PLANS
Sammy sat, speechless, for what seemed like an eternity. He wasn’t sure of what he had heard, but if had heard what his brain was computing that he had then, he knew, he was surely going to hell. The room moved about him in slow motion causing him to place his hand on Connolly’s desk in order to steady himself. “Kill the President of the United States” he said in a monotone, saying it aloud to make sure that he heard it correctly. “Kill the President of the United States,” he repeated. The words rang in his ears. He felt his face flush and his ears get hot. His stomach churned and his bowels loosened. The Chief could not help but notice Sammy’s physical state.
“Sammy.” No response. “Sammy.” A flicker in his eyes and then back to earth.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said and became silent again. After a few moments he said, quietly but firmly, “Are you crazy? Kill the President? I can’t kill the President. You can’t kill the President. I can’t kill the President,” he repeated. “Do you understand what you are suggesting? Third world countries kill their Presidents. We don’t. I can’t do this.” He got up and started pacing the room, back and forth while the Chief sat and absorbed this unusual, but expected, tirade. “You are talking about the most heinous crime ever committed. This is not 1963. An investigation will be conducted and it will be conducted by a stronger person than Earl Warren. History will not repeat itself. Who did it will be discovered this time. There will be no conspiracy, no cover up. And I have the most to lose. I will not do it.”
The Chief looked at Sammy for a long time after he finished. Softly, he said, “If you don’t do it, then you will definitely have the most to lose.”
Sammy lost his composure. He screamed, “What the fuck does that mean?? What are you going to do, kill me? Make it look like a suicide and leave a note written in my script by the boys in handwriting expressing my remorse over the past killings and paint a picture for the world to see of a lonely Senior Vice President of Marketing who killed to fulfill his psychotic agenda.”
The Chief just smiled. “That’s why we like you the best, Sammy. We hadn’t even thought of terminating you. No, we thought your pain would be created more subtly. For instance, we know everything there is to know about your parents, Eleanor & Richard...”
“You fucking son of a bitch. If you do anything to them....”
Now it was the Chief’s turn to yell. “What? What would you do if we wanted to do something to them? Who the fuck do you think you are. We could kill them but we won’t. We could ruin their careers, though. Your mother, a successful Long Island Realtor. Your father, a successful lawyer. They’re doing pretty well for themselves with a combined annual income over $250,000. How about we get them involved in stock manipulation and insider trading? We know they’ve done extremely well in the stock market, better than most. We have people all over the place. What do you think will happen if one of them drops documentation off with the FBI at 26 Federal Plaza in New York showing that your parents had inside information. Why, your parents would be immediately arrested, of course. Now, let’s see. Their bank accounts would be frozen and their house would be taken from them. By the time they got out of jail they’d be penniless and old. And it would work, too. There aren’t too many insider trading cases being prosecuted these days, but the old man wants to step up activity in this area by the mid to late eighties.”
“You wouldn’t” It was said as a question.
“Or maybe we can lay some evidence down to show that your old man stole money out of his firm’s Clients Trust account. What do you think he could do if he got disbarred at the age of 55. Or maybe we plant some evidence that your mother engaged in discriminatory selling practices. Her career would be gone as well.”
“You wouldn’t.” Again, but this time weaker.
“You’re probably right. I like your suicide scenario much better.” The Chief’s eyes were cold blue pools of ice devoid of emotion. “Framing your parents could be beaten by a top-notch defense attorney. It’s not foolproof. Neither is yours, just think of Lee Harvey in 1963, but it comes close to perfect. If we killed you as you described it would bring a lot of heat down on Renfro Sales, and that’s something we don’t want. But still, it’s a workable plan. That’s why we like you so much. You have the capability to adapt yourself to any situation.” He paused for a few moments. Neither man spoke. “So, do you help us or do you become a front page headline on the New York Times?” Sammy didn’t respond.
The Chief broke the silence. “You have what it takes to rise to the top in this organization. That’s the truth. We’re talking about a career decision here and you have to make it. Fuck all of the assholes in the world that say ‘it’s only a job.’ Bullshit. That ain’t true here. You make your decision, just realize that you’re making a life-and-death career decision. Just don’t think that if you say no, you’ll be able to walk out of here alive.”
