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The Postcards
Year 2011
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Peter Nielsen arrived early at the restaurant, so he was able to get a little drink before the rest arrived. The little restaurant near Harvard Square was named OM, it was trendy and it was Asian, and it made Peter feel empty and bored inside. It is not the place he would have chosen, but there was a bar and the bartender had ice cubes and whisky, so it was good enough for his standards. He looked up from his glass and onto the walls decorated with Asian art, and the television running in the background while a blue light lit up the room, he asked himself: What am I doing her?
Just about a month ago, the thought of participating in his 25th anniversary of going to Harvard University had never crossed his mind, even though he was now sitting in a bar just around the corner from Harvard together with hundreds of 47 – 48 year old people, whom were all speculating, what had happened to the best years of their lives. Jim Zeckenburg had as one of the good lawyers, sent several emails to everyone, until everyone agreed to come together at the anniversary. Peter had not signed up for the entire program; no one could get him to march into Tercentenary Theater together with all the other students from 1983, but he did agree to drive up from New York to eat dinner with everyone and stay with Jim for the night in Weston. But there was no way that he would waste more than two days together with the people who seemed like ghosts from his past, he had set his mind on driving home the next day.
Peter’s glass was empty before the bartender had finished serving the next customer. He let the ice cubes roll around in the glass to get the bartenders attention, but instead he got the attention of a woman. She was standing behind him, waving a twenty dollar bill trying to get the bartenders attention. She was a beautiful brunette in her thirties. A spicy perfume entered his nose tingling his senses, just before she leaned in over his broad shoulders and asked him.
“When you get his attention, would you mind ordering a glass of Chardonnay for me?”
He turned his face to look at her, and the woman’s Kashmir covered breasts were right in his eyesight, just like the twenty dollar bill, which she was holding between her small beautiful fingers. While looking at her breasts he replied to her.
“That’s a deal, my treat”
His eyes then let the sight of her breasts go and looked up at a beautiful face with sparkling green eyes and red lipstick. He quickly sensed her interest while she pulled back the dollar bill and smiled at him.
“Thank you”
She squeezed herself in between him and the guy sitting next to him, while he moved his chair just a little to the left letting her sit down beside him. Just a few minutes later, Peter could feel someone poking him on the shoulder and heard someone say.
“I told you, we would find him at the bar!”
And of course, there stood Jim Zeckenburg with a big smile on his face, his face was so feminine and his dark curly hair did not make it any better. Peter suddenly had a flashback remembering his first day at Harvard Yard in 1979, when he was just a young boy from Florida, he was standing on a boat almost falling over every time the ship hit a wave, and there he met Jim for the first time, which claimed that he was born to one day graduate from Harvard. Besides Zeckenburg, he saw his wife, or that was what Peter presumed she was, after the last wedding he had been invited to.
Zeckenburg and his wife had Alex Dinnerstein and his girlfriend with them. Alex had a strong body structure and he was training every day, though you could see he had been sunburned recently, which made him look much younger than the rest of the people there. The impression was defined by his expensive suit from a European company and the little red rose in his left pocket, while you could see his teeth almost sparkling in the light. His hair was laid back and completely black, probably colored; he probably needed to keep himself in shape due to the incredible beautiful woman next to him. She was a model, she looked at least twenty years younger than anyone in the room, she was probably the most beautiful woman he had seen, she almost made Peter forget about his new friendship, which were now standing awkwardly next to him while drinking some wine.
Zeckenburg quickly snapped him out of it as he began yelling at him and pointing at him.
“Peter, are you not going to introduce us!?!”
Peter smiled awkwardly, “We haven’t talked that much yet…”
The woman looked at both Zeckenburg and Alex while smiling.
“My name is Laura, I hope you enjoy the anniversary”
She began to walk away from them, and without saying a word, Peter handed her his card. She took a quick glance at it, and the expression on her face revealed how surprised she was: AGENT PETER NIELSEN, FEDERAL BEREAU OF INVESTIGATION. When she had left, Alex pretended to be funny by searching for concealed weapons on his body while almost laughing.
“She has probably never met an armed man, whom also went to Harvard… is that a Beretta you got in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
“Very funny Alex, it’s nice to see you too”
Zeckenburg led them up the staircase to the restaurant, but just as they were about to enter, they realized they were missing someone. Jim turned around and looked at everyone.
