Page 39 of Truly, Madly Viking

"One too many," he grumbled, looking down at his fists, which were clenched between his widespread knees.

"Do you have any children? Perhaps a little girl who resembles one of mine?"

"Your tongue outruns your good sense, you foolish wench." He stood suddenly and faced her angrily. A low growl came up from deep within before he informed her in an ice-cold voice, "Seed of my loins exists nowhere in this living world, neither male nor female." With those words hurled at her, Joe stomped off on the sidewalk leading back to the clinic.

Maggie watched him leave. Without realizing it, Joe had given her a clue that might lead to his cure.

Children. There was no doubt in Maggie's mind. Children were the clue to Joe's dysfunction.

Jorund's emotions were in a roil the rest of that day.

He exercised on the rowing machine till he thought his arms would fall off. He joined some pay-shuns in a lackbrain game of Bingo. He threw a Freeze-bee in the halls with Steve, till Norse Hatch-her took the circular toy away from him. He Ping-Ponged till his head felt as if it Ping-Ponged. He ate a dinner of burr-eat-toes and salt-sa that about took the lining off his tongue. He viewed "Em-tea-vee" till his eyes burned.

Still, thoughts of his daughters would not go away. Was he cursed for the rest of his life, or mayhap all of eternity, to carry this guilt with him?

It was all Mag-he's fault. Why did she have to probe so deeply?

"What I need is about a tun of mead," he muttered.

"Isn't mead some kind of beer?" Steve asked from the open doorway. "Me, too, then. A cold beer and a baseball game would come in handy about now. Mine would have to be the nonalcoholic kind, though."

Without being invited, he stepped into Jorund's room and sank down into one of the two leather armchairs in front of the tea-vee.

"Baseball? Isn't that a game where you hit a ball with a stick and run around a diamond-shaped field?

One of the Norses explained it to me."

Steve gaped at him for a second, then laughed. "Hell, don't tell me you've never seen a baseball game.

Man, that's purely un-American." Taking the remote control from Jorund's hand, he flicked the channels until he came to one of those baseball games, the Dodge-hers against the Red Sox, and for the next hour he proceeded to explain the game to a fascinated Jorund.

"And you excelled at this game?"

"That was thirty years ago, but yeah, everyone said I was the next Ted Williams."

"And this is what you did in life? You played games?"

Steve laughed at his apparent confusion and named some seemingly high amount of money he was paid for this occupation.

"You obviously loved this game. 'Twas in your eyes when you watched it on the tea-vee box. Why did you stop?"

"I was drafted... well, actually I jumped the gun because I knew I was going to be drafted."

"Drafted?"

"Uh-huh. I got the word that Uncle Sam wanted me for military service, and there was no saying no in those days. The Vietnam War was at its height. I enlisted in the Navy SEALs." He shrugged. "The rest is history."

Jorund didn't understand all that he had said. Uncle Sam, for instance. Nay-vee, for another. But the gist of it filtered through: Steve had fought in some gruesome war as a soldier of some sort, and although it had been many years ago, he still suffered the consequences.

"Did your wife leave you whilst you were away at battle?"

At first Steve's eyes flashed angrily at the intrusive question, but then his body relaxed, almost as if he was tired of holding it all in. "Nah! Shelley stuck around for twenty years. I haven't seen her for ten years.

Hell, that was the last time we made love, too. The last time I was able to get it up. And a poor performance it was."

Jorund decided to ignore Steve's remarks on his sexual prowess. "Well, you are fortunate then. Many a feckless wench have I encountered in my day. Faithless women who spread their legs for another the minute their men pick up spear and shield to go off a-Viking or a-fighting."

"Huh?" Steve said. Then his thoughts reverted.... back to his Shell-he. "Man, I made Shell's life a living hell. Good thing we never had kids. I probably would have made them suffer, too."