A profound relationship existed between Ethan and his muse, as music was his truest love, the one who would never leave him. That subtle yet sublime connection occurred between him and melodies, sometimes just the poetic lyrics. Their union, a communion between the spirit of the composer and listener was something sacred. Whether it was his favorite classical station turned down low in his office while he worked, jazz when conducting tutorials, it was omnipresent, providing the pleasant backdrop he needed but his flat was his sanctuary. He owned the best sound system known to mankind, redefining the phrase state-of-the-art and worth the investment. Music played an integral role in Ethan’s life. It was a part of him, the missing piece in this puzzling leap of faith he’d taken into the past. In a flicker came the epiphany. There was nothing and no one to stop him from fulfilling his heartfelt desire.
The Consortium had provided him with enough currency to stay a year. Perhaps a trip to central London was in order while he was here, to attend a concert and take in a show. It was perfect, just what the doctor ordered for himself! Yes! An inspired idea. If only briefly, for an evening, Ethan needed to escape the horrors of what he had done and cope with the possibilities of what was to come, events he had to plan for and execute, if need be. His entire Scope schedule would have to be revamped. Should Jack fail to show up again, he had to be prepared for the worst case scenario. Annie Chapman. That night, an event destined to occur in the not too distant future here in the past, that night would clarify history. Truth be told, the characters who’d be present at the scene of that crime would tell all, revealing everything Ethan had a desperate need to know. He had little more than a week to prepare for the worst. The rub? The best case scenario involved watching “Jack the Ripper” decimate the body of a woman after claiming her life. In comparison to the alternative, it did not seem so horrible anymore. Ethan would welcome the hands off approach.
Rising from his bed stark naked, he found it rather liberating to sleep in the buff. Sometime during the night he’d shed his shorts like a snake sheds its skin and there they were, laying in a wad on the floor at the foot of the bed. Ethan began dancing around them in ballet fashion, manifesting a favorite piece from Brahms to replace the “Rude” intruder still humming along in his head. Not thinking whether he was forcing this change in emotion to occur or if he really felt an actual release from the burden of what he had done and what was still to come, Ethan was taking a moment to live in the moment, present and accounted for in 1888, doing his own version of the “Bishop Bounce”.
Yes. He would have to manage the anxiety. It would not be an easy week ahead, undoubtedly riddled with trepidation. Last night Ethan had all but accepted the role, relinquishing the right of refusal but this morning it seemed only right he should be free to turn it down, but it wasn’t that kind of role. This morning he saw it, all of it in a new light. Blessed sleep had swept the cobwebs from his mind. This was not a foregone conclusion, far from it. Any number of variables could enter into play as whatever kept Jack from his appointed rounds was an equally unknown variable in a complicated equation. This first incident, a case in point. Ethan screwed it up by befriending Maggie, so history placed him there to fill in the gap.
It was as viable a theory as any other but Ethan did not want to think. He wanted to dance and dance he did! Like no one was watching (because no one was), Ethan let his hair down and let his bits bob in the wind. Dangling free, naked as a jaybird, he laughed as he suddenly realized the window was open. The cold air had impacted his warm skin. The subsequent shrinkage caught his attention but not in a big way.
“Gigglemug!” He was true to his word, giggling like a naughty school boy, just dancing and prancing to his heart’s content. A decided chill in the air, he found it a refreshing sensation as he worked up one hell of a sweat doing pirouettes. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!”
He leapt back beneath the blanket, making sounds indicative of the Daffy Duck cartoons he had watched as a child. He was acting childish considering his situation and surroundings, as if trying to find an appropriate personality to match conditions and directions currently presented to him. Sufficiently warm, he rose again, walking to the window. Having draped the blanket around him, Ethan peered outside. It was overcast and he couldn’t tell what time of day it was so he looked on the desk before him to find his watch, which was resting, open, on the cover of “Robinson Crusoe”. The irony was too much to take. Out of character, Ethan swept the watch aside then furiously grabbed the novel, flinging it across the room as if the story intentionally mocked him. Another minute, another emotion. He was all over the place, literally and figuratively, acting like he was losing his mind.
Reflecting as he wandered the room, he resented the fact that he’d have to get dressed to go down to the loo but he needed some coffee anyway. Ethan considered his own volatile emotions, wondering if he should rightfully keep strictly to himself for the sake of others during this tumultuous transition. There was so much to think about, plan for and prepare in the interim between this morning and the forthcoming demise of Annie Chapman. Ethan would take his father’s sage advice. He’d always said to plan for the worst and hope for the best. With that, he got dressed.
The trip downstairs involved little interaction, as the common kitchen was void of tenants upon his arrival. He’d had the presence of mind to bring his wallet and so, in purchasing coffee grounds from the manager, he also paid his rent in advance for the next several days. Brewing a strong pot, he drank two cups downstairs and brought the rest back to his room. One more trip down to refresh his basin water, it was all he needed. Having barely spoken a word during the brief excursion, Ethan felt safest when cloistered in his own little world, separated from humanity. Perhaps he should take another day before showing up in public, he thought. Uncomfortable in a crowd by nature, the idea of being surrounded by others at this time seemed a lot more disconcerting than it ever had, as if people would know what he’d done by being in his presence. The concept of interacting with anyone was anathema to him. When the time came for him to reemerge into society for a few hours, he would go listen to an orchestra serenade him for one night. It would come in time but not yet.