“Has anyone seen Shackelton?”
Alex looked at him and simply replied, “Are you sure he is still alive?”
Zeckenburg just glared at him as he said, “I got proof, and I got emails”
“He is not going to come, he hates us”
Peter quickly responded, “He hates you, you were the one who tied him to that damn bed”
Alex just smiled at Peter, “If I remember correctly, you were there too”
The restaurant was like an evocative museum with Nepalese statues and a Buddha statue in a niche in the wall, the entire room was buzzing with cheerful voices. A table with a view of Winthrop Street was reserved for them, but it was not empty. On one side of the table a man was sitting lonely and fumbling nervously with his napkin.
“Hey look who is already here!!” Zeckenburg yelled out to everyone.
William Shackelton looked up, you could see in his face how annoyed he was and how he actually did not want to be here this evening. His eyes were covered by the shadow of his hair dangling down from his forehead from beneath his Lakers cap, while they quickly scanned the room for everyone who had just arrived. Peter recognized him immediately, even though it had been more than 28 years, since he lost contact with him the second after they finished their first semester. William has always looked the same, small and thin with a big head, he has always looked like a 40 – 50 year old man, so no one really noticed the difference.
The 4 of them had made up one of the rooms in their school, quite unusual paring. Peter was the relaxed sportsman from Florida, Jim was the genius student from a private school in Brookline, Alex was the *** crazy kid from Wisconsin with a dream of becoming a doctor, and William, was the computer nerd from Lexington not far from the University. They had all shared a room in Holworthy in the northern part of Harvard Yard with two small rooms with two beds in each, and one room for them all to hang out in. Peter had been the last to move in, due to him having been in a training camp for the football team before the start of the semester. When he had pulled his suitcase into the room the two guys in the room was just standing there laughing at him while pointing into the other room, where he met William for the first time, which was sitting on the edge of the bed without moving a muscle.
“Hey man, how much do you weigh?” Peter asked while forcing a smile.
William looked at Peter with a nervous twitch when he curiously replied, “I weigh 64 kilos…”
“Alright, well I am about 102 kilos without clothing, are you sure you want my large body hanging just about one meter above you in the bunk bed?”
William slowly stood up with protesting and let Peter have the bed while he had to sleep on the top bed.
Back in reality, Peter and the rest of the gang began chatting about their past, their memories, laughing about their most humiliating moments and talking about each other’s weaknesses and weird fabrications. Zeckenburg and Alex whom had become quite close friends, both talked about everyone and laughing at and with each other, they looked like real comedians. Peter was not that good at talking really, but somehow he managed to make the others listen to his histories of the past. It was only William who sat quietly only nodding and smiling while everyone else laughed, while drinking his beer and eating some food from the Asian kitchen. Zeckenburg had asked his wife to be the photographer of the evening, and she filled out the role perfectly as she walked around the table while everyone was posing and the blitz was just going off constantly.
A group of roommates on their first year of school is an unstable chemical connection. As soon as the environment changes, the bonds are broken, and the molecules are thrown out in all directions. On their second year, Peter had moved into the Adams House to live with the rest of the football players, while Zeckenburg and Alex stuck together and moved into the Leverett House, while William had moved into a small apartment in the Currier House. Peter sometimes ran into Zeckenburg in a class or two, but in reality they had actually lost all connections between each other and entered their own little universe. After graduation, Zeckenburg and Alex stayed in Boston, and sometimes they talked to Peter, usually after they read about him in the newspaper or seen him on TV. None of them had thought about William. If William had not given information about his email address in the year book, he would still have been just a ghost in the past.
Alex was now sitting and talking loudly about some story from their first year at Harvard Yard, which circled around the Lesley twins visiting him one night, and he claimed that night he became interested in becoming a gynecologist, when his girlfriend suddenly changed subject and turned her attention towards Peter. She was tired of listening to Alex talking about his past, and instead she looked at the tall brown haired man, whom was sitting in front of her while drinking an entire bottle of whisky, seemingly without being affected by it.
“How did you end up working for the FBI?” The model suddenly asked, before Alex began with another story.
