He didn’t see Hal.  Lunch hour was still a while off but already seats were becoming scarce around the square.  Then Dan spotted someone waving from a long bench in the sunny section on the Avenue A side.

No wonder I couldn’t spot him, Dan thought as he approached Hal’s bench.  He’s got a tan.

As usual, Hal was nattily dressed in a dark blue blazer, gray slacks, a pale blue Oxford button-down shirt, and a red-and-blue paisley tie.  But his customary academician’s pallor had been toasted to a golden brown.  His nude scalp gleamed with a richer color.  He looked healthier and better rested than Dan had ever seen him.

“The Middle East seems to agree with you,” Dan said, laughing as they shook hands.  He sat down next to him.  “I can’t remember ever seeing you looking so fit.”

“Believe me, Fitz, getting away for a year and recharging the batteries does wonders for the mind and body.  I heartily recommend it.”  He looked around.  “You came alone?”

“Of course.  Who else would I bring?”

Dan knew perfectly well who Hal was looking for.

“I don’t know.  I thought, well, maybe Sister Carrie might come along.”

“No.  She’s back at St. Joe’s, working.  You’ll have to come by if you want to see her.”

“Maybe I will.  Been a long time since I stopped in.”

Dan knew Hal had a crush on Carrie.  A strictly hands-off, unrequited, love-from-afar thing that reduced him to a stumbling, stammering twelve-year old around her.  But he wasn’t alone.  Everybody loved Sister Carrie.

“Do that.  And bring some food.  A long time since you made a contribution.”

Just then an eighth of a ton of black woman in a frayed yellow dress lumbered up and spread a large green garbage bag on the bench.  She seated herself so close to Dan that one of her massive thighs rubbed against his.  He smiled at her and inched away to give her some room as she settled herself.

Hal clapped Dan on the shoulder.  “Saw you on TV last night, Fitz.”

“Did you.  How was I?”

“You sounded good.  I thought you came off very well.”

You wouldn’t think so if you’d been there, Dan thought.His herd at his heels, he’d slunk back to St. Joe’s with his tail between his legs.  At least that was they way it had felt.  The on-camera interview Hal had seen had been taped during the fund-raising dinner, while he and the demonstrators were all waiting for Senator Crenshaw to come out.  After the senator’s exit—after he’d been sliced and diced—Dan had fielded a few questions from reporters but his answers weren’t as sharp as they might have been.  They’d seemed almost...empty.

But perhaps that was just his own perception.  Everyone he’d seen so far today had told him that he and the protesters had come across extremely well on the tube.  Dan would have to take their word for it.  He’d lacked the nerve to tune in last night.

Luckily, no one seemed to have caught Senator Crenshaw’s little diatribe on tape.  Dan knew the wounded part of him within would shrivel up and die if he had listen to that again.

“What the—?”

Hal’s voice jolted Dan back to the here and now.  He glanced up and saw Hal staring past him in horrified fascination at the fat black woman.  She’d removed the mirrored half of a compact and a pair of tweezers from her huge purse and was now plucking at her face.  Dan couldn’t see anything to pluck at but that didn’t seem to deter the woman.  She was completely engrossed in the task.

Hal shook himself.  “Anyway, seeing you reminded me that I have a present for you.”

He picked up a football-size box from the bag between his feet and placed it in Dan’s hands.

“What’s this?”

“A gift.  From the past...sort of.”

Dan hadn’t expected a gift, though God knew his spirits needed lifting after last night.

“Well, don’t just stare at it.  Open it.”

No ribbon or wrapping to remove, just a plain, oblong wooden box.  Dan lifted the lid and stared.

“What...?”

“Your own Dead Sea scroll.”

Dan glanced at his friend.  He knew Harold was kidding, but this thing looked so damned...real.

“No, really.  What is it?”

Harold launched into the explanation.  A fascinating story, during which a pair of thin, dark-haired, mustached men seated themselves on the far side of the black woman; each began drinking his lunch from a brown paper bag.  Dan listened to Hal and sensed the mixture of excitement and disappointment in his voice.  When he finished, Dan looked down at the loosely rolled parchment in the box on his lap.

“So, you’re giving me a first century parchment filled with twenty-first century scribbles.”

“An oddity.  A collector’s item in its own right.”

Dan continued to stare at the ancient roll of sheepskin.  He was moved.

“I...I don’t know what to say, Hal.  I’ll treasure this.”

“Don’t get carried away—”

“No, I mean it.  If nothing else, the parchment was made in the early days of the Church.  It’s a link of sorts.  And I’m touched that you thought of me.”

“Who else do I know who’s so nuts about the first century?”

“You must have been crushed when you found out.”

Harold sighed.  “Crushed isn’t the word.  We were all devastated.  But I tell you, Fitz, I wouldn’t trade the high of the first few days with that scroll for anything.  It was the greatest!”

Just then a woman dressed in satin work-out pants and a red sleeveless shell top walked over to the bench and stood on the other side of Hal.  She was middle aged with a bulging abdomen.  Dan noticed that she wore red slipper-socks over red lace knee-highs.  She’d finished off the ensemble by wrapping Christmas paper around her ankles.

Hal looked down at her feet and said, “Good Lord.”

She smiled down at him.  “Ain’t blockin’ yer sun, am I?”

Hal shook his head.  “No.  That’s quite all right.”

She then pulled a bottle of Ban deodorant from her pocket and began to apply it to her right underarm—and only to her right underarm.  Dan and Hal watched her do this for what seemed like five minutes but was probably only one.  During the process she also managed to coat half of her shoulder blade as well.

She was still at it when Dan turned back to his gift and spotted a legal-size envelope tucked in next to the scroll.  He pulled it out.

“What’s this?”

Hal dragged his eyes away from the woman with the deodorant.  “The translation.  I know you’re pretty good at old Hebrew, but this will save you from risking damage to the scroll by unrolling it.  And as jumbled, paranoid, and crazy as it may read, you can rely on the accuracy of the translation.  The folks who did it are tops.”

“As usual, Hal.  You’ve thought of everything.”

An elderly man in a shabby blue suit slipped past the Ban lady and seated himself next to Hal.  Immediately he began untying his shoes.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he said in an accented voice as he slipped the first one off.  “They’re really sweaty.  I need to air my feet something awful.”

“Be my guest,” Hal said, rolling his eyes at Dan as the odor from the exposed feet and empty shoes began to rise.  “We were just leaving.  Weren’t we, Fitz.”

“Gee, I kind of like it here, Hal,” Dan said in his most guileless tone.  “Why don’t you save our seats while I run up to the corner and buy us a couple of hot dogs.  We can eat them right here.  You like sauerkraut?”

“I’ve lost my appetite,” Hal said through a tight, fierce grin.  “Let’s.  Go.  For.  A.  Little.  Walk.  Shall.  We?”

Dan hadn’t the heart to play this out any longer.  After all, Hal had just given him a first century scroll.

“Sure.”

As they left, the Ban lady took their spots and switched to her left underarm.

When they reached the sidewalk on Avenue A, Hal said, “I think I preferred living under the threat of a Hamas attack.”

Just then a very pale woman with very black hair, black blouse and black stretch pants walked by balancing a loaded green plastic laundry basket on her head.