Again, Sammy sat, speechless. His face flushed and beads of sweat began to drip down his forehead making rivulets towards his eyes. His armpits and back were sweaty to the point where his shirt was soaked. He couldn’t kill the President, but he knew he couldn’t die. He would stall for time. “You’ve left me no alternative,” he said quietly. “And I see now that this will not be my last assignment because you’d never let me leave the Company, am I right?”
“Yes, you are.”
“Then I want a Section Chief spot and I want to be your Deputy Chief as well as your successor. That’s the price you pay.”
“Ordinarily, we don’t negotiate. But given your assignment, I have been given the latitude to negotiate. Consider it done.”
“So, what’s the plan.”
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Chapter 4-Recovery
RECOVERY
Sammy's parents were in a state of shock they had never before experienced. Sammy's mother could not stand by herself without help and Sammy's father could not perform even the most routine functions. On his many trips to the cafeteria to purchase a cup of black coffee for himself and his wife to share he often could not summon the energy or thought processes to go through his change and sort out the fifteen cents necessary to purchase the cup. On half of the occasions, after being helped by the cashier to come up with the change, Sammy's father would forget the cup of coffee he sought to purchase.
The doctor, however, was more upbeat. While he could not rule out neurological damage, he was pretty certain that this would not occur. He based this on the fact that while the scalp lacerations were both extensive and severe, there was only a minor hairline fracture of the skull and tests run already did not show any brain damage. However, further tests were necessary and would need to be taken over a long period of time, especially since neurological damage might not manifest itself for quite some time as in many youths who suffer head trauma the effects remain quiescent for many years. He still needed care for the deep cuts and lacerations he received all over his body. While he was lucky that he not nicked any major arteries or broken any bones, he suffered cuts over 60% of his body.
Sammy, however, was still in a coma and, this, three days after the accident. "I think you'll find that this is quite normal, especially in cases of such severe head trauma."
"But what about the blood," asked Sammy's father. "There was so much of it."
"That's quite normal. Due to the close proximity to the brain and the carotid artery most head wounds bleed profusely. It's quite normal", the doctor replied cavalierly, quite obviously waiting for an opportunity to depart.
"Doc, this is my son we're talking about. I'd appreciate you be generous with your time and not giving us the bum's rush."
"I am sorry about your boy's condition, but you must understand that I have many patients who have worse conditions,” he said as he checked his watch for the tenth time in the past minute. “I am happy to speak with you at any time, perhaps after hours, but now I must press on."
"You'll talk to me when I want you to talk to me," Sammy's father yelled, grabbing hold of the doctor's collar. At the moment it appeared that Sammy’s father was going to deck the doctor, a white-uniformed nurse appeared to the right frantically clutching at the doctor's arm.
"Doctor," she yelled, "Come quick. It's the Johnston boy." At that Sammy's father froze and turned white. A moment later, he was running towards Sammy's room fearing the worst. Sammy's mother, previously unable to ambulate without assistance, was running towards the room with the speed of Mercury. The doctor brought up the rear.
Entering Sammy's room, the three of them froze. Sitting up and grinning, albeit groggily, was Sammy. Confused by his surroundings, he was looking around the room in an attempt to jog his memory to determine how he ended up here. Upon seeing his parents, his grin turned into a full-fledged groggy smile, his eyelids still at half-mast. His parents both burst into tears and rushed to the bed. "Hi guys," Sammy said lazily. He yawned, "why'd you bring me here."
Grabbing and hugging Sammy, his parents started crying harder, but this time there was an edge of relief in their sobs. Summoning his energy, Sammy's mom said, "You hurt yourself, baby, but you're going to get better. We're going to get you the best medical treatment and you're going to get better. I promise."
"Okay." With that, Sammy laid back down, turned over and went to sleep. The doctor, seeing the parents' worried faces start anew said, "Do not worry. He's exhausted. Let him sleep. You can wait here if you'd like but you look pretty exhausted yourselves. If you want to go home, I'll make sure you are called to come here, when he wakes up."
Sammy's parents were of one voice. "We'll wait here," they said in unison and then hugged each other fiercely as the doctor and the nurse made their departure.
Sammy slept and slept and slept but when he woke he was full of energy. Despite his awakening and no matter how much he racked his brains in response to his parent's questions, he couldn't remember what happened. He couldn't even remember what he was doing before every thing went black. When his parents told him he was jumping from a running start and he went through the storm door, he still drew a blank. His last memory was of the handball game and resting in the park. His parents pressed no further and neither did Sammy. All of them were only concerned that Sammy was getting better.