“Well I was not a good enough football player to become a professional…”
“Common, tell me the real reason” She seemed quite interested in his work.
Peter simply replied, “I honestly don’t know, I didn’t have any goals after graduation, but all my friends knew what
they wanted. Alex wanted to study medicin, Zeckenburg wanted to be a lawyer and William you studied at MIT, right?”
William looked at everyone and just nodded once before getting back to his drink.
“I just drove around a few years in Florida and worked as a teacher and a coach for a while, but then there was an opening at the sheriff’s office”
Zeckenburg quickly interrupted him, “Your dad used to be a police officer right…”
“He was deputy in Panama City”
“Is he still alive?” It was Zeckenburgs wife whom suddenly interrupted the conversation to hear about his father.
“No, he died many years ago… it was in my genes and seemed like a good idea, so I thought to myself why not… though at one point my boss became quite annoyed that he had a Harvard student as his deputy, and he made me apply to enter Quantico to get me out of there…and so I did, and well now I can look forward to retirement very soon”
Zeckenburg looked at him with wide open eyes and a huge smile, “So when can you retire?”
“In about two years”
“What are you going to do then?”
“I guess I’m going out fishing, I don’t know…”
While Alex was pouring a new glass of wine he yelled out to his girlfriend, “Do you have any idea how famous he is?”
“No how famous?”
“I’m not famous” Peter replied.
“Bullshit, our friend here is the most famous specialist in person profiling of serial killers in all of FBI’s history…”
“You are exaggerating, I’m not that good”
“How many have you caught over the years?”
“I don’t know, just a couple over my carrier” Peter replied with a loud voice.
“A couple! That is like me saying I have made a couple of pelvic exams, everyone says you are the best, infallible”
“I think you are talking about the Pope”
“Stop it, I read somewhere you can make a profile about someone in less than a minute” Alex replied, getting a little annoyed by the way Peter expressed himself.
“I do not need that much time to figure you out, old friend, but you should not believe everything you read”
Alex gently pushed his girlfriend while whispering into her ear, thought everyone could hear it, “Believe me, and watch out for him, he is a legend”
Peter became impatient, he did not feel like talking about his life anymore, even though he had a few glorious moments throughout his carrier.
“Everyone here has made quite the name for themselves, besides our slow start, I mean, Zeckenburg is a well-known lawyer, Alex is… a doctor and a professor, but what about William, what have you been up to all these years?”
Before William could reply, Alex jumped in and became his usual self, Williams plague from the past.
“Yea let us hear, William is probably one of those billionaires with their own private jet, and basketball team… did you invent the cellphone, or something like that? I mean you were always sitting behind a closed door, writing in your little notebook. What did you do in there old friend, besides looking through old Playboy magazines with some Kleenex in your hand…”
Both Peter and Zeckenburg could not hold back their laughter at this point, because back in the day it really seemed as if William seemed to use a lot of Kleenex. But Peter immediately felt guilty, when William sent him a glare while carefully holding his beer.
William then whispered, “I work with IT-security… I’m sorry, but I am not a billionaire… though I do write a little besides my job…”
Peter slowly asked gently trying to make up from before, “Do you work for a private company?”
“I used to work for a private company, but now I have the same employer as you have… the state”
“Alright, but where?”
“I work in Nevada”
“You live in Vegas, right?” Zeckenburg interrupted
William nodded, quite disappointed that no one thought about his little remark about him writing.
Peter then began talking again, trying to learn some more about his friend, “So what area do you work in… I mean
what facility?”
“In a laboratory… classified”
“William has a secret!!!” Alex yelled out loud, feeling triumphant. “Give him another drink so his frenulum will loosen up”
“Sorry I can’t say anything”
Alex leaned in over the table, “I bet a man from the FBI can find out what you are doing…”
“I don’t think so…” William replied secretively.
Zeckenburg could not let it stay that way as he began thinking out loud, “Nevada, Nevada… the only secret laboratory I can think of in Nevada… what it is called… Area 51!?!”
He waited for a denial but instead he got a huge poker face from William.
“Wow… don’t tell me you work at Area 51!”
William looked at him a little nervous, “I can’t say anything about it”
“Oh my god!!!” The model yelled out, “Is that not, where they study aliens and stuff?”