One day turned into three days of Ethan confining himself like Lon Chaney Jr., fearing he would manifest into the werewolf upon the next full moon. It was not all egregious to the cause. He did manage to finally remove every last drop of sanguine fluid from his clothing and the blade, no trace evidence remaining. He also finished “Robinson Crusoe” again, apologizing to Mr. Dafoe for tossing it across the room in a fit of anger, reminding him that no one likes to be mocked. Slowly but surely, the spell was subsiding and Ethan was returning to a staid, pragmatic state of mind, transforming back into the good doctor, Professor LaPierre. He was enjoying more and more staring out of the window, as if viewing a moving picture in an old theatre house, safe from altercation, from the element-apparent of this time. The events he knew almost in oracle form were transpiring around him. Leaving him untouched, a drama unfolding beyond his window on the world, leaving him further unstained from an ongoing investigation. While waiting for his coffee to brew, Ethan read the city newspaper someone had discarded in the public sitting area, all about the local authority’s earliest considered suspects. They had nothing, in keeping with the tune they’d sung of the earlier unsolved murders of Emma Smith and Martha Tabram.
“...these gangs, who make their appearance during the early hours of the morning, are in the habit of blackmailing these poor unfortunate creatures, and when their demands are refused, violence follows, and in order to avoid their deeds being brought to light they put away their victims. They have been under the observation of the police for some time past, and it is believed that with the prospect of a reward and a free pardon, some of them might be persuaded to turn Queen’s evidence, when some startling revelations might be expected....”
Ethan scoffed at their initial research, what little was done by the Metropolitan and City of L
ondon police dating back to the death of Miss Fairy Fay in December of 1887. His cynical side wondered if they’d really put their hearts into it or were these women just disposable members of society, not worth the effort? In total, the collective department named thirty-one suspects as the murderers of some eighteen women between December of 1887 and April of 1891. During his research phase, conducted in earnest, Ethan never took an adversarial stance toward the police and their investigation, yet now he chuckled, looking at this offset count of victims-to-suspects ratio, imagining the rationale of the police thinking that maybe men were working in pairs during the murders! He facetiously uttered “Come on! Really?” as he read where they were going with this and they were going nowhere fast. They’d reminded him of a movie he once saw called “The Dark Knight” wherein Gotham’s police were trying to ascertain the true identity of Batman and on their “suspects” corkboard were posted the photos of Abraham Lincoln, Bigfoot and Elvis Presley. They were guessing! Local authorities were drawing conclusions that were clearly inconclusive as none of the thirty-one men under suspicion were ever charged, tried or convicted. If all of Ethan’s fears were realized, then the closest anyone ever came to the true Jack the Ripper was by happenstance, approached by a bobby on patrol, curious about a man carrying a pair of expensive shoes on Whitechapel Road.
From time to time over his three days of isolation and reflection, Ethan thought of Maggie, a name synonymous with two women he’d known and cared for in his life. His first thoughts led to the most recent of introductions in the form of Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, his server, his confidante, his guide and ultimately, his victim. She really was a sweet lady, very generous of spirit and kind of heart. She just could not find her way out of the bottle. Who knows how she might have wound up were it not for her being a drunk? Under different circumstances, had she not been Mary Ann Nichols incognito, he might have taken the two months he was tasked here and on his down time, effort to help her sober up and make something of herself in life. Unfortunately, she was a historical figure, one victim of Jack the Ripper. Therefore, she had to die.
Now, as far as young Maggie back at Oxford, there was a true paradox. If Ethan had listened to Colin’s advice (which he wisely never, ever did) and looked into the possible romantic avenues with this bright, nubile face and facile mind, all of these circumstances occurring perhaps would not be. If they had fallen in love he might have chosen to stay in the future, settle down, have a peck of kids and continue to teach. Who was he fucking kidding, himself? He had to ask! Ethan was completely terrified that this, all of it was all planned by the universal playbook millennia ago. Only one thing he knew for certain, when he returned home through the Flicker, if not condemned by the law for his actions, he would ask Maggie out on that date. He would ask her forgiveness and beg her comprehension of his circumstances, should she not understand that he, too, was a victim. He’d convince her to make a life with him, even after claiming one, even if he’d be compelled by an unforgiving history to take four more before departing the 19th Century. If anyone could, she would be the one to understand. Young Maggie was his link to a guilt-free common life.
