The next morning, I woke up. Quinn and the others were not waiting for me, much to my disappointment. I went down to St. Patrick's Hospital, which provided my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I had my box of corn flakes and a glass of orange juice and a slice of white bread. One of the nurses told me that Dr. Hennessey will be doing the night shift. It was Christmas Eve, and many of the doctors and nurses will have Christmas off, while others will be on Christmas duty to provide emergency medical care. I, being only the guy who cleans the floors and toilets and stuff, will get Christmas off. If only I had someone to spend Christmas with.
Christmas had often been a lonely time for me, since I did not have a family most of my life. The only Christmas greeting I got wasa card from my Uncle Mac who lived in Portland, Oregon. Come to think of it, Quinn's version of Uncle Mac also lived in Portland.
Last year was the best Christmas I had in my life. Quinn and I even went to the local version of our parents' house on Christmas Eve, incognito of course, since we did not want to complicate the lives of our duplicates. We had contacted the local version of Quinn in order to get his help on finding a way around the slidecage, but he never worked with wormholes or parallel universes. So we just decided to celebrate Christmas. We all went to Mass, with Father Vincent Feretti presiding. We all heard the Gospel account of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, a story I never got tired of, a storey that kept hope alive for me through troubling times.
And Jesus was watching over me since I became unstuck.
I went on to do my duties of vacuuming carpets and sweeping floors and mopping floors and cleaning toilets and washing dishes and taking out the trash. It sure kept me busy for hours. I worked four hours steaight before I got a break.
I went to the break room for fifteen minutes. There were some English-language magazines lying on a wooden table. I read a news magazines. I read that one third of the Irish lived below the poverty level, and that almost half of the nation's prison population was Irish. More Irish men were in prison than in college. Of course, these magazines were biased towards the Irish, given that it was written by Irish authors for Irish readers, so I should exercise some skepticism.
"Hello there," a female voice said. I looked and I saw Heather, whom I met at the bar last night.
"Don't you have school to teach?" I asked.
"School's out until next year, silly," she said. "Ye told me ye were workin' in the hospital."
"Well, I don't have much time," I said, "but I appreciate you coming here to visit me."
"Well, Colin, I came here 'cause I'd like to spend more time with ye. Maybe we could go for a walk after yer done here?"
"Wait. Heather, I'll be leaving on the twenty-seventh and I might not come back. I don't want to break your heart."
"Well, if ye are leavin', then we might as well make the most of it, dontya think?"
She had a point.
So that's what I did. We went for a walk in a park near the neighborhood the people of the city refer to as Little Dublin. It was a huge park, with grass and trees and ponds and concrete pathways. There were community centers and stuff. Drinking water was provided by drinking fountains, some reserved for Negroes. I saw some people sitting on benches, eating sandwiches and chips. The day was a little chilly, though the jacket I was wearing helped.
"So ye won't be with yer family tomorrow," said Heather.
"Yes," I replied. "It's a bit complicated."
"Well, there is a neighborhood tradition that we all gather in the Irisher during the day. Maybe ye won't be with yer family, but ye can be with us. And I'm sure yer brother'll be thinkin' of ya."
"Do you like horseback riding?" I asked.
"I did that once when I was a little girl. Me mother took me to a horse ranch in the foothills to the east. I still remember."
"I grew up around horses," I said. "I once worked in a stable in El Segundo. I remember riding horses with my brother Quinn in the Lake Tahoe basin last year."
"Lake Tahoe?"
"I guess you never heard of it."
We continued walking for a few minutes. A man on a bicycle just rode by.
"I remember when I went to a fun park near the docks this summer," said Heather. "I was there with Michelle an' Kathleen."
"They allowed Irish in?" I asked.
"There are a lot of Irish in the city; the park owners dinnae want to exclude us. A quarter of the park patrons are Irish, and the profit margins are eleven percent. Ye can do math, right?"
"Yeah."
"So tell me, why do ye have to be leavin' after Christmas. Why not stay? I can recommend ye for a job at the school. Ye won;t be paid as much as me, but ye can probably get some new clothes and stuff."
"You won't believe this, but there is a reason I can not stay."
So I told her about my situation, and my travels through parallel universes.
"Yer a very creative person," said Heather. "Still, 'tis an interestin' concept. Maybe we can make it into a picture tube show."
"Now you know why I like history. I've read so many versions of it, and comparing different versions of history for the same planet-or the same person-gives me an idea about where we're headed."
"Colin, are there worlds where we dinnae have to wear green shamrocks or drink at certain water fountains or live in certain neighborhoods on account of being Irish?"