Days stretched into weeks and weeks stretched into months. Even to the doctor's surprise Sammy's recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Sammy was back at school in September and had been well enough to complete his studies over the summer so he would not be left back. All of his classmates were happy to see him, even treating him like royalty for having been through such an ordeal.
While Sammy appeared perfectly normal, his parents noticed small, otherwise imperceptible changes in him. Before his accident, Sammy was what his father called a "straight-shooter". He would never tell a fib, never a white lie, never shade the truth, even if it meant being punished for something he'd done wrong. When his teacher sent a note home saying that Sammy was unprepared for class, Sammy would tell the truth and confess, hoping that his plea that "it will never happen again" would work. It usually did.
The first time Sammy's father noticed a change was when the teacher sent home a note stating that she wanted to see Sammy's parents regarding cheating on an exam. Sammy's parents spoke with Sammy who said that he didn't cheat on a test but it was, rather, a classmate who was cheating on his test. Sammy said that the test was in Social Studies and that he knew all the answers because he stayed up late to study for it the previous night. What struck his parents as strange was that they went out to dinner at the Sizzler and Sammy was asleep by nine o'clock. From eight to nine Sammy sat with his parents and watched an episode of 'Laugh-In.' When Sammy's parents told him what he did the previous night, Sammy yelled "You're wrong" and stormed out of the room. Sammy's parents decided not to press the issue further but did agree that an immediate appointment with the teacher was necessary.
These instances of lying became more and more frequent. He began speaking of an uncle who was in the movies and of potentially being in the movies himself because good kid actors were hard to find. One particularly interesting story he floated about was that he was part Italian and his original name was Guiseppe Giovannini. His parents were pure Irish and there was no way this could be true. No one believed this and many of his friends disassociated themselves from him.
His parents were frantic, so much so that they felt that psychiatric help was in order. They didn't blame Sammy but felt that his bouts of lying were caused by his accident; however, Sammy would not admit that anything was wrong.
His parents sent him to Dr. Bernard Feintuch, a noted psychiatrist specializing in neurological disorders. Very often, he explained, many cases of head trauma result in some manifestation of neurological disorder. While most cases result in some form of epilepsy, he told Sammy's parents, there are those cases in which behavioral changes are noted. This seemed to fit Sammy's condition and the doctor, most intrigued by the case, agreed to see Sammy.
Sammy's first visit came eight months after his accident. Dr. Feintuch started with seemingly casual conversation in order to get Sammy comfortable with the process. "Tell me a little bit about yourself," he asked.
"I'm nine years old and I am in the fourth grade at the Kennedy elementary school."
"What do you like to do?" Dr. Feintuch asked.
"Not much nowadays. A lot of my friends don't play with me anymore."
"Why is that, do you think?"
"I don't know."
"Do you have any friends?"
"Well, my best friend is Davey McCoy. He was my best friend before the accident and he is my best friend now. He was the one who found me after the accident and called the ambulance. We play together all the time."
"What do you play?"
"G.I. Joe and my erector set and my Tonka trucks."
"Did you do this before the accident?"
"Yes."
"What else did you do before the accident?"
"I used to jump."
Dr. Feintuch sat up in his chair, a look of befuddlement passing over his face. "What?" he asked, almost laughing.
"I used to jump."
"What do you mean 'jump?'"
"Well, I like to imagine that I'm an Olympic hurdler and I would pretend that my front steps were the hurdles. I would jump over them."
"How often would you do this?"
"Before the accident, I jumped a few hours every day."
Wide-eyed the doctor asked, "a FEW hours a day?"
"Yeah." Nothing else.
"What about now?"
"I want to, but my mom won't let me."
“Why won’t she let you jump?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have absolutely no idea?”
“Well, I must have gotten hurt because one day I remember jumping for my friend Davey, but the next thing I knew I was in the hospital. I ask my parents about it but they won’t tell me about it.”
“Your parents haven’t told you about your accident.”
“No. Can you tell me?”
“I think you should discuss it with your parents. I’m sure they’ll tell you.” Changing subjects, the doctor asked, “How are things in school?”
“Fine.”
“How are the other kids treating you”
“Fine. They were super nice to me when I got out of the hospital.”
“Really,” exclaimed Dr. Feintuch. “How do they treat you now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are they nice to you. Are they not nice to you. Things like that.”
