20th Century Un-limited

by Felice Picano

  So it’s midnight or something and Bev’s got to go. I walk her downstairs and see her out the gate. I’m wearing a pair of shorts and not one thing more. Guess who comes around the side of the gate-house but Tony Kirby, dressed in a white silk tuxedo getup. Seems he and the others have just been to a big bash, and he left early, getting a ride with Bunny someone or other. He’s seen me see Bev out and he’s sniffing the air, literally smelling sex still steaming off my body, I just know it. I really don’t want to let him upstairs because who knows what ideas he’ll get. On the other hand he does want to chat, and so I take his offer and put on the tux jacket, protesting that it’ll smell like me, to which he says with much eyebrows, “You and her too!” nodding in the direction Bev left.

  Then he tells me that he and Bud have “naturally, discussed” me and he wants to know if I was fooling him or what about what I said before about it being okay to be gay “where I come from.”

  Those are the exact words he uses. As though I’m from Pasadena. Or Japan.

  So even though I’m dead on my feet, I tell him all about the Stonewall Riots and the G.A.A. and Act Up and the pro-gay laws passed, and all the publicly out actors and musicians and writers, and the neighborhoods filled with gay people, Chelsea in Manhattan, the Castro in San Francisco, West Hollywood.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Hollywood. I’ve always wanted to live in Los Angeles with the palm trees and warm weather all year round as I see in the Moviefone rotogravures!” Tony says.

  So I talk more until he lets me go. Then he comes upstairs and gets the jacket from me and I guess puts a blanket over me. I’m dead to the world by then. Nice guy, Tony. Really nice guy. But he’s living in the wrong time. Wrong place and wrong time.

  And guess what? I’ve just gotten another idea. And have another theory.

  August 9, 2000

  I have been to see the estimable Kleinherz, and he let me spend all day in his archive, and that’s a good thing, because it pretty much took all afternoon, literally right until closing time at six p.m., to find what I found, virtually invisible and hidden deep within a paper from the other end of the state.

  Here goes:

  August 12, 2000

  Ray Snyder’s still alive!! Of course he would be—if he were in his twenties in 1979, he’d be in his forties today. At any rate I went through some phone books and found a Raymond Snyder living in Elm Grove, an okay suburb of Milwaukee, and left a message with his wife. Said I was a medical history student, specializing in success stories of lightning strike survivors. She said, “Ray never talks about that,” but that he might with me. I’m to call back tomorrow.

  Meanwhile, driving home from Junction City at what by then was six forty-five, I decided to stop into Snyder’s Country Inn, which was having Happy Hour. The bar was packed. Mostly yuppies, a couple of hot women, they and the guys mostly ten years older than me—I’ll tell Bev Freneau about it. I went to the john and wandered around the place until I found the photos of the Inn’s “founders,” Janice and Jason Terranova, aged about sixty-five in the photos (dated 1988) and both looking okay—Jason may have been a druggie but he was a stud too, because he still looked good at retirement age.

  Bartender had seen me very obviously checking them out, so back at the bar I asked if they were named Terranova, how come the place was called Snyder’s. He didn’t have a clue, said every new employee there asked the same question. He said the founder’s grandchildren owned the place now, none of whom are named Snyder, and that Jason was dead a few years and Janice was an Alzheimer’s vegetable at a local hospice. Very friendly guy. Half an hour later, he refilled my drink yet again for free and asked me out later in the week. Unfortunately he’s not dark, or slender, although he’s good-looking, muscled—wore a biceps tight shirt to show himself off—and red-haired. Sorry, Kleinherz!

  August 14, 2000

  Now this is news! Talked to Ray Snyder yesterday on the phone. He was very circumspect at first. Wanted to know how I knew about him. I told him Dale Haslett, who represented him, had mentioned his name to my father a while ago in my presence.

  “Poor Dale, dying like that,” Snyder said. I said I didn’t know how. Turned out Haslett and his wife he were in a massive car wreck in some tunnel in the Swiss Alps in which a fuel tanker truck caught fire and killed like forty people. “Dale saved my skin. Got me help. I owe my life to him,” Snyder said, adding, “So much for the good ending happily.”