Ethan put the paper down. He didn’t need to read or listen to anything redundant to his research, having experienced the raw expression of emotion from individuals he encountered like Nigel, the manager at his lodge who originally checked him in based on Miss Maggie’s referral. He had been the first as word spread of her killing. He’d known precisely who Mary Ann Nichols was, Polly to him, telling his tenant Arthur of her untimely demise a few nights earlier. Ethan made the connection over the past three days to the strange way Nigel had said the name “Maggie” upon their first meeting. He remembered that she’d whispered something to the manager, who truly was her friend and a customer from time to time. “Call me Maggie” likely her directive because it was how this man Arthur knew her, not as Polly the prostitute. When Ethan saw the two of them arguing below his window, he expected Maggie was scolding her friend about almost blowing her cover by mocking the fake name, a name she reserved for Ethan alone. Dressed as the physician, he would never have been seen keeping company with thieves, beggars or prostitutes and she was keen to know it. There was (and would be again) a strategic advantage to his upper-crust society wardrobe beyond the defensive posture assumed by investigative personnel approaching him. It could make him quite a prized mark to the other prostitutes he may need to possibly lure in, using his appearance as bait to continue the task.
The task. It took the death of a woman and his acceptance of the task at hand to pull Ethan out of this seventy-plus-hour long anguish of emotions he did not even know were part of his psyche. The woman was gone. Now there was only “the job”. Focused more than ever prior or post Flicker jump, Ethan became slowly but surely accustomed to the real possibility that Jack may remain in absentia for the duration. No longer languishing in the murky waters of the ocean tide of time, instead, Ethan found his directive and purpose in a clear, lucid stream of consciousness. The clarity was such that, in preparation for the next scheduled victim, Annie Chapman, focus was the directive, complete concentration on his memory embedded knowledge of every nuance in the case. The timeframe for the next historical murder was tight. It required precision, attention to detail with single-minded purpose. Emphasis placed on the thirty minute window, maybe forty-five, it was not much time either way for opportunity to strike. The time frame depended on witness testimonies and medical evaluations documented in police reports. Ethan knew he needed to fully utilize the next few days leading up to a duty plagued encounter. Either from a distance or up close and personal, fate with extreme intent, Annie Chapman was destined to die.
Of course, he would have to go over all the routes again, city sidewalks leading to the back yard of 29 Hanbury Street. Unlike the method he utilized for Maggie, it was different now. This time only working the scene during the busiest hours of the day, there would be no shadow seeking from this point on. He’d need only play the part of the horny medical professional out for an early morning romp, a bit of fun. The only shadowing to be done by Ethan would be in stalking fashion, knowing his next femme fatale’s movements more than twelve hours in advance of their destiny-driven meeting. By the time their fateful moment arrived he would have memorized every hair on her head. It had to be, as there could be no mistakes. He had surmised over recent days that this was a necessary element of his preparation, to know how she walks and talks and dresses, to know how she speaks, to know Annie Chapman. Compelled by a self-discipline to purge his personal emotions from “the job” ethics played no part in it as he came to reason that it wasn’t under the guise of decision making or moral judgment or fearing for his immortal soul. These five women were already dead and this had already happened. It was going to happen again.
Naturally, he’d prefer to wait in the wings but as the understudy, he had to know the lines, just in case the star got a flat tire on the way to the theatre, again. Yes! Of course he’d rather sit back, not to enjoy the show but to fulfill his original purpose in making this trip, to identify the real culprit. Nothing would please him more than to relinquish the task to the master. He’d never have to hold that bloody blade again! However, if he had to, he would. There was no higher purpose than preserving the timeline. Ethan knew he would have to be prepared to walk out on that stage again. Either way, it was his “job”.
He stepped out of his quarters and into the streets for the first time in over three days. Dressed in his clean physician attire, hat and polished shoes, he strolled hands in his pockets like he had not a care in the world. As Ethan worked his way toward Commercial Street, he purchased a common walking cane from a vendor who had a stand over on Old Montague Street. He whistled and twirled the cane, tipping his hat to the ladies passing by on a busy avenue. Ethan was not acting. In fact, it was the possible newfound role forcing the man’s confidence in the mission to realign, as he knew the control was his and his alone.
Turning north onto Commer
cial Street he heard a young paperboy bellowing headlines from the day’s newsprint.
“Read all about it! Extra! Extra! Man only known as LEATHER APRON suspect in Whitechapel murders. Read all about it! Paper, sir?”
Pulling the proper coinage from his pocket, Ethan gave it to the boy in exchange for that print. It was of nostalgic fascination to hold this particular paper physically in his hands, headlines he only read copies of online in a library during his research. “Leather Apron” as this man was known, would be publicly identified as John Pizer the day before Annie Chapman’s death. He’d been extorting money, strong-arming prostitutes at knife point over the past year. It had recently come to light, backed up by corroborating stories from several of the women he threatened. This tied into the anti-Semitic sentiment in Whitechapel. John Pizer would be arrested on the 10th of September and subsequently released when he provided alibis for the prior murders. Ethan knew what was coming before the police did, or anyone else for that matter. He continued walking as he read an article he’d already committed to memory, yet it seemed different from this unique visual perspective. As he came upon the name Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Ethan abruptly stopped.
In A Flicker Page 26