“”They treat me like I’m a regular kid, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, some of the kids are not so friendly anymore.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
"I see." He decided to change his course now. "Sammy, your parents tell me that you've been having problems lying about some things."
Sammy started to yell loudly. "No, I haven't. That's a lie. I want to leave."
"Sammy, your parents are not here right now. They've gone out to do some shopping. They told me they'd be back at eleven o'clock, when your appointment is over."
"You're lying." In fact, the doctor was lying. Sammy's parents were in the waiting room outside the office. He was hoping Sammy wouldn't check. He was a poor gambler. Sammy ran to the office door and opened it, revealing his waiting parents. They jumped up and ran to him. "I don't like this doctor. He lies. I want to go home." Sammy's father glared and the world-renowned Feintuch looked back at him, helplessly. Sammy's parents dragged Sammy out of the office without saying another word.
“Done in by a nine year old,” said Feintuch to himself.
Sammy apologized to his parents and told them that he would do his best not to lie anymore. For his parents, this was music to their ears. This was the first time that Sammy acknowledged he had a problem. They decided to work with Sammy and teach him right from wrong themselves. They felt they could do a better job of it anyway.
Sammy for his part was a cooperative student and worked with his parents to stop any lying that he was doing. However, he enjoyed lying and planned on continuing to do so. It made him feel better about himself. He wasn’t good at sports, didn’t have a lot of friends and felt alone. If he had to lie to get kids to like him better, he’d do it, but he would be more careful this time. He would, though, start anew and write down everything he said and stop making the lies outlandish. Let's face it, he thought, if you make yourself sound better, people will like you better. You just have to do it right.
And it worked, too. Although it took several months to overcome the damage he previously caused, he started making friends again. His lies were little white lies, saying he had done this or that, he had played with some new game and had done really well at it, had gone to such and such a place for dinner. Children being fickle as they are anyway were ready to accept Sammy back into the fold. His lack of lying hastened the process. Unfortunately, he had not stopped lying but had become more calculated about it. His composition notebook was filled with pages of writing catalogued by topic and with entries regarding specific lies he had told and to whom he had told the prevarication. Instead of watching television at night with his parents he spent extra time doing his homework and memorizing his notebook. At first this was a daunting task but he was soon able to grasp the information and memorize it. Further, his review of the information on a daily basis further reinforced the information into his brain. He would often pass up studying for tests if he had to pick between tests and his notebooks; however, the regimen of studying on a daily basis not only made him a better student but developed an ingrown talent that he did not know he had, a photographic memory. It’s not widely known, but only three percent of the population have the ability to remember anything that they read. Most people have heard of photographic memories and there has not been one child in all of history who has not wished that he possessed such a talent while studying for an exam, especially a history exam, where dates and places are so important. What is even less known is that unless those three percent of the individuals exercise their talent, they lose it, much the way as pugilist loses his edge when he does not go to the gym to practice.
The years passed and the little boy who had severe troubles found himself to be one of the most popular kids in school. While all the kids were starting to grow their hair long and wear denim jeans to school, Sammy preferred to dress wearing chinos, button down shirts, topsiders and keeping his hair neatly trimmed. He excelled in his classwork and constantly finished within the top five kids in class. In high school, he was elected president of the senior class and was involved in all manner of extracurricular activities.
Throughout all of his days in elementary, junior high and high school his best friend remained Davey McCoy. Davey had grown exponentially in size and was one of the largest kids in the class, perfectly suited for the football uniform he wore so well. Davey could tell when Sammy was lying but it didn't bother him because he felt that Sammy was only fibbing and telling small harmless lies that didn't matter. In addition, Davey was no small slouch in the lying area. In fact, his favorite line was "the dog ate my homework." Given the success of the high school football program, Davey's coach was able to exert pressure on the teachers to pass those football players who were marginal at best. Not that Davey was in this category, but the spillover effect was that teachers accepted his excuse and didn't bother him. Both Davey and Sammy found this amusing as both knew, and the teachers didn't, that Davey didn't even own a dog.
Despite their differences, the two of them were inseparable. They did everything together, from going out on dates and to drinking with the aid of Davey's older brother's ID card. Therefore, when it came time to select colleges they were scared with the prospect of being separated for the first time in many years. Davey, with an average of 83 and SATs of 1100 applied to all of the schools in the State University of New York system. Sammy, with his 96 average and 1450 SATs, applied to four schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton and his safe school, State University of New York at Albany. Sammy got accepted to all four schools and Davey got accepted to SUNY Albany, among other schools in the state system. Faced with the first separation in their lives, the boys went into a panic.
