Why is the black man always being torn apart by whites trying to help him? Lieutenant Crispus wondered silently.
How come the Jew’s always trapped in the middle? Ginzburg reflected to himself.
“American!”
“Russian!”
The two ranking officers were still pulling the naked man in opposite directions.
“Why don’t you flip a coin?” Professor Von Schweindrek suggested.
Both oflicers agreed. The captain produced a quarter. The admiral fished out a kopeck. They stared at each other stubbornly, each refusing to accept the other’s coin for flipping. Finally Von Schweindrek settled it by producing a German mark.
The captain, remembering that he was an officer and a gentleman, magnanimously allowed Admiral Churkov to flip the mark. “Heads!” he called as it soared upward. But the coin landed in a crack in the iceberg and fell through.
“Klutz!” The captain forgot that he was an officer and a gentleman. “Let me do it.” He accepted a second coin from Von Schweindrek and flipped it.
“Tails!” The Soviet admiral chose. But a gust of wind took the coin and it missed the iceberg entirely, fell into the water, and sank from sight.
“This is getting expensive,” Professor Von Schweindrek grumbled as he fished a third coin from his pocket. “Let him do it.” He handed the mark to Johann Relevant. Jonathan Relevant flipped the coin.
“Tails!” the Wartoy captain called.
“Heads!” the Glubtub admiral snapped.
All eyes followed the coin as it rose end over end in the air. All eyes followed it as it started its downward journey. Americans and Russians fell to their knees, the better to see it, as it landed. And then a sigh of disbelief and frustration rose from both sides.
The coin was standing on end!
CHAPTER TWO
The President’s hemorrhoids were the most carefully guarded secret in Washington. Only the most trusted members of his official family knew of the affliction. And, of necessity, his personal physician, the noted anal-ist Dr. Rex Talley, was privy to the discomforts of the President’s privy.
Only once had there been a near leak. It came at the end of one of the first press conferences held by the President after assuming office. A sudden spasm had left the Chief Executive standing on one foot and deaf to the last question asked of him. “The need for a B.M. is drastic!” the President blurted out as he bolted the assemblage and raced for the nearest White House john.
“PREZ SQUEEZES FOR ABM” was typical of the headlines which followed. Immediately a horde of government, military, and scientific “experts” chose up sides and started compiling data on the need for an anti-ballistic missile system. So much for the decision-making process at the highest level of the administration!
The decision-making process ran into another rectal difficulty in the case of Jonathan Relevant. When news of the iceberg impasse was relayed from the Wartoy to Point Barrow to the Pentagon to the White House, it caught the administration with its pants down. Literally. The situation had to be explained to Dr. Rex Talley, who then passed on the information to the President through the closed door of his personal water closet.
“Dynamite!” the Commander-in-Chief grunted.
“You want them to blow up the Russian sub?” Dr. Talley tried to interpret.
“No! No!” World War III was averted. “I mean these damn piles! If you were any kind of a doctor —”
“Now, now, Mr. President,” Dr. Talley soothed him. “You know how sensitive the AMA is. You wouldn’t want word of your antimedical attitude—”
“Sorry . . . confidential . . . not for release. . . .” the President strained. “No such thing as privacy around here!” The words came out in a gush. “Ahh! . . . A man can’t even”—choked off-—“without being interrupted!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President. But the Joint Chiefs insisted. They’re meeting with the Cabinet and waiting for your answer.”
“We can’t afford an incident now. Confidentially, we’re planning one for later in the year. A confrontation must be avoided at all costs. . . . Ooh! That hurt!”
“A confrontation must be avoided at all costs.”
The message was relayed from Washington to Point Barrow to the U.S. Wartoy. Meanwhile, aboard the U.S.S.R. Glubtub, similar instructions were being received from Moscow via Ambarchik. Like the White House, the Kremlin didn’t want a premature incident which might abort the surprise confrontation they were planning for later in the year.
The impasse remained an impasse. Neither side would relinquish its claim to Jonathan Relevant. Neither side would push so hard as to force the other to react strongly.
The Russians gave in to the extent of allowing the Americans to erect a pre-fab hut on the iceberg so that Jonathan Relevant might be shielded from the Arctic elements. The Americans in turn let the Russians furnish the hut and supply clothing. A schedule was worked out by which they took turns feeding and interviewing him.
The interviews were spaced out so that Jonathan Relevant had some time to himself. He needed it. He had to be alone to work things out. Jonathan Relevant had this identity crisis.
“Who are you?” Jonathan Relevant asked Jonathan Relevant.
“Jonathan Relevant,” Jonathan Relevant replied.
Why not? It was as good a name as any. “What are you?” was a much harder question. And “Why are you?” was the most difficult of all.
Amnesia? No. Jonathan Relevant wasn’t sure how he knew he didn’t have amnesia. He just knew it.
It seemed as if he just knew a lot of things. “But do I remember them?” he asked himself. Did he remember the discovery of fire? The Punic Wars? The development of Euclidian geometry? The journey with Columbus? Madame Pompadour? Hiroshima? “Or do I just remember reading about them?"
“Neither,” he decided. He just knew! . . . Everything . . . perhaps . . .
Except about himself. He didn’t know about himself. Only that he was a man.
“But am I a thin man, or a fat man?” he wondered. “Am I black, or white? Russian, or American? T all, or short?”
He’d been provided with a full-length mirror, and now he_ posed in front of it. Nothing! No image! “That’s going to make it pretty damn hard to shave!” Jonathan Relevant grumbled to himself.
He tried looking at his body directly. But his eyes wouldn’t cooperate. They seemed to fog over. It was as if he was peering through a constantly changing series of prisms, each distortion blending into the next. His skin was white and black and brown and red and yellow. His body was long and squat and skinny and pudgy and muscular and flabby. Even his big toe evaded description. This little piggy went the route from baby soft to aged gnarl.
“All I know about my body for sure is that my ass is cold!” concluded Jonathan Relevant.
Maybe that was a clue. If his eyes wouldn’t define him, then perhaps his sense of touch would. He pinched himself.
“Ouch!” '
So he could feel pain. And cold. And probably other sensations as well. He poked himself in the stomach. It felt hard. He did it again. It felt soft. He touched his chest. It was hairy. Again. His chest was hairless. He grasped his upper arm. It was muscular. His fingers circled it again. It was pitifully bony.
“Among other things,” Jonathan Relevant summed up ruefully, “I’m a very fat and powerful ninety-pound weakling.
"I wonder how I smell.”
He sniffed. Odorless. “Maybe I caught a cold on that iceberg.”