Pop Pop was strangely excited the day that Will Jerns told us about the old man.

Will wasn't part of a family. He was what they called a rogue. Sometimes he would pass through the city; to trade, to talk, maybe find some love--but mostly because of my Uncle Pete. The two of them used to be what's sometimes called a "rogue couple"; two men with no family. There are girl couples, and guy and girl couples, but it's rare to see them go rogue. It's too dangerous. Most have family.

I understand that they had parted ways some time before I'd been born. Uncle Pete came to live with us, because as Mamma put it, we needed the help. Will took a different path and decided to go it alone, not so content with the way of the family. But as far as I know, those kinds of choices always command a price, and since that time Will Jerns had acquired an uncomfortable limp and a face full of white scars. His demeanor had shifted as well, subdued by the wisdom that his gritty existence supplied. I think that it pained Uncle Pete to see his old friend as each visit seemed to unfold some new story of some accident, altercation, or adventure, wherein Will nearly lost his life.

But that day, it was different.

Will was happy. He almost looked to be the twenty nine years that Uncle Pete claimed him to be. He talked to me and Deena, to Momma and Daddy, and even to Uncle Ray and Pop Pop.

He brought me something that day. The most incredible thing I'd ever seen. And he brought Pop Pop something too. Something that I don't think he had ever had. Hope.

Will Jerns told us about the old man. The old man that lived across the river, past Hoboken, and beyond the grassy field known as Dead Man's Land.

Pop Pop had been suspicious--the first to speak up.

"This guy," he said, "How old would you say? Hmm?"

Will smiled pleasantly, one of the only times I'd ever even seen him smile. "Maybe your age, Gus, maybe older. I don't know."

"And how is it..." Pop Pop was on his feet, standing beside the fire that Daddy had made near the window, "How is it that this rogue--this old man--can live out there? Why isn't he dead? Eh? You're young. You move around. You carry that stinger of yours every place you go… And still we never know if--or when--you might come back. How's this old fellah manage?"

"Don't know," Will was his old self; quiet, sad, slightly detached. "He just does."

A rich, silent fury spilled over my grandfather just then. A weird departure from his standard, collected manner. Pop walked across the room to where Uncle Pete and Will were sitting, each step giving passage to some new globule of anger. At last he stood there, red-faced, eyes locked on Will Jerns. He made a point--my grandfather did--to personalize the encounter. This was certainly not a performance for the room, he was talking to one person.

"You're a liar!"

"Da--ad?!" Mamma got up and made an attempt to restrain him.

"You're a liar!" He said once more, careful not look away from a very uncomfortable Will Jerns.

Uncle Pete had been taken back. It was a rare situation indeed, but nonetheless the incident found him slack-jawed. None of us had ever seen Pop so emotional.

"I'm not lying," said Will, gaining composure, "Here... look."

He reached for his backpack. It had been close by, leaning against the couch. Unlatching the buckle, he reached in and pulled out... the gift.

"Look," he said, "See?"

In his hand was this thing. It was something that I'd never seen before and so I was first to ask. "What is it, Will? Is it for me?"

He smiled again, "Yeah... yeah Danny, it's for you. I'd wanted to wait until later but... well..." He trailed off.

I scuttled over to the couch. Pop Pop was staring at the object in Will's hand, at first skeptical, but as I drew close I could see that the boiling rage within him had evaporated, now replaced by resigned amazement.

I was pretty amazed too. But only because I'd never seen anything like it. I'd seen toys before, but never so nice, or so perfect. Most of the toys I'd seen had been broken. And all of them had been plastic--machine made.

This thing was hand-made.

Will turned it over to me. "It's a marionette," he said, "The old man makes them. Sells 'em too."

"Sells?" said Uncle Ray.

"Well, he barters, mostly," said Will, "I swapped this one for a case of gas canisters. The old man uses 'em for his stove."

Uncle Pete teased, "You... were carrying gas canisters around with you?"

The good humor might have been lost on Will. "No, I went an' got 'em for him. Our old stockpile beneath Waterton Shopping Center."