"Yes, there is. Of course, in my experience, ethnic discrimination is the rule, rather than the exception. I once read about this man named Martin Luther King. Apparently, the version of him that I read about lived in a world where Negroes are treated the way the Irish are treated here. He publicly spoke out against it, organized boycotts. He even got arrested a few times. He earned the respect of people both Negro and white, and convinced them that equal treatment under the law should be the rule. He had the courage to change things, and he did."
"Amazin' story," said Heather. "Ya know, there are a few people, like our own Father Flannigan, who publicly speaks out against these ethnic control laws. He's been arrested a few times for refusing to wear his shamrock. Ya know, it just occurred to me. The niggers never arrested anyone simply for speaking out against their laws, an' most people arrested for not wearin' a patch only get probation. In Ireland, anyone who speaks out against the government is killed. It's sometimes easy to forget how lucky the Irish in this country is."
"But you still oppose the laws making you wear the shamrocks and keeping you from living in certain neghborhoods."
"Of course."
"Let me say this, Heather. A few courageous people can make a difference. And that is something I observed on many versions of Earth. And we could start by not calling those people niggers?"
"What?"
"I noticed that you and the others refer to Negroes as niggers. It's a degrading term."
"So? Ye should hear what they call us."
I looked towards the street that forms the boundary of the park, and I was looking at the intersection with the main street going through Little Dublin.
And then I saw it. A delivery truck coming from Little Dublin strikes a bicycle.
Heather and I both ran to the site of the collision. We both saw this Negro man in sweats, lying down onn the asphalt of the street.
The truck driver came out; he too was a Negro. He said something in the native language. heather spoke to him in that native language.
"What are we doing?" I asked. "Is he still alive?"
"We're gonna get an ambulance for this man," said Heather. "He's badly hurt."
"St. Patrick's is just a block down this street; we can use the truck to get him there."
"That's an Irish hospital."
"It's also the closest hospital from here. It has an emergency room. Please, Heather."
Heather spoke to the truck driver, and he agreed to take the injured man to St. Patrick's, for a minute later we were at the front of the hpospital, courtesy of the truck driver.
Heather and I took the man to the emergency room.
"What is he doin' here?" yelled Dr. Hennessey as soon as he saw us bring the injured Negro inside.
"He needs help," I said. "He was struck by a truck."
"So take 'im to a nigger hospital. I'll call the ambulance."
"There's a hospital right here," I said.
"The niggers would never treat us in their hospitals; why should we treat 'em in ours?"
"Because he's hurt," said Heather. "He could die."
"Please, sir," I asked.
"Okay, we'll take care of 'im," said Hennessey. He and some nurses and doctors took the injured man into the emergency room.
The two of us waited. The truck driver was on the phone, probably talking to his boss.
"This is why I was here," I said.
"What do ya mean?" asked Heather.
"Well, sometimes I go to certain worlds for a reason. I came here to get medical help for that man at the nearest hospital. God is guiding my journey thrpough parallel worlds."
It was hours later when Dr. Hennessey came out of the emergecy. "He'll be all right," he said. "He just had a few fractures; he's in no immediate danger. Ye were right ta bring 'im here, Colin."
"Well, I try to do the right thing," I said.
"Well, I guess I should make my report so his people can continue the treatment. And I should make a report to the truck's insurer."
Then, this Negro lady came inside. She spoke to Dr. Hennessey.
"That's the man's wife," said Heather. The lady then spoke to us; apparently she weas thanking us.
"Someday, people will look upon this event as a turning point," I said.
There were also some police on the scene; the detective who interviewed me was the same guy who interrogated me after my arrest. I gave a brief description of what I saw and heard.
"Just don't cause any trouble, Irish," he said before going back to the police station.
Later that day, I went to the Irisher bar to spend some money on beer. I could not very well open a savings account on account that I would not be able to take this money with me. I sat at the bar, next to a yellow-starred Jew.
"I heard ye brought a nigger to the hospital," said the bartender Michael Mulligan.
"Uh, yeah," I said. "St. Patrick's was the nearest hospital. I think he'll be all right."
"Where will ye be spendin' Christmas, laddie?"
"Here," I said. "I won't be able to get to my family this year."
"Well, we always hold a Christmas celebration here at the Irisher after the mornin' Mass and before everyone spends dinner with their families."
"I'd like to be here."
"Excuse me, sir," a male voice said. I turned and say a man in a suit. "I'm from the Little Dublin Press, I'd like yer statement about the truck accident."