Sammy made a decision that made everyone, including parents, guidance counselors, principals, college admissions officers, and friends sit up and take notice. He rejected the offers from Harvard, Princeton and Yale and sent an acceptance letter to the State University at Albany. He felt it was a matter of loyalty. He clearly remembered when he fell out of favor in the fourth grade. Only Davey stood by him. Now, he felt, it was time to repay the favor. It was a decision that no one understood, not even his parents (although, admittedly, his dad’s bank account was grateful). Only Davey had an inkling as to what Sammy was doing, but he could still not comprehend that someone would do such a thing for him. No one had ever done anything like that for Davey McCoy. Had Sammy taken the prudent course and gone to an Ivy League school he would have had it made. As it was, it was a decision that would alter his life and was one that Sammy would later regret as it brought him into contact with Bennett Armstrong, the man who brought him into the Company.
Bennett Armstrong was the chairman of the Political Science department at Albany State. Ever since Sammy was an outspoken student in PoliSci 101 (Introduction to Political Science) Armstrong took a shine to the young man and was glad to be his mentor when the time came. To Sammy, Armstrong was a nice man who was providing educational and career guidance for him. He did not know that Armstrong was once a field agent for the CIA in Germany at the height of the cold war in the late fifties and early sixties. His mentor was none other than James Lee Patterson. When he decided to retire from active duty, Patterson allowed him to do so on the condition that he act as a scout, looking for new talent. Over the years, he had recruited 50 potential stars. None, Patterson was later heard to say, amounted to anything near young Mr. Johnston.
Meanwhile, Sammy was enjoying college life. He found that he was able to breeze through his course work and partake in the fun the Albany nightlife had to offer. He spent many evenings in the Rathskellar, the University operated bar that was located conveniently in the campus center. One dollar pitchers were the norm, even if it was such slop as Genessee Cream Ale. Getting drunk was important to Davey so it was important to Sammy and they engaged in what they referred to as their "occupation" nightly, raising drinking to an art form. It was at the Rathskellar where they met William Williams and Steve Winterbottom when, one crowded Thursday/ half price pitcher night, the four had to share a table and a fast friendship was formed over a few pitchers of beer. They spent a lot of their time at the movies, especially convenient at Albany State, which sported three movie groups, Albany State Cinema and Tower East Cinema, which showed new releases, and International Film Group, which showed the classics. Sammy found himself immersed in the movies often pretending to himself that he was the writer, producer and director of the movies by visualizing his name appearing in the credits. He further fueled his capacity for lying by being able to recall movie lines instantaneously and injecting them into conversation. By doing so, he had taken his photographic memory the proverbial step further by training his mind to recall the spoken word. By the time he got to his junior year of college he had no further use for his notebook, using, rather, his mind which acted as a computer.
His mental acuity impressed Armstrong so much that, as graduation drew near, an interview was arranged with a man named Henry Richardson who was scouting for talented graduates to work as research analysts for the government. Richardson was so impressed with Sammy that he offered him a researcher position on the spot. What with the $40,000 per year starting salary, Sammy was hard pressed to refuse. He accepted on the spot and his future was sealed.
Meanwhile, Davey had absolutely no career aspirations. Along with Steve and Bill, Davey decided to stay in Albany and find some job. Steve liked the school and the kids who went there so he got a job with the SUNY Albany Department of Public Safety. He got to act as campus security, which wasn't that bad since crime wasn't that bad. Occasionally he'd have to give a speeding ticket to someone tooling around the long roadway that circled the school or he'd have to show up at some freshman party on Colonial Quadrangle (where most of the freshmen were herded) in order to quiet down an over-rambunctious party. Davey and Bill, and even Sammy, found his job quite amusing and would often join in wild, frenetic calls of "one Adam 12, one Adam 12, a 211 in progress. one Adam 12 handle code 3." At first, Steve didn't like this but after a while he stopped snarling as he actually found it funny and often joined in the battle cry himself.
