Chapter Two Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Two
9th May 1979
Krakow, Galicia-Ruthenia
Teo was running late as he ran through Krakow’s old town. The President of Jagiellonian University had told him of the importance of his presence today as the new Mathematics and Computer Sciences Center was being dedicated today by the Queen and the Royal Consort of Galicia-Ruthenia. As a Professor of Applied Mathematics and one of the youngest men to ever to earn a Professorship at the Jagiellonian, Teo was a key player in this project.
When Marie Cecilie had assumed the role of Queen, she had promised the people of Krakow that the city would reassume its role as a center of learning and enlightenment. After decades of neglect in favor of Warsaw and war, Krakow’s institutions were threadbare. For Teo, it was in keeping with what he had been doing for most of his life. His parents had returned to the nation of their birth after decades living elsewhere just after the Soviet War to help rebuild, they happened to settle in Southern Poland, what would eventually become the Galicia-Ruthenia by happenstance. Teo had grown up during that heady era of wild talk and debate. Revolution and separation from the Warsaw Government had been on everyone’s lips.
Teo had been in the Main Market Square in the center of the city on the 7th of August 1966 when the Polish Army had fired into the crowd during that first doomed the attempt to separate from Poland. Fortunately, Teo had not been among the dozens who had been hurt or killed that bloody evening, but he had the experience forever burned into his memory. The sound of bullets hitting bodies, the crowd panicking, the crush of people as they tried to flee from the soldiers. There was talk of erecting a memorial in the Square, but there was no consensus as to what it should look like. Among the dead were members of every ethnic group that made up the fabric of Krakow. Regardless of what the Polish Nationalists had to say Poles, Ruthenians, Germans, Jews, and Gypsies had all bled just the same.
When the war had started, Teo had found himself a Hauptmann in what became the Galician Landwehr Division much to his surprise and his parent’s horror leading a Company comprised young men who had been his students only a few weeks earlier. When General Bauer had addressed them, he had said that their freedom depended on every single man fighting like ten. There were no exceptions. The first days were a nightmare with them getting slowly pushed back towards Krakow, then the Bohemian Corps had arrived… Teo never forgot his Company’s arrival in Warsaw in the wake of the German 2nd Army. There really had been the feeling that justice had been served.
Rounding a corner, Teo saw the new brick building that housed the Mathematics and Computer Sciences Center. Most people were shocked by how vast it was, it was his understanding that there was some question as to whether it was large enough. It was theorized that in the coming decades, computers would revolutionize every aspect of life and the Jagiellonian was a key Research University, so they would be shaping what that look like. For Teo, it meant that the future was very exciting indeed.
Los Angeles, California
“Wah’s up Stevie?” Stanley asked without really expecting an answer as he opened the garage door, revealing the immaculate space within. Dad said that Stanley’s mother was totally anal, whatever that meant, and how he couldn’t figure out how Stanley had become such a slob. Stevie had hidden by the gate to the side yard of his house not wanting to be bothered by his parents, grandma who was visiting today, but most of all by his little sister Kristie. The space right in front of the gate was not visible from any part of the house. What Stevie had not considered was that he was in full view of anyone passing by or by Stanley who was pulling a trashcan out of his garage and dragging it out to the curb with the horrendous sound of galvanized steel scraping on concrete.
“Mom and Dad told me that I am getting a new brother or sister around Thanksgiving” Stevie replied, “Grandma Concha says that it is a gift from Jesus.”
Stanley just shrugged, “You’ve met my kid sister” he said, “That doesn’t seem too bad.”
Stevie had seen Stanley’s half-sister Maddie around. He had also heard Uncle Bobby had joked that the ex-husband of Stanley’s mother was what was officially referred to as an OTM, Other Than Mexican, again, whatever that meant. Stevie had been told not to ask exactly what Maddie was though, it would be incredibly rude. And Stevie’s mother had said that he would be grounded for the entire summer if he ever so much as thought about making that mistake. Maddie was nine though while Stanley was eighteen, so they were never in each other’s space the way that Stevie and Kristie always seemed to be. The new baby would just take up more of Stevie’s space.
With that, Stanley closed the garage door and walked towards the front door of his house. Steve had always thought that Stanley was the epitome of cool, but what that meant in practice was that most of the time Stevie was beneath his notice.