"Sure," I said. So I gave him my statement.
I woke up Christmas Day. I had my meal at St. Patrick's Hospital, and I greeted the Christmas Day Shift workers. I looked at myself in the mirror; I wished I had better clothes to attend Christmas Mass.
So we went to the Our Lady of Hope Church just two blocks from the hospital. I sat near Heather and her family. I also saw Dr. Hennessey, some of the hospital staff and the Irisher patrons. This service would be spoken in English.
And so Father Flannigan, an active man in his early sixties, started the service. I heard about the Gospel account of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first Christmas present that came straight from God. I never got tired of hearing this story, even if this version was different from the one I gew up with. The priest mentioned my act of charity during the Homily.
"Someone in our community gave medical aid to an injured man. It dinna matter that the man wasn't Irish, for under Christ we are all brothers," he said.
And then we continued with the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Holy Communion. We all sang Gospel Hymns. Then the Mass was finished.
I greeted the congregants a merry Christmas. I noticed that this was a tight-knit community within a large city, where everyone knew each other. It is amazing that such a positive effect can occur from the ethnic control laws which required the Irish to reside in this section of the city.
I took a copy of an English-language community newspaper called the Little Dublin Press. I read a story of the delivery truck's collision with a bicycle on Chritmas Eve, and how two Irish people took the injured Negro to an Irish hospital where he was treated and released. There was also a statement from an attorney of the delivery company announcing settlement negotiations with the injured man. The story was favorable to me and Heather.
The daytime Christmas party was at the Irisher tavern. A Christmas tree was lit up, and mistletoes were hanging about.
"Merry Christmas," I said to Michael Mulligan.
"Merry Christmas to you too," replied the bartender.
I mingled among the crowd, speaking to Heather, Michelle, and Kathleen, and some of the doctors and staff from St. Patrick's Hospital.
Father Flannigan then took the stage.
"Hello, everyone," he said. "I've been inspired by the act pof charity and courage yesterday, when three people chose to do what is right despite the ethnic control laws. Now I invute ye all to take a stand for justice and equal treatment under th' law."
I heard the priest's proposal. It reminded me of incidents on other worlds, where like-minded people took a stand to affect change.
The Irisher closed at 2 P.M., on account of it being Christmas day. I decided to greet Heather goodbye.
"This is for ye, Colin," she said, handing me a carved stick. "Tis an artifact picked up from the Pauite reservation east of here. I'd like ye to have it."
"Thanks, Heather," i replied. "Merry Christmas."
And then we kissed.
Christmas had often been a lonely time for me, since I did not have a family most of my life. The only Christmas greeting I got wasa card from my Uncle Mac who lived in Portland, Oregon. Come to think of it, Quinn's version of Uncle Mac also lived in Portland.
Last year was the best Christmas I had in my life. Quinn and I even went to the local version of our parents' house on Christmas Eve, incognito of course, since we did not want to complicate the lives of our duplicates. We had contacted the local version of Quinn in order to get his help on finding a way around the slidecage, but he never worked with wormholes or parallel universes. So we just decided to celebrate Christmas. We all went to Mass, with Father Vincent Feretti presiding. We all heard the Gospel account of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, a story I never got tired of, a storey that kept hope alive for me through troubling times.
And Jesus was watching over me since I became unstuck.
I went on to do my duties of vacuuming carpets and sweeping floors and mopping floors and cleaning toilets and washing dishes and taking out the trash. It sure kept me busy for hours. I worked four hours steaight before I got a break.
I went to the break room for fifteen minutes. There were some English-language magazines lying on a wooden table. I read a news magazines. I read that one third of the Irish lived below the poverty level, and that almost half of the nation's prison population was Irish. More Irish men were in prison than in college. Of course, these magazines were biased towards the Irish, given that it was written by Irish authors for Irish readers, so I should exercise some skepticism.
"Hello there," a female voice said. I looked and I saw Heather, whom I met at the bar last night.
"Don't you have school to teach?" I asked.
"School's out until next year, silly," she said. "Ye told me ye were workin' in the hospital."
"Well, I don't have much time," I said, "but I appreciate you coming here to visit me."
"Well, Colin, I came here 'cause I'd like to spend more time with ye. Maybe we could go for a walk after yer done here?"
"Wait. Heather, I'll be leaving on the twenty-seventh and I might not come back. I don't want to break your heart."
"Well, if ye are leavin', then we might as well make the most of it, dontya think?"
She had a point.