"You went back there?" Uncle Pete postured more like a concerned father than an ex-lover. "I hear that place is crawlin' with The Cooties."

Will relaxed a bit, showing more interest in me and my marionette, than in the conversation. "No. Not no more."

"How's that?"

"The place had been infected. The Cooties that moved in--are dead."

"Uncle Melty?"

"No, I think Riff-Raff." Will took note of my difficulty with the new toy, "Here Danny, like this..."

He reached out for the marionette. Obediently, I handed it over. Will untangled its monofilament strings then held the whole thing up by its wooden control frame. I think I had the gist of it. But just then, Pop Pop intervened.

"No, no. Gimme that thing, Will." I'd never heard him call Will by his first name. "Like this..."

In Pop's spotted, wrinkled hands, the toy took on a bizarre life-like quality. Now it looked like something.

"It's supposed to be a unicorn," said Pop.

"A horse with a horn," added Will.

I stood there watching as Pop tugged artfully at the strings. It trotted, it looked about, it jumped and charged; all contingent upon my grandfather's whim. I was lost in its perfect little pantomime, hypnotized, convinced that at any moment it might just bite off the strings that gave it life, and trot off down the staircase into the city.

I believed in the marionette.

And Pop believed in its maker.

"You said he makes these?" He regarded Will as one might look upon a messenger from God.

"He does."

"Just Unicorns?"

"He's got hundreds of 'em. All different--Not one the same." Then Will addressed me. "I got the unicorn cause I know you liked those pictures of horses that we found that time."

"I love it, Will," I answered, still awestruck by Pop's performance. "It's the best thing... The best thing I ever got."

Copyright© 2001, Amy Mousley

Come dinner time, Pop was still asking questions about the old man and his marionettes. Who was he? Who had he been? Did he have family? Or bodyguards?

"What I still don't understand," he said, shoveling down a forkful of tuna, "is how it is that this fellah... What's his name again?"

"Samuel Georardi," said Will.

"Yeah... how it is that this Georardi fellah ain't dead yet?"

"You mentioned that already, Dad," said Mamma.

"Well I'm sayin' it again. Doesn't anybody else think it's weird?"

"It's strange, Gus," said Uncle Ray, "But maybe the old guy doesn't have anything anybody'd want."

Pop Pop pointed his fish loaded fork toward Will, "He's got those gas canisters. Ain't that right?"

"Yeah," Will nodded, "He's got a house too. Chickens... I think maybe a garden... lot's a' stuff."

"It's a miracle is what it is," said Pop.

Then Will said, "The only thing... is that maybe nobody knows he's out there. I stumbled across his place by accident. He lives just outside of Dead Man's Land and a lot of people don't go out there."

"What about Cooties?" I said. For as long as I could remember, Cooties seemed to be an issue. I'd never seen one, but had heard enough stories that I was always leery.

"Cooties steer clear too," said Uncle Pete.

"Besides," said Will, standing up from the table, "The Riff-Raff has nearly wiped 'em out."

"That's what you get," said Mamma. "That's just what somebody deserves that eats people."

Will got up from the table and wandered over to where Deena was playing her game machine. "Don't think I forgot ya, sweetie."

My sister looked up from the game, flexing that shy smile of hers.

"This is for you." From his pocket, Will took out a small game cartridge. The faded label on the plastic read Crazy Animals.

Deena's face lit up like a flare. She eyed the game with anxious, intellectual hunger. "Can I have it? To keep?"

"Of course," said Will. "I picked it out just for you. Just don't lose it. These things are tough to find."

"So where did you find it?" Daddy had been watching the exchange from the dinner table.

Will Jerns handed the cartridge to Deena. His only response was to glance back at my father with a slow shaking of his head. In years to follow I would come to understand the meaning of this response:

Where there are toys, there are children--and where there are abandoned toys, there are dead children.

Copyright© 2001, Amy Mousley

Months later, the majority of the family had all but forgotten Will Jerns' story of Samuel Georardi. Everyone, that is, but Pop. For him, the story--and the old man attached to it--had taken on a sort of divine dynamic. No conversation was complete without some reference, some allusion, some segue toward this most interesting of phenomena.