William just smiled mysteriously like another Mona Lisa.
“If he told you, he would have to kill you after…” Peter replied.
William shook his head while he lowered his voice so that everyone would listen.
“You’re wrong… If I told you, someone else would kill you”
Just about a month ago, the thought of participating in his 25th anniversary of going to Harvard University had never crossed his mind, even though he was now sitting in a bar just around the corner from Harvard together with hundreds of 47 – 48 year old people, whom were all speculating, what had happened to the best years of their lives. Jim Zeckenburg had as one of the good lawyers, sent several emails to everyone, until everyone agreed to come together at the anniversary. Peter had not signed up for the entire program; no one could get him to march into Tercentenary Theater together with all the other students from 1983, but he did agree to drive up from New York to eat dinner with everyone and stay with Jim for the night in Weston. But there was no way that he would waste more than two days together with the people who seemed like ghosts from his past, he had set his mind on driving home the next day.
Peter’s glass was empty before the bartender had finished serving the next customer. He let the ice cubes roll around in the glass to get the bartenders attention, but instead he got the attention of a woman. She was standing behind him, waving a twenty dollar bill trying to get the bartenders attention. She was a beautiful brunette in her thirties. A spicy perfume entered his nose tingling his senses, just before she leaned in over his broad shoulders and asked him.
“When you get his attention, would you mind ordering a glass of Chardonnay for me?”
He turned his face to look at her, and the woman’s Kashmir covered breasts were right in his eyesight, just like the twenty dollar bill, which she was holding between her small beautiful fingers. While looking at her breasts he replied to her.
“That’s a deal, my treat”
His eyes then let the sight of her breasts go and looked up at a beautiful face with sparkling green eyes and red lipstick. He quickly sensed her interest while she pulled back the dollar bill and smiled at him.
“Thank you”
She squeezed herself in between him and the guy sitting next to him, while he moved his chair just a little to the left letting her sit down beside him. Just a few minutes later, Peter could feel someone poking him on the shoulder and heard someone say.
“I told you, we would find him at the bar!”
And of course, there stood Jim Zeckenburg with a big smile on his face, his face was so feminine and his dark curly hair did not make it any better. Peter suddenly had a flashback remembering his first day at Harvard Yard in 1979, when he was just a young boy from Florida, he was standing on a boat almost falling over every time the ship hit a wave, and there he met Jim for the first time, which claimed that he was born to one day graduate from Harvard. Besides Zeckenburg, he saw his wife, or that was what Peter presumed she was, after the last wedding he had been invited to.
Zeckenburg and his wife had Alex Dinnerstein and his girlfriend with them. Alex had a strong body structure and he was training every day, though you could see he had been sunburned recently, which made him look much younger than the rest of the people there. The impression was defined by his expensive suit from a European company and the little red rose in his left pocket, while you could see his teeth almost sparkling in the light. His hair was laid back and completely black, probably colored; he probably needed to keep himself in shape due to the incredible beautiful woman next to him. She was a model, she looked at least twenty years younger than anyone in the room, she was probably the most beautiful woman he had seen, she almost made Peter forget about his new friendship, which were now standing awkwardly next to him while drinking some wine.
Zeckenburg quickly snapped him out of it as he began yelling at him and pointing at him.
“Peter, are you not going to introduce us!?!”
Peter smiled awkwardly, “We haven’t talked that much yet…”
The woman looked at both Zeckenburg and Alex while smiling.
“My name is Laura, I hope you enjoy the anniversary”
She began to walk away from them, and without saying a word, Peter handed her his card. She took a quick glance at it, and the expression on her face revealed how surprised she was: AGENT PETER NIELSEN, FEDERAL BEREAU OF INVESTIGATION. When she had left, Alex pretended to be funny by searching for concealed weapons on his body while almost laughing.
“She has probably never met an armed man, whom also went to Harvard… is that a Beretta you got in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
“Very funny Alex, it’s nice to see you too”
Zeckenburg led them up the staircase to the restaurant, but just as they were about to enter, they realized they were missing someone. Jim turned around and looked at everyone.
“Has anyone seen Shackelton?”
Alex looked at him and simply replied, “Are you sure he is still alive?”