So that's what I did. We went for a walk in a park near the neighborhood the people of the city refer to as Little Dublin. It was a huge park, with grass and trees and ponds and concrete pathways. There were community centers and stuff. Drinking water was provided by drinking fountains, some reserved for Negroes. I saw some people sitting on benches, eating sandwiches and chips. The day was a little chilly, though the jacket I was wearing helped.
"So ye won't be with yer family tomorrow," said Heather.
"Yes," I replied. "It's a bit complicated."
"Well, there is a neighborhood tradition that we all gather in the Irisher during the day. Maybe ye won't be with yer family, but ye can be with us. And I'm sure yer brother'll be thinkin' of ya."
"Do you like horseback riding?" I asked.
"I did that once when I was a little girl. Me mother took me to a horse ranch in the foothills to the east. I still remember."
"I grew up around horses," I said. "I once worked in a stable in El Segundo. I remember riding horses with my brother Quinn in the Lake Tahoe basin last year."
"Lake Tahoe?"
"I guess you never heard of it."
We continued walking for a few minutes. A man on a bicycle just rode by.
"I remember when I went to a fun park near the docks this summer," said Heather. "I was there with Michelle an' Kathleen."
"They allowed Irish in?" I asked.
"There are a lot of Irish in the city; the park owners dinnae want to exclude us. A quarter of the park patrons are Irish, and the profit margins are eleven percent. Ye can do math, right?"
"Yeah."
"So tell me, why do ye have to be leavin' after Christmas. Why not stay? I can recommend ye for a job at the school. Ye won;t be paid as much as me, but ye can probably get some new clothes and stuff."
"You won't believe this, but there is a reason I can not stay."
So I told her about my situation, and my travels through parallel universes.
"Yer a very creative person," said Heather. "Still, 'tis an interestin' concept. Maybe we can make it into a picture tube show."
"Now you know why I like history. I've read so many versions of it, and comparing different versions of history for the same planet-or the same person-gives me an idea about where we're headed."
"Colin, are there worlds where we dinnae have to wear green shamrocks or drink at certain water fountains or live in certain neighborhoods on account of being Irish?"
"Yes, there is. Of course, in my experience, ethnic discrimination is the rule, rather than the exception. I once read about this man named Martin Luther King. Apparently, the version of him that I read about lived in a world where Negroes are treated the way the Irish are treated here. He publicly spoke out against it, organized boycotts. He even got arrested a few times. He earned the respect of people both Negro and white, and convinced them that equal treatment under the law should be the rule. He had the courage to change things, and he did."
"Amazin' story," said Heather. "Ya know, there are a few people, like our own Father Flannigan, who publicly speaks out against these ethnic control laws. He's been arrested a few times for refusing to wear his shamrock. Ya know, it just occurred to me. The niggers never arrested anyone simply for speaking out against their laws, an' most people arrested for not wearin' a patch only get probation. In Ireland, anyone who speaks out against the government is killed. It's sometimes easy to forget how lucky the Irish in this country is."
"But you still oppose the laws making you wear the shamrocks and keeping you from living in certain neghborhoods."
"Of course."
"Let me say this, Heather. A few courageous people can make a difference. And that is something I observed on many versions of Earth. And we could start by not calling those people niggers?"
"What?"
"I noticed that you and the others refer to Negroes as niggers. It's a degrading term."
"So? Ye should hear what they call us."
I looked towards the street that forms the boundary of the park, and I was looking at the intersection with the main street going through Little Dublin.
And then I saw it. A delivery truck coming from Little Dublin strikes a bicycle.
Heather and I both ran to the site of the collision. We both saw this Negro man in sweats, lying down onn the asphalt of the street.
The truck driver came out; he too was a Negro. He said something in the native language. heather spoke to him in that native language.
"What are we doing?" I asked. "Is he still alive?"
"We're gonna get an ambulance for this man," said Heather. "He's badly hurt."
"St. Patrick's is just a block down this street; we can use the truck to get him there."
"That's an Irish hospital."
"It's also the closest hospital from here. It has an emergency room. Please, Heather."
Heather spoke to the truck driver, and he agreed to take the injured man to St. Patrick's, for a minute later we were at the front of the hpospital, courtesy of the truck driver.
Heather and I took the man to the emergency room.
"What is he doin' here?" yelled Dr. Hennessey as soon as he saw us bring the injured Negro inside.
"He needs help," I said. "He was struck by a truck."
"So take 'im to a nigger hospital. I'll call the ambulance."
"There's a hospital right here," I said.
"The niggers would never treat us in their hospitals; why should we treat 'em in ours?"
