Let the Truth Be Told

Skating south, I squinted into the sun reflecting off the cold obsidian of Fort Pond in Montauk on Sunday, my blades carving the surface with the crisp metallic notes of swordplay.

The ice mirrored my fellow skaters. They appeared to be skating both right side up and upside down, joined at the blades. A few kids huddled, looking down through the ice in search of fish. “Through the glass darkly” came to mind, the way Corinthians suggests most of us view life — that is, imperfectly.

“Slash, slash,” my skates continued their swordplay back north again toward Industrial Road from the covered deck at Kirk Park where I knew hot chocolate would be waiting upon my return.

I quickened my pace at the thought — slash, slash, parry and thrust — of Prince Valiant fencing a dark villain, one of the fiends who killed the cartoonists in Paris. “Killed the cartoonists?” Can the world possibly get more absurd? Did it ever occur to them that cartoons can only be killed by other cartoons, in this case by caricatures of ignorant people living in a brutal, centuries-old world frozen in time?

They say that Moses’ “parting” of the Red Sea and the un-parting that drowned the pursuing Egyptian army might have been based in fact, a tsunami or something, same with Noah’s flood.

Slash, slash. I turned my blades to the east. Matthew tells us that Jesus walked on the water, or maybe it was the apostle Paul who did the walking after Jesus promised he could do it if he believed.

What if there’d been a meteorological anomaly 2,015 years ago, an arctic blast? Temperatures plummeted below freezing as far south as the Sea of Galilee. Observed from shore, it appeared as though Jesus stepped from his boat onto the surface of the water. He did, but it was frozen water, something unknown in that part of the world.

He took a few furtive steps, felt his sandals glide, and while skates were unknown to Jesus, his powers were such that just the idea of a sharp metal blade fastened to the bottom of each foot set him free. And, although a man, he was also the Son of God and so was able to channel Peggy Fleming.

From shore, it looked as though Jesus had donned a chartreuse tutu. The Apostle Paul had joined him by then, holding him around the waist, twirling the Savior over his head, then back down on the ice for side-by-side sow cows, and a finale that featured Christ bent backwards over Paul’s outstretched arm, one leg pointing skyward, toe pointed.

Jesus’s sexuality was questioned by several of those who witnessed the pair skating. The Aramaic phrase, “degree of difficulty,” originated with Thomas’s doubts regarding the Savior’s manliness after hearing of the performance. Word got around to Pontius Pilate, already strictly enforcing the Roman army’s policy of don’t ask, don’t tell. The rest is history.

The episode was suppressed. The tutu became a halo, the ice melted into plain old water, but “the truth” of that day lived on in hushed tones from generation to generation until three monks from a breakaway order, while illuminating the Gospel according to Matthew, drew Christ in a compromising posture wearing a chartreuse tutu.

They were shot dead, and the truth has remained buried until the stone was rolled away here today, in The Star’s “On the (Frozen) Water” column.

I skated back south with Pogo, Brenda Starr, the Wizard of Id, Shuman the Human, and Mr. Natural in my head to where the kids continued to look for fish under the crystal-clear ice. Not yet, but their new perspective, the thought of their skating above the fish swimming below, the idea that life was thriving beneath the freeze, kept them glued.

I remember seeing a couple of guys ice fishing in the pond a few years ago. Don’t know how they did. I was told by four weary anglers buying coffee at the 7-Eleven on Sunday after skating that the bountiful cod harvest was continuing offshore. “Fifty of us caught 200 pounds,” one of them said.

And speaking of slings and arrows, hikers and birders should take note: The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has extended both the gunning and archery season for deer on the East End. The season will continue through the month of January, but this year, hunters will be hunting on weekends as well as weekdays.

So, keep your head down. Elmer Fudd is in the woods.