Of course, I still had the unicorn. I still loved it and always would. But its creator bore little fascination for me. See, I didn't understand it all until much later.

I was too young.

Actually, we all were.

Remember the good old days? Well my grandfather did. He remembered a time when people weren't afraid of each other. When food was everywhere. When Uncle Melty was infantile and much less dangerous.

Pop Pop had lived in the city before the plague. His parents had been business folks--something like merchants only better. It's not so clear to me. However, I understand that they were deeply immersed in pre-plague society, honing their skills against the artificial grindstone of American culture, economy, and politics.

My great-grandparents were lucky in a way. They had been unaffected by ravages of Uncle Melty. Pop Pop too. Only, despite this, his parents were quick to stage an exit, beaten and murdered during the vaccination riots that trailed in the wake of the plague. Strange really, because they never actually knew that the whole thing had been unnecessary; the vaccination, the trip to the clinic, the scratching and clawing through the human foliage of the city. According to Pop, they never knew that they had been immune.

So Pop was orphaned, adopted by another--not so immune--family, and subsequently orphaned again. At thirteen years old he was alone. Forced to grow up fast. Too fast.

Maybe that was why Sam Georardi was an uncomfortable itch in his mind. In a world of thirteen year old men, of sacrifice and violence, necessity and compromise--How could it be? Another man; same age, same environment, same part of the country, and yet so different. This man and his marionettes seemed untouched, unharmed, and unaffected by circumstance.

Luck, fortune, grace. It had to be. There was no other explanation. How else could two men so similar, travel down such different paths?

At times my grandfather would regard the man as an oracle or saint; Oh, I wonder what Mr. Georardi would think of that!

Other times he was an irresponsible fool; Could you imagine? Imagine where we would all be if I had decided to lay down my responsibilities in favor of some crazy existence like that?

Still, there were instances where the old man was some paragon of good-fortune; Makes them puppets all day… Heh! Well it's nice work if you can get it.

A balance had been reached and time had served to push the incident from the foreground into the back. Slowly, surely, it was less grounded in the present, finding new roots in the past. And it would have remained that way had fate not fostered the chance for Pop to meet the man who had fashioned my unicorn.

Once again, Will Jerns, our connection to life outside the city--our news-bearer--had been the catalyst.

He had returned once more, new stories and a blackish-purple contusion along the left side of his face. But the news was good.

"...somewhat dangerous," Will answered daddy, "but more than worth it. I'm tellin' you, it's like the old days over there--"

"And what would you know about that?" said Pop Pop.

"Easy, Dad," said Uncle Ray.

Will smoothed his tone; always sensitive to my grandfather's objectionable nature. "I don't know," he said, "I'm just drawing from what I've been told. Even you have told me stories, Gus."

This disarmed the argument for the briefest of moments. There was a hesitant pause, but my father finally broke the silence.

"So who runs the place?"

"Some ex-military guys. It's like a little town."

Mamma and Daddy looked at each other and two sets of eyes lit like candles in a damp fog. They tried to beat it down, to suppress it. But I knew. I knew right then, that we were going.

"And you say that it's safe?" There was an uncharacteristic tremble to Mamma's voice. She was hopeful, excited and afraid all at once.

"A lot safer than here. They got police, and guards ta keep out gangs. They have crops and cattle. Deer, too. And like I said, it used to be a military base, so it's secure." Pop had yet to fold under the weight of Will's revelation. He stood up from his chair, groaning of effort laced with dismissal. "Which military base?"

"I think it used to be called Fort Greyson. I'm not making any promises here. The trip there is risky. Not only would we have to clear Dead Man's Land, we'd have ta drive through some gang territory, maybe Cooties."

One of Uncle Pete's eyebrows lifted, "We?"

"Well yeah, What d'ya think I'd tell you folks about this thing, then say Oh well, lot's a ' luck to ya." Will shrugged, palms open and turned, "I figured you'd need the help."

And we did. One month and one day later, we were out of the city, driving through New Jersey, on route to our new home--Ft. Greyson.

Copyright© 2001, GAK

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