Steve’s true ambition, though, was to be an actor. He had been a drama major in college, much to the consternation of his parents. Their lukewarm reception to his choice of major quickly dissipated when they traveled to Albany to see the school’s student production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Steve as Stanley Kowalski. Not only did his parents support his career choice, but he received excellent critical reviews from local area drama critics. But he still had not yet received a professional nibble. He subscribed to Variety and traveled to New York for casting calls, but all of his trips had been in vain. His true love, however, was makeup. He was nuts about the subject and voraciously devoured articles about the masters like Rick Baker and Wally Westmore. When he wasn’t acting in a production, he was the makeup artist. He eschewed the use of pancake makeup and opted for the use of latex in order to alter one’s appearance. He was so good at what he did that he still worked on the productions after his campus security ‘gig’ so he could keep up on his skills. Little did he know he would soon get the role of a lifetime.
Davey, on the other hand, in quite typical Davey fashion, found a job in nearby Troy as the Commissioner of Sanitation. He did this by being lazy. Not being one to hit the books, he took advantage of the SUNY intern program, which placed students into the real world for a semester and gave them a full semester's worth fifteen credits for doing so. Davey, always looking for a shortcut, befriended the son of the incumbent mayor of Troy, who was a shoo-in for re-election. Davey was to be the campaign manager, a job less prestigious than the title sounded as the campaign was less real than imagined. When the Mayor was declared the winner on election night (and the local news declared him a winner just five minutes after the polls closed) he thanked his young campaign manager and declared that if Davey wanted to continue his work for the Mayor's administration as sanitation commissioner, he could do so. Davey, to the delight of the local newscasters (despite their being unawares of his slightly inebriated condition) gave the thumbs-up and the deal was struck, leading local weatherman and area fixture Howard Ware to comment "That's one lucky small fry. I wish could have been in charge of garbage when I was 22."
Bill, the quietest of the bunch, took the same internship program, but using his father's connections, was able to secure a campaign spot on the staff of then Albany District Attorney Joseph Humphreys and when that man won his election, Bill was offered the spot of chief of staff. Unlike Davey, Bill was all hard work and very little play. In Bill's instance, his only playtime came when he was with his three friends. At all other times, he did everything he could to get ahead. Some people said he was just plain mean, ruthless. Even Senator Humphreys was, at some times, taken aback by the activities of his senior administrative assistant. Nevertheless, since none of Bill's activities were overtly underhanded, he chose not to approach him, but, rather, kept an eye out for his activities. In him, Humphreys saw a young man who, troubled by something from his past, was overcompensating in the present.
Sammy's parents were in a state of shock they had never before experienced. Sammy's mother could not stand by herself without help and Sammy's father could not perform even the most routine functions. On his many trips to the cafeteria to purchase a cup of black coffee for himself and his wife to share he often could not summon the energy or thought processes to go through his change and sort out the fifteen cents necessary to purchase the cup. On half of the occasions, after being helped by the cashier to come up with the change, Sammy's father would forget the cup of coffee he sought to purchase.
The doctor, however, was more upbeat. While he could not rule out neurological damage, he was pretty certain that this would not occur. He based this on the fact that while the scalp lacerations were both extensive and severe, there was only a minor hairline fracture of the skull and tests run already did not show any brain damage. However, further tests were necessary and would need to be taken over a long period of time, especially since neurological damage might not manifest itself for quite some time as in many youths who suffer head trauma the effects remain quiescent for many years. He still needed care for the deep cuts and lacerations he received all over his body. While he was lucky that he not nicked any major arteries or broken any bones, he suffered cuts over 60% of his body.
Sammy, however, was still in a coma and, this, three days after the accident. "I think you'll find that this is quite normal, especially in cases of such severe head trauma."
"But what about the blood," asked Sammy's father. "There was so much of it."
"That's quite normal. Due to the close proximity to the brain and the carotid artery most head wounds bleed profusely. It's quite normal", the doctor replied cavalierly, quite obviously waiting for an opportunity to depart.
"Doc, this is my son we're talking about. I'd appreciate you be generous with your time and not giving us the bum's rush."
"I am sorry about your boy's condition, but you must understand that I have many patients who have worse conditions,” he said as he checked his watch for the tenth time in the past minute. “I am happy to speak with you at any time, perhaps after hours, but now I must press on."
"You'll talk to me when I want you to talk to me," Sammy's father yelled, grabbing hold of the doctor's collar. At the moment it appeared that Sammy’s father was going to deck the doctor, a white-uniformed nurse appeared to the right frantically clutching at the doctor's arm.
"Doctor," she yelled, "Come quick. It's the Johnston boy." At that Sammy's father froze and turned