  Took at least five minutes before Ray would talk about his old lightning injury. His memory of it was vague, and always had been, he said. He’d gained consciousness inside the flatbed of a pickup truck on Route 18 outside Fennimore, and the driver who’d stopped on the side of the road to urinate and who’d picked him up had noticed him staggering around the field with a bloody and blackened but already healing gash along his ear and head. He got Ray medical help at Madison, where Ray stayed a few days.

  Snyder said he’d lost his memory or it was totally screwed up by the injury. He did know his name, however, and he had some kind of non-photo driver’s license from Milwaukee, so he headed there. No one at the address listed knew him or of him. “I was missing big chunks of stuff that ended up making my adjustment really hard.” Stuff like? I ask. “Like who was president. Couple of wars. Everyday stuff. All kinds of shit. It was terrible. Stuff five-year-olds knew, I didn’t know.” Snyder said that Milwaukee had looked familiar, but only parts of it. He had phoned a number for a Snyder and said that the voice that answered seemed familiar, but the old woman said her brother Ray died forty years ago, told him not to bother her again, and then hung up. Snyder grew more confused, couldn’t hold a job as he didn’t know simple things that everyone else seemed to know. He was fired, lost his rental room, drank, got desperate, ended up on skid row, robbed the bank, and went into the mental ward.

  “Best thing that ever happened to me,” Snyder said. “I met Janice there. My wife. Janice was a De Paul Rehab volunteer. She ran a mobile library. We met, fell in love, and she got me work and a place to stay. I read books and newspapers and magazines and eventually I caught up with everyone else. We married and the rest is history.”

  I’d bite my tongue off before I’d dare mention that Ray’s first wife was also named Janice.

  But I gathered from all this that:

  Jason Terranova and Ray Snyder had somehow switched times and places at Ingoldsby. Jason was in 1979 and Ray in 1940.

  Lightning was involved.

  Jason knew what was he was doing, and may have intentionally made the switch. But not Ray. He had no idea what happened.

  Leading to the logical question, what did Jason Terranova discover that I haven’t so far?

  August 18, 2000

  “I’m afraid you can’t take it out,” Tonia Noonan said, and if it weren’t that the book was stamped “For In-Library Use,” I might have believed it was her own rule so she could keep me around. However, it was once again hot and nasty outside and cool indoors, so I sat at one of the writing tables of the little, old, admittedly handsome Fulton’s Point Library, and perused Portage County: A History by Mabel Normand Freer, published in 1934, by—haven’t you already guessed—the Portage County Chamber of Commerce.

  However, I hit pay dirt almost immediately, since the book had at one time not been so rare nor so restricted, and among those who had taken it out was—drumroll here, please—on August 12, 1979, one Jason Terranova, who’d signed his name.

  I looked for underscored passages, and there were plenty. So I went back to the beginning and concentrated. After an hour and two chapters of bluntly local boosterism, I came upon the following: “The Ingals family purchased this land in 1889 but didn’t build on it for several decades. Possibly because it was long thought to be the site of an Indian Holy Place, and had accreted several tall tales. None of them more baffling or colorful than that of ‘Injun Ralph.’”

  I searched for an index, found none, read on and on, another hour or more. At last my patience w
as rewarded halfway through the volume. I quote it in full:

  Fulton’s Point was a bustling trading spot along the route that would later become Lakeview Drive, connecting eastern towns like Milwaukee and Madison with western posts on the Missouri River, when Injun Ralph made his unexplained appearance.

  Injun Ralph was the name the townspeople gave him because of his Frontiersman costume of buskins, powder horn, and moccasins. He insisted his name was Ralph Leninger, and when pressed, would offer eyewitness accounts of Chief Pontiac and other long-dead Indian Chieftains he claimed to have met and smoked peace pipes with on his on-foot wanderings through what he called Greater Louisiana Territory, and which he was astonished to see suddenly populated with steamboats, steam locomotives, and “many thousands of settlers.”

