Bucky's Time Capsule; Part Four
The Journal
Constanta, Romania, July 3rd, 2015
The boat landing was crowded, full of tourists from America. Ioan blew his whistle at the ongoing traffic on deck 83.
"Hey Maria! Check for any stowaways will ya?" Ioan says to me. "Look for any suspicious people," he adds before blowing his whistle again. An American tourist comes up to me and my brother and starts talking in English, Ioan replies in English, and the tourist trots off. I sigh and speed into the crowd.
It was easy for me to ask for a ticket- it was the only English I knew- all I say is "do you have a ticket ma'am?" Or "do you have a ticket sir?" It's not that hard. After ten minutes of roaming in the crowd, I was done. The only thing I had on my mind was finding a quiet spot to sit and write in my notebook. I end up in an old ware house by the dock, nice and open and safe.
When I sit down on the cool pavement floor, and I hear a cream come from the catwalk. I look up from my book at the second-floor platform to see a dark figure dart away from the edge. I slam my notebook down on the floor and hastily get up.
"Hello?" I call. More shuffling continues from the catwalk, then a crash. I speed up the stairs to see what- or who- was up there. I wander down the catwalk, looking for anything to use as defense. All I can find is an old piece of pipe, which isn't too bad to have for defense. The pipe looked about two inches in diameter, and one side was bent PVC plastic, giving it an odd L shape.
A low moan comes from the edge of the catwalk. In confusion I blink my eyes at the figure cowering on the wall, hanging onto the railing as if his life depended on it. His wild blue eyes seemed to glow in the dark, and his medium hair was matted in knots around his face. I drop the pipe and it clatters to the first floor.
"Do you have a ticket sir?" I ask him slowly. He looks at me wildly. I shake my head. He must not understand English- since he didn't know what I meant when I asked him.
"Do you have a ticket?" I ask him in Romanian. He doesn't respond and looks at me with a wilder look. I'm confused, if he doesn't understand English, and doesn't understand Romanian, then what does he understand?
"I-I don't have a ticket," He stammers. My eyes open wide, this never happened. We always speculate about stowaways- but never have we ever encountered one.
I back away. "Ioan! Stowa-" that's as far as I get before he pins me down to the metal catwalk.
"No! Please! I worked hard to get here, I just want to live a normal life- I never got the chance" he begs. He slowly pulls away from me, looking disappointed in himself. I sit up and sigh.
"Alright, Stowaway, I'll help you. My god Ioan's gonna kill me," I say. He smiles, it looks weak and forced- like he forgot how to smile for a long time. Some part of me wants to make him laugh.
"Do you have a name? Or am I just gonna call you Stowaway?" I ask him. He lightly laughs, which make me happier. I mean, I got a laugh from someone who looked seriously depressed- so that's something to be proud of.
"Call me Bucky," He says slowly, as if he was trying on the name for the first time, seeing if it fit him perfectly, like a name should.
"You look like a Bucky," I say to him. Another smile, not as forced this time. I sit up and he follows like a lost puppy. We trot down the metal catwalk stairs to my hiding spot, where I grab my notebook before we continued to the giant doors leading to town.
"Ok, recap- you are an American tourist who asked me to give you a special tour of the town, understand?" I say to Bucky. He nods.
"I'll speak broken Romanian too- so people think I'm just learning," he adds.
We walk through town a little bit and stroll past a barber shop. A passerby looks up from her phone and stares right at Bucky. She turns to me.
"Miss, tell you Dad to get a haircut, he looks like an assassin!" she says to me, then continues. Bucky turns pale white when she says assassin.
"Jeez, she was rude," Bucky says.
"She's not wrong though, you could use a haircut... and maybe a shave," I suggest. Bucky shakes his head.
"No, no the assassin comment... I mean I don't really look like one, do I?" He asks.
I stop walking to scrutinize Bucky. He DID look like an assassin, but I mean seriously, there's no way he is one... right?
"It's the hair," I say finally. He turns a little paler and grabs his hair.
"I'll get a haircut in Bucharest," he says. Then we continue, looking for a taxi willing to take us to the train station.
It took a few tries, but we finally flag down a taxi to take us to the train station. The taxi driver rolls down his widow for us before he lets us in.
"Where are you going kid?" He asks me.
"We need a ride to the train station, where I need to drop off my American Uncle, so he can catch a train," I say, motioning to Bucky.
"That's your Uncle? He looks like a serial killer!" the driver says. Bucky facepalms.
"He hasn't killed anyone, don't worry- just get us to the train station," I say to the driver.
"Fine, but I'm charging extra for him," the driver says. We climb into the taxi and he speed off. The driver presses a button on his dashboard and a two-way mirror slides between the front and back seat. I sit back and enjoy the town speeding by.
"I am originally from America," Bucky says. I turn to him and raise my eyebrow in curiosity.
"Where?" I ask him.
"Brooklyn, but that was a really long time ago, longer than seventy years ago" he responds.
"You don't look that old," I say.
