Boys Days

Although it was supposed to be early morning, it was pitch black and there were only a few street lamps illuminating the center of the street. It might take a few days for Scully to get used to the constant darkness and she had to check her watch again to confirm it was a sociable hour to make a house-call. She wore a light parka given to her by a most-insistent Mrs. Chang from the guest-house and a head-scarf of some fashionable material.

Scully knocked. There was no answer for several minutes. She muttered under her breath, "How many callers do you get, Mr. Kovelski?" She could imagine Mulder smirking, "I told you to call ahead."

After a few further minutes of waiting, the door was opened. An ordinary elderly gentleman answered, his eyes blinking behind his giant prescription lenses. "Who's that?" he asked. "Do you know what time it is?"

Scully nodded. "It's difficult to work out what time it really is. I'm sorry. I thought you might have finished your breakfast."

"What do you want? Are you wanting breakfast? I told Mrs. Chang to stop sending me people. I'm too busy."

"I'm sorry," said Scully again. "I'm a Federal Agent from Washington DC. This is really a bit of a sabbatical for me. Just gathering some background on the area. A friend said you knew a lot of the history of the town, and of the lake."

"Ah," he sighed. He was a bit deflated. "Come in. History indeed."

"I like your walls," said Scully. The narrow hall led into a long living-space, a little kitchen at one end. Each wall had several large panels fixed onto it. They appeared to be made of wood, near-perfectly square and painted yellow.

"Acrylics," he said. "Gives a more even finish to the coloring. Doctors tried to sell me plastic lighting, said yellow bulbs would make me happy. Ha. This makes me happier."

"Oh, you have a medical condition? I heard about that. The onset of winter brings on the winter blues."

"Well, nowadays, everyone has to have a condition. Seasonal Affective Disorder. You can't just be depressed about it getting dark any more."

"And there was no chance of moving?" she asked sympathetically. "Further south, I mean. The daylight shift must be more temperate nearer the border?"

"To be fair, young lady, Ms. Scully, it's the decline in the light levels that brings on the disorder, so you can get the winter blues in Florida. It's your sub-conscious that notices the change in the length of the day." He chuckled to himself, like he didn't care one way or another. "I have some freshly baked bread if you'd like something to eat? "he offered.

"That does smell lovely. But, no thank-you. I won't take up too much of your time. Just a few background questions."

Kovelski turned to look back over his shoulder. "Really. I'm not going any where, not doing any thing. Take as long as you like." He cut two clumsy thick slices from the loaf and reached for the dish that contained the butter. "It's about the monster, isn't it?" he asked.

Scully stood in the doorway, and nodded coolly. "Yes. I suppose you get asked about that a lot," she said sympathetically.

Kovelski turned back slightly from buttering the bread. "Not a lot of people talk to me, Agent Scully. I'm just an ordinary old man to most of them. But the one's who walk up to me are always going to ask about the monster. It's a bit like being Neil Armstrong really. Everyone thinks it must be great, but no-one is really having a conversation with you. Or, at the very least, you can't really know."

"Fame has its drawbacks," said Scully.

Kovelski poured a large cup of coffee from the machine on the worktop. "Coffee?" he asked, proffering the steaming jug.

Scully felt herself pursing her lips. "That would be great," she conceded. Having slept badly at Mrs. Chang's guest-house, she had been keen to be up and about in the morning and had skipped breakfast of any kind.

After the second cup of coffee, Scully had explained how wonderful the trip from Albany to Lake Peary had been and given a vague explanation of the reason for her, and her colleague, traveling this far North.

"So, I heard you were quite famous for a few weeks," she began.

"Famous? It's hard to think of it in those terms." He looked genuinely hurt. "You know that Walter Stone died, right? Drowned in the lake.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I was being flippant." Scully realized that she had apologized too much in the previous half-hour and decided just to listen for a bit. "Tell me about that day."

Kovelski sat down in a large comfy armchair, placed his coffee and buttered bread on the coffee-table in front of him. Scully refused the offer to sit.

"Walter and I were best friends. Thought alike. A bit like twins. Quite like brothers." A sip of coffee. "We decided to go down to the lake with my uncle's movie camera, one of those eight millimetre things. I didn't ask permission. I didn't think he'd mind, but I didn't really think much of it." A bite of the bread. "Just took the camera."

"Where did you go with the camera? Which bit of the lake?"

"Not far from here. Just behind the airfield, if that's where you came in. There was nothing there in those days. Just piles of lumber." Kovelski stood up, wiping his mouth. "Wait a minute."

Scully frowned. Maybe she had upset Kovelski asking about the death of his childhood friend? Kovelski disappeared back into the hall and could be heard rummaging in a small closet.

"You know, maybe I could call back later, Mr Kovelski?" she called after him. "I can see this is a bad time."

Kovelski appeared back at the door, holding a surprisingly small film projector in one hand and some small, dusty film reels in the other. "How about we start by watching the real thing, and take it from there?"