  Like Rip Van Winkle, the by no means aged Injun Ralph—appearing to be less than thirty-five years of age—had gone to sleep, hiding from a ferocious storm of lightning and thunder on what appeared to be the southern edge of what later became the Ingals property, and somehow slept nigh on forty years instead of forty winks, without any apparent worsening for wear. He assured all that Andrew Johnson, not Taft, was U.S. President, and he spoke English with a “lilting, yet distinctly more British than American accent.”

  Our Modern Rip adjusted soon enough, and he found gainful employment giving speeches about “America The Beautiful: As It Were” for Elks, Chambers of Commerce, and varied women’s clubs. After some years of this activity, however, Injun Ralph encountered and then joined up with “Buffalo Bill” Cody and Calamity Jane’s “Wild West Show,” traveling the Eastern Seaboard and to Europe.

  Perhaps the oddest part of Injun Ralph’s tall story was that it contained a disturbing instance of provable evidence. In the moment between his sudden awakening from a clap of thunder and his being catapulted into the year 1911, he clamed to have witnessed—not two feet away and very briefly in the blinding re-illumination—another person, male, young, looking astonished, wearing a checkerboard vest and porkpie hat, seated on a “tubular metal contraption” that Injun Ralph later recognized to be a bicycle. He had exactly described Wilfred Dix, a young man whose disappearance on the very day of Injun Ralph’s appearance has never been resolved.

  August 20, 2000

  After a swim and “tea” with not-bad butter cookies Celia made, I got Tony to walk with me back to the gate-house. He’d told me that he’d come in that night after me to retrieve his tux and cover me with a blanket, so I asked him upstairs, wondering what he could see of my time since I can see plenty from his. Turns out a lot, including the “Now What for Gay Rights?” cover story of Newsweek and recent edition of The Advocate and a copy of a book of gay short stories (Men On Men, both of which I’d found in Tonia’s library and taken out especially for this purpose.

  Having me tell him about gay life today was one thing, but actually seeing it all was another. First Tony was flabbergasted. Then he spent over an hour looking through it, and I assured him he could come read them any time. Now I need something more substantial, not so much historical as sensible. Maybe like a practical guide to being queer. Who’d know that?

  Nate the Gay Roommate would know.

  From: HistoryKing78@aol.com

  Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 12:30:18 EDT

  To: snakecharming@juno.com

  Subject: (no subject)

  Greetings Snake Charmeroo. Long time no etcetera. Looking for Nate Smith. Old e-mail address stinks. What’s he doing? What are you doing? Is your fiancee still hot for me?

  *

  From: Bufferzone@msn.com

  Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 18:10:20 EDT

  To: HistoryKing78@aol.com

  Subject: (no subject)

  Neal, you’re just lucky I was cleaning house on that old moniker. Note new address is Bufferzone@msn.com. Dumped the old g.f. Have another rich, pretty one. Nate’s new address is SalHepatica@aol.com. He asked Susan E. if you’d died. He lives in West Hollywood, works as talent agent for CAA has big Beemer & his own place. Heard you were in Jerkoffistan for the summer.

  *

  From: HistoryKing78@aol.com

  Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 21:01:12 EDT

  To: Bufferzone@msn.com, snakecharming@juno.com

  Subject: (no subject)

  Jerkoffistan is proving muy interesante. Thanks for the tips. Especially re Nate. More helpful than you’ll ever know. I owe you a Dominos supersize with sausage and cheese in the crust.

  August 22, 2000

  In the Junction City Barnes & Noble, I figured out which guy behind the desk of the three there looked the most queer and asked: “What would I get for someone who needs to know like everything about being gay all at once?”

  Wild-haired Blondie with noseplugs walked me over to this big sex book, which he showed me inside was like a Dutch uncle and a history and an encyclopedia all in one. The drawings were really wild, some of them, the expected sucking and fucking and kinky stuff, but with blacks, midgets with whips. Woo! Will have to go slowly with Tony.

  “I know this isn’t for you,” Blondie said, ringing it up.

  “Oh, why not?” I asked, all innocence.