"You'd be surprised," he says, then Bucky sighs. "The serial killer thing, I actually have a history with stuff like that," He says timidly. Another heavy sigh makes the air in the cab feel like it was sinking. "Two-dozen confirmed political kills register to my name," he says. "And many more not confirmed, including the murder of Howard Stark," Bucky is close to tears, and so am I. He could have killed me- and who knows? He might kill me here, right now. Then the taxi driver so he wouldn't have to tell anybody, and then what? I'm sitting next to a killer, who, who... who is crying?
"They register to my name, but I didn't do it. Physically, yes, I killed them, but mentally I was screaming at myself to stop- I couldn't control what I did. Howard and I knew each other, and I had to kill him for no good reason other than to torture me," he sobs. "If the victim's ghosts came to haunt me for my wrongdoings, I guess they would find a shell of a man who is stuck inside his mind- trapped and controlled by the person he hates with all of his guts. Would they feel sorry for me and not haunt me? Or would they just get on with it? I didn't kill anyone, but that doesn't change the fact that I did."
I'm quiet, I want to be. I helped a killer- who could kill more people because of my actions. But there's humanity in his eyes, a person screaming to be let out. I ask myself this, who was he before he was twisted, broken, and mangled? I'll never know.
"We're here," the driver says, the two-way mirror slides away.
"I'll need a ride back too- stay here please," I tell him before I hastily get out. Bucky gets out slower than me, and has trouble opening the back with his left, gloved hand.
"Oh use your other hand Bucky!" I say. He tries one more time and his glove gets stuck in the handle, sliding off. His eyes go wide as he tries to hide his hand from the sun. Something glints off his hand, like metal. I walk over to the trunk and free the glove from the handle, offering it to him. He is starts to reach for the glove with his left hand, then stops. People are starting to stare.
"Can you get my backpack please?" He asks as nice as he can. I look around at the people staring.
"Sure Uncle Bucky," I say. Most people stop staring and continue to their train, others go back to their phones. I open the trunk and grab his backpack and offer it to him. Bucky still doesn't take it.
"I can't take it," he whispers to me. I narrow my eyes.
"Why?" I ask.
"It will expose me," he says. "you know the Winter Soldier?" I nod. "You know that his identity description includes a metal prosthetic arm, right?" I nod again. I'm not getting the hint, and Bucky is getting impatient.
"Well I'm an amputee..." he adds. I get the clue. I hold up the glove in question.
"Pocket," He says. I stuff it into his right pocket, and he nods. We walk to the ticket booth to get him one ticket to Bucharest. I do all the talking and I pay too. Bucky's train is scheduled to leave in about five minutes, so I hang around with him till he goes. We sit on one of the benches, while Bucky struggles to put on his glove under his jacket. Soon his hand emerges from his jacket, gloved.
"I'll pay you back," he tells me.
"You better," I say to him. We sit in silence for a little longer before I remember my notebook. I take it out and start ripping the used pages out and throwing them in the trash.
"What are you doing?" Bucky asks. I start writing my address in the back page. Then I hand him the leather notebook and pen.
"Its yours," I say to him. Bucky gingerly takes it.
"You sure? I can buy one in Bucharest," he says. I shake my head.
"Something to remember me by," I say. He smiles wide, this smile is not forced at all.
"Thank you... I don't even know your name," he says.
"I'm Maria," I respond.
"Maria... you look like a Maria," he says. I laugh a little and his train comes into the station. Bucky stands with his new notebook, ready for what he will encounter in Bucharest.
"Thank you Maria, I will never forget about you," He says to me. I smile.
"Thank you Bucky, for a great adventure," I tell him before he boards.
On the train, Bucky waves out the window at me, and I wave back. The boat landing will be more interesting now that I found one Stowaway, who knows, maybe there's more?
Bucharest, Romania, May 15th, 2016
Steve shuffled through the small flat. It was sad to see how his friend was rebuilding his life. On the top of the fridge, underneath two candy bars, was a leather notebook and pen with sticky-notes sticking out every which way. Steve opened it to one page to see a rough draft for a letter written in Romanian. Steve narrows his eyes at the letter, just barely being able to read it.
Dear Maria,
Thank you for the getaway in Constanta, I'm in Bucharest right now- living a somewhat normal life. Well as normal as I can make it with a metal arm! I'm joking, the glove works well for covering it up anyways. Hope you made it back to the dock OK, and I hope your parents didn't mind you being gone. Still haven't gotten that haircut, I'm afraid they'll ask me to remove my jacket for some reason. That's how it was like in the 40's anyways. No one does anything with class anymore. I'm assuming you looked me up in the "internet" when you got home, not pretty is it? Also, you should search for James Buchanan Barnes and Steve Rogers. You can guess which ones me, I'm not Captain America. But I did know him, Steve is a punk. Anyways, thank you for your help in Constanta, I'll never forget you.
-Bucky
Steve smiled, his old friend was still in the Winter Soldier somewhere. It can't be that Bucky bombed the meeting, it's impossible. Steve looked up and turned around.