The Ministry for the Future

21

We were on the lakefront in Brissago, on the Swiss side of Lake Maggiore, partying on the lawn of Cinzia’s place, just above the narrow park between her property and the lake. She had a celebrity chef there who cooked with a welder’s torch he used to fire at the bottom of big frypans he held in the air, and a band with a brass section, and a light show and all that. Altogether a righteous party, and lots of happy people there, skewing young because that’s the way Cinzia likes it.

But the narrow stretch of grass between her lawn and the lake was a public park, and as we partied we saw a guy down there on the shore, just standing there staring up at us. Some kind of beachcomber dude, holding a piece of driftwood. Nothing Cinzia’s security could do about him, they told us. Actually they could have if they wanted to, but they didn’t. The local police might make trouble if someone were objected to for just standing on a public beach. This is what one of them told us when we told him to make the guy go away. The guy was skinny and bedraggled and he just kept staring, it was offensive. Like some kind of Bible guy laying his morality on us.

So finally a few of us went down there to do what the security team ought to have done, and send this guy packing. Edmund led the way as usual, he was the one most annoyed, and we followed along because when he was annoyed Edmund could be really funny.

The guy watched us come up to him and didn’t move an inch, didn’t say a word. It was a little weird, I didn’t like it.

Edmund got in the guy’s face and told him to leave.

The guy said to Edmund something like, You fuckers are burning up the world with your stupid games.

Edmund laughed and said, “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

We laughed at that, but then this guy hit Edmund with the chunk of driftwood he was holding, so fast we had no time to react. Edmund went down like a tree, didn’t get his hands up or anything, just boom. He had been cold-cocked.

The guy held his piece of wood out at us and we froze. Then he tossed it at us and took off right into the lake, swimming straight out into the night. We didn’t know what to do—no one wanted to swim off after a nut like that, not in the dark, and besides we were concerned about Edmund. It just looked bad, the way he went down. Like a tree. Cinzia’s security finally joined us, but they only wanted to hold the perimeter, they didn’t chase the guy either. They took over checking out Edmund, and when they did that they quickly got on their phones. An ambulance showed up in about five minutes and took him away. After that it was a couple of hours before we got word. We couldn’t believe it. Edmund was dead.