I Have a Cousin
By Rob Morris
PRIVATE JOURNAL, DOCTOR DAVID MARCUS, ONE WEEK BEFORE BOARDING USS GRISSOM
I have a cousin.
Jim--Dad--was just talking, and then said to me something about salt-water fishing with someone named Peter. I asked the obvious question. That's when it hit me.
It's a pretty simple thing, really. Everyone has cousins, though not first cousins. He's a scientist, heavy into exobiology, in his late 20's, with a chip on his shoulder--sometimes. He even won a prize for a multi-disciplinary thesis speculating on the origins of the various shapeshifters seen here and there, in science and legend. Is that eerie enough?
But who he is, what he does, or what kind of person this guy is just strikes me as totally irrelevant. He could be a gardener at The Academy. He could be a super-hero. He could be the next great Captain, like Dad. He could secretly be Jim's son, or have suffered a psychotic episode, and have been put away in Tantalus. He could have been a she. And none of that matters, in and of itself. The fact is--I have a cousin.
My cousin had two older brothers, before they changed their names to avoid various forms of harassment. My cousin had a grandmother, who spoiled him till he asserted himself. He had--my grandmother. Those guys who changed their names are my other cousins. I had a grandfather that no one talks about in his own family. This Peter might have been able to explain why, or at least make it more clear to me why George, Senior, is so hush-hush. He might still, but it should have been old news to me by now.
My cousin lived with my grandmother on a farm that I could have visited. My cousin's girlfriend could have liked me, hated me, or introduced me to her cousin.
Mom didn't want me flying off into space with my father. My cousin could have told her that, from ages 7-15, his petitions to live aboard Enterprise were summarily denied--by guess-who? Let's see---I'm 26 now, and would have graduated the Academy about five years ago, had I gone. No rookie nowadays gets Enterprise right off, so...Mom, even under the most ideal of circumstances, I might just now be flying off with Dad. Yes, Fleet life is dangerous. I don't know that I'd ever want it. But as seven dead Deltans could tell you, Nebula One was no safe-house.
Uncle Henry called, a man I hadn't seen since Mom and Jim broke up when I was little. Said that he and his niece--my Mom--had suffered a disagreement, back when, which had just been resolved. Heh. Uncle Hank was known for his bluntness. Did he want you to tell me the truth, Mom? If I really think hard, I can remember lots of talkative relations on your side that we avoided, seemingly for no reason.
Obviously, I want to take her point of view. She's my Mom. But now I wonder how I would feel if an ex-girlfriend told me to go away while having my child. I'm not a bum. Jim sure isn't, else she would never have defended him to me. So why am I just now finding out about this cousin, who is merely the tip of the family iceberg?
I could make so many arguments in her favor, everyone of them wholly valid and unstrained. But in my rising anger, I look at how men who impregnate women and just walk away are rightly considered low-lives, and can't help seeing this situation as a form of inverse. Is this unfair of me? Hell, yes. But this is my first say in this matter. And I will have a say in this matter, even if I have to do the impossible and win over Mom in a shouting match.
So, today, I will arrange to have lunch with my cousin and then dinner with my Mom. Carol Marcus had better pray hard that Peter Kirk comes across to me as a complete and utter asshole.
Because if he doesn't, then Mom? I think I might just win that shouting match, costs be damned.
I have a cousin.