Zeckenburg just glared at him as he said, “I got proof, and I got emails”
“He is not going to come, he hates us”
Peter quickly responded, “He hates you, you were the one who tied him to that damn bed”
Alex just smiled at Peter, “If I remember correctly, you were there too”
The restaurant was like an evocative museum with Nepalese statues and a Buddha statue in a niche in the wall, the entire room was buzzing with cheerful voices. A table with a view of Winthrop Street was reserved for them, but it was not empty. On one side of the table a man was sitting lonely and fumbling nervously with his napkin.
“Hey look who is already here!!” Zeckenburg yelled out to everyone.
William Shackelton looked up, you could see in his face how annoyed he was and how he actually did not want to be here this evening. His eyes were covered by the shadow of his hair dangling down from his forehead from beneath his Lakers cap, while they quickly scanned the room for everyone who had just arrived. Peter recognized him immediately, even though it had been more than 28 years, since he lost contact with him the second after they finished their first semester. William has always looked the same, small and thin with a big head, he has always looked like a 40 – 50 year old man, so no one really noticed the difference.
The 4 of them had made up one of the rooms in their school, quite unusual paring. Peter was the relaxed sportsman from Florida, Jim was the genius student from a private school in Brookline, Alex was the *** crazy kid from Wisconsin with a dream of becoming a doctor, and William, was the computer nerd from Lexington not far from the University. They had all shared a room in Holworthy in the northern part of Harvard Yard with two small rooms with two beds in each, and one room for them all to hang out in. Peter had been the last to move in, due to him having been in a training camp for the football team before the start of the semester. When he had pulled his suitcase into the room the two guys in the room was just standing there laughing at him while pointing into the other room, where he met William for the first time, which was sitting on the edge of the bed without moving a muscle.
“Hey man, how much do you weigh?” Peter asked while forcing a smile.
William looked at Peter with a nervous twitch when he curiously replied, “I weigh 64 kilos…”
“Alright, well I am about 102 kilos without clothing, are you sure you want my large body hanging just about one meter above you in the bunk bed?”
William slowly stood up with protesting and let Peter have the bed while he had to sleep on the top bed.
Back in reality, Peter and the rest of the gang began chatting about their past, their memories, laughing about their most humiliating moments and talking about each other’s weaknesses and weird fabrications. Zeckenburg and Alex whom had become quite close friends, both talked about everyone and laughing at and with each other, they looked like real comedians. Peter was not that good at talking really, but somehow he managed to make the others listen to his histories of the past. It was only William who sat quietly only nodding and smiling while everyone else laughed, while drinking his beer and eating some food from the Asian kitchen. Zeckenburg had asked his wife to be the photographer of the evening, and she filled out the role perfectly as she walked around the table while everyone was posing and the blitz was just going off constantly.
A group of roommates on their first year of school is an unstable chemical connection. As soon as the environment changes, the bonds are broken, and the molecules are thrown out in all directions. On their second year, Peter had moved into the Adams House to live with the rest of the football players, while Zeckenburg and Alex stuck together and moved into the Leverett House, while William had moved into a small apartment in the Currier House. Peter sometimes ran into Zeckenburg in a class or two, but in reality they had actually lost all connections between each other and entered their own little universe. After graduation, Zeckenburg and Alex stayed in Boston, and sometimes they talked to Peter, usually after they read about him in the newspaper or seen him on TV. None of them had thought about William. If William had not given information about his email address in the year book, he would still have been just a ghost in the past.
Alex was now sitting and talking loudly about some story from their first year at Harvard Yard, which circled around the Lesley twins visiting him one night, and he claimed that night he became interested in becoming a gynecologist, when his girlfriend suddenly changed subject and turned her attention towards Peter. She was tired of listening to Alex talking about his past, and instead she looked at the tall brown haired man, whom was sitting in front of her while drinking an entire bottle of whisky, seemingly without being affected by it.
“How did you end up working for the FBI?” The model suddenly asked, before Alex began with another story.
“Well I was not a good enough football player to become a professional…”
“Common, tell me the real reason” She seemed quite interested in his work.
Peter simply replied, “I honestly don’t know, I didn’t have any goals after graduation, but all my friends knew what
they wanted. Alex wanted to study medicin, Zeckenburg wanted to be a lawyer and William you studied at MIT, right?”