  “Because you’ve already done it all,” he said.

  “In your dreams,” I replied.

  “In my dreams, I’ve done it all with you!”

  I had to laugh.

  August 23, 2000

  I’ve decided not to tell Celia anything about my plans and decided not to attempt to explain anything to her should my plans actually work. As for Bud, I’m not sure. He’s one of those “scientific” guys and he’ll eventually want to figure it out. Luckily I now have the examples of Injun Ralph in Mabel’s book about Portage County in addition to his own stories and legends.

  I feel bad about depriving them of Tony, however, because really that’s what it comes down to, no? I’ll make it up with Celia in hundreds of ways. With Bud of course I have the greatest way of all, I know what stocks to invest in, what fields to spread into. But I genuinely like the guy. Did from the beginning, and while I’m still not sure how straight he is, I really don’t care. I do know that with Celia and Tony out of his hair, Bud’s little forays around Portage County with his own “round-heeled” women will end or get more serious. He might even decide to double-date with Celia and me.

  Even so, in the last few weeks as the weather got cooler (for the most part), I’ve joined him as often as Tony does, playing tennis, a sport I’m coming to enjoy and which Bud excels at, and also in golf, a sport I’m less good at and less interested in. (Mark Twain called it “A good walk in the outdoors—ruined.”) Tony doesn’t do golf at all, and it’s as social as it is athletic. So I’m trying to in advance “be there” for Bud when Tony’s gone.

  Meanwhile, me and Celia were “petting” so much the other afternoon in the chaise lounge that I came. I think she did too, without knowing what was going on. From being all soft she became suddenly totally rigid, then sort of convulsed, and pushed me away, jumped up, and left me there while she went inside. After a while I took a swim.

  But is that amazing or what?

  August 25, 2000

  Went to an attorney and had my will changed. For this to work, Tony too will have to change his will, signing his estate over to me as I’m signing mine over to him.

  And if this doesn’t work? If all that about Injun Ralph and Wilfred Dix and Jason Terranova and Ray Snyder is just bull, well then my twin cousins Dean and Daryl, aged seven, will be quite well off when they reach eighteen.

  So now all I have to do is convince Tony and wait for a stormy day.

  I’m guessing both Tony and me will have to have our hands on that generator when the lightning hits!

  Here ends the journal provided by Fulton’s Point Police

  WISCONSIN STATE POLICE

  Cold Case Department

  Linklatter Mall, Bldg. E

  Eau Claire, WI 54701

  Detective-Sergeant Annabella Conklin

  TO: Wayne G. King, As
st. D.A.

  STATE of WISCONSIN, District Attorney’s Office

  Government Center, Building C

  Madison, WI 53711

  November 22, 2001

  Re: Missing/Person Cold Case, reopened as Case #324-01.

  Dear District Attorney King,

  After a six-month investigation by this office as per your request in May 2001, we are able to enclose the following relevant documentation.

  A. Newspaper articles.

  1. Junction City Intelligencer, May 26, 1940.

  2. Junction City Intelligencer, January 5, 1941.

  B. Marriage License of Neal Bartram and Cecilia Nash-Ingals, April. 4, 1941.

  C. Military Record of Neal Bartram, served U.S. CIVIL DEFENSE, July 9, 1942

  D. Junction City Intelligencer Obituary of Neal Bartram, December 1, 1989.

  That’s all of it, Wayne.

  Please note that the two newspaper articles differ substantially from those of the same dates enclosed in the journals provided by your office.

  This office has spoken in person to various people mentioned by Bartram in his journals, including all those deposed by Sheriff Estes, who encountered Bartram daily in the summer of 2000. In addition we’ve traced the M/P’s contacts with Mr. Kleinherz at the Intelligencer and found M/Ps check-out slips at the main library in that city. A copy of his revised last will & testament is also on record. There is no question that Neal Bartram was active in Portage County during the summer months of 2000, and he was uniformly described as a slightly shorter than average, very handsome, blonde or light brown haired male with light brown eyes and an excellent physique, aged early to mid twenties.