and stumble and hack up my lungs till I’m in the lobby and right up to the desk.

The receptionist points at the lady behind me and says something about a line, but I cut her off. “I need a birth record!”

“Sir! There is a line of people here…”

“I need a birth record! Angie Zielinski’s baby!”

“Sir, it is entirely inappropriate to ask for private medical information. HIPAA laws prohibit me from—”

I pound the desk. “Angie Zielinski!”

She eyes me, and then she slowly picks up what must be a phone. “One moment sir…”

While her call’s going through I look around. There’s a family sitting in some chairs, and a doctor approaching takes of his mask—her mask, it’s another goddamn woman. How did—

They wore masks. And I remember now, all of it.

Do you want to kill Angie? We don’t know what you’ve got, they said, or where it came from, the Russians maybe, but we’ve never seen anything so contagious. We know it’s already killed half your shift and the other half is locked away till they die. Cryogenic freezing sounds crazy, but if the experiment works we’ll thaw you and be standing right there with a cure. And you’ll be a hero.

It’s the only way—otherwise you’ll just keep coughing and be dead by tomorrow. You have to, Jack, the men said. They wore white coats and masks. We’ll come every day, they said as the cold blast hit.

But where were they when I woke up?

The woman behind me coughs.