William looked at everyone and just nodded once before getting back to his drink.
“I just drove around a few years in Florida and worked as a teacher and a coach for a while, but then there was an opening at the sheriff’s office”
Zeckenburg quickly interrupted him, “Your dad used to be a police officer right…”
“He was deputy in Panama City”
“Is he still alive?” It was Zeckenburgs wife whom suddenly interrupted the conversation to hear about his father.
“No, he died many years ago… it was in my genes and seemed like a good idea, so I thought to myself why not… though at one point my boss became quite annoyed that he had a Harvard student as his deputy, and he made me apply to enter Quantico to get me out of there…and so I did, and well now I can look forward to retirement very soon”
Zeckenburg looked at him with wide open eyes and a huge smile, “So when can you retire?”
“In about two years”
“What are you going to do then?”
“I guess I’m going out fishing, I don’t know…”
While Alex was pouring a new glass of wine he yelled out to his girlfriend, “Do you have any idea how famous he is?”
“No how famous?”
“I’m not famous” Peter replied.
“Bullshit, our friend here is the most famous specialist in person profiling of serial killers in all of FBI’s history…”
“You are exaggerating, I’m not that good”
“How many have you caught over the years?”
“I don’t know, just a couple over my carrier” Peter replied with a loud voice.
“A couple! That is like me saying I have made a couple of pelvic exams, everyone says you are the best, infallible”
“I think you are talking about the Pope”
“Stop it, I read somewhere you can make a profile about someone in less than a minute” Alex replied, getting a little annoyed by the way Peter expressed himself.
“I do not need that much time to figure you out, old friend, but you should not believe everything you read”
Alex gently pushed his girlfriend while whispering into her ear, thought everyone could hear it, “Believe me, and watch out for him, he is a legend”
Peter became impatient, he did not feel like talking about his life anymore, even though he had a few glorious moments throughout his carrier.
“Everyone here has made quite the name for themselves, besides our slow start, I mean, Zeckenburg is a well-known lawyer, Alex is… a doctor and a professor, but what about William, what have you been up to all these years?”
Before William could reply, Alex jumped in and became his usual self, Williams plague from the past.
“Yea let us hear, William is probably one of those billionaires with their own private jet, and basketball team… did you invent the cellphone, or something like that? I mean you were always sitting behind a closed door, writing in your little notebook. What did you do in there old friend, besides looking through old Playboy magazines with some Kleenex in your hand…”
Both Peter and Zeckenburg could not hold back their laughter at this point, because back in the day it really seemed as if William seemed to use a lot of Kleenex. But Peter immediately felt guilty, when William sent him a glare while carefully holding his beer.
William then whispered, “I work with IT-security… I’m sorry, but I am not a billionaire… though I do write a little besides my job…”
Peter slowly asked gently trying to make up from before, “Do you work for a private company?”
“I used to work for a private company, but now I have the same employer as you have… the state”
“Alright, but where?”
“I work in Nevada”
“You live in Vegas, right?” Zeckenburg interrupted
William nodded, quite disappointed that no one thought about his little remark about him writing.
Peter then began talking again, trying to learn some more about his friend, “So what area do you work in… I mean
what facility?”
“In a laboratory… classified”
“William has a secret!!!” Alex yelled out loud, feeling triumphant. “Give him another drink so his frenulum will loosen up”
“Sorry I can’t say anything”
Alex leaned in over the table, “I bet a man from the FBI can find out what you are doing…”
“I don’t think so…” William replied secretively.
Zeckenburg could not let it stay that way as he began thinking out loud, “Nevada, Nevada… the only secret laboratory I can think of in Nevada… what it is called… Area 51!?!”
He waited for a denial but instead he got a huge poker face from William.
“Wow… don’t tell me you work at Area 51!”
William looked at him a little nervous, “I can’t say anything about it”
“Oh my god!!!” The model yelled out, “Is that not, where they study aliens and stuff?”
William just smiled mysteriously like another Mona Lisa.
“If he told you, he would have to kill you after…” Peter replied.
William shook his head while he lowered his voice so that everyone would listen.
“You’re wrong… If I told you, someone else would kill you”