"Because he's hurt," said Heather. "He could die."
"Please, sir," I asked.
"Okay, we'll take care of 'im," said Hennessey. He and some nurses and doctors took the injured man into the emergency room.
The two of us waited. The truck driver was on the phone, probably talking to his boss.
"This is why I was here," I said.
"What do ya mean?" asked Heather.
"Well, sometimes I go to certain worlds for a reason. I came here to get medical help for that man at the nearest hospital. God is guiding my journey thrpough parallel worlds."
It was hours later when Dr. Hennessey came out of the emergecy. "He'll be all right," he said. "He just had a few fractures; he's in no immediate danger. Ye were right ta bring 'im here, Colin."
"Well, I try to do the right thing," I said.
"Well, I guess I should make my report so his people can continue the treatment. And I should make a report to the truck's insurer."
Then, this Negro lady came inside. She spoke to Dr. Hennessey.
"That's the man's wife," said Heather. The lady then spoke to us; apparently she weas thanking us.
"Someday, people will look upon this event as a turning point," I said.
There were also some police on the scene; the detective who interviewed me was the same guy who interrogated me after my arrest. I gave a brief description of what I saw and heard.
"Just don't cause any trouble, Irish," he said before going back to the police station.
Later that day, I went to the Irisher bar to spend some money on beer. I could not very well open a savings account on account that I would not be able to take this money with me. I sat at the bar, next to a yellow-starred Jew.
"I heard ye brought a nigger to the hospital," said the bartender Michael Mulligan.
"Uh, yeah," I said. "St. Patrick's was the nearest hospital. I think he'll be all right."
"Where will ye be spendin' Christmas, laddie?"
"Here," I said. "I won't be able to get to my family this year."
"Well, we always hold a Christmas celebration here at the Irisher after the mornin' Mass and before everyone spends dinner with their families."
"I'd like to be here."
"Excuse me, sir," a male voice said. I turned and say a man in a suit. "I'm from the Little Dublin Press, I'd like yer statement about the truck accident."
"Sure," I said. So I gave him my statement.
I woke up Christmas Day. I had my meal at St. Patrick's Hospital, and I greeted the Christmas Day Shift workers. I looked at myself in the mirror; I wished I had better clothes to attend Christmas Mass.
So we went to the Our Lady of Hope Church just two blocks from the hospital. I sat near Heather and her family. I also saw Dr. Hennessey, some of the hospital staff and the Irisher patrons. This service would be spoken in English.
And so Father Flannigan, an active man in his early sixties, started the service. I heard about the Gospel account of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the first Christmas present that came straight from God. I never got tired of hearing this story, even if this version was different from the one I gew up with. The priest mentioned my act of charity during the Homily.
"Someone in our community gave medical aid to an injured man. It dinna matter that the man wasn't Irish, for under Christ we are all brothers," he said.
And then we continued with the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the Holy Communion. We all sang Gospel Hymns. Then the Mass was finished.
I greeted the congregants a merry Christmas. I noticed that this was a tight-knit community within a large city, where everyone knew each other. It is amazing that such a positive effect can occur from the ethnic control laws which required the Irish to reside in this section of the city.
I took a copy of an English-language community newspaper called the Little Dublin Press. I read a story of the delivery truck's collision with a bicycle on Chritmas Eve, and how two Irish people took the injured Negro to an Irish hospital where he was treated and released. There was also a statement from an attorney of the delivery company announcing settlement negotiations with the injured man. The story was favorable to me and Heather.
The daytime Christmas party was at the Irisher tavern. A Christmas tree was lit up, and mistletoes were hanging about.
"Merry Christmas," I said to Michael Mulligan.
"Merry Christmas to you too," replied the bartender.
I mingled among the crowd, speaking to Heather, Michelle, and Kathleen, and some of the doctors and staff from St. Patrick's Hospital.
Father Flannigan then took the stage.
"Hello, everyone," he said. "I've been inspired by the act pof charity and courage yesterday, when three people chose to do what is right despite the ethnic control laws. Now I invute ye all to take a stand for justice and equal treatment under th' law."
I heard the priest's proposal. It reminded me of incidents on other worlds, where like-minded people took a stand to affect change.
The Irisher closed at 2 P.M., on account of it being Christmas day. I decided to greet Heather goodbye.
"This is for ye, Colin," she said, handing me a carved stick. "Tis an artifact picked up from the Pauite reservation east of here. I'd like ye to have it."
"Thanks, Heather," i replied. "Merry Christmas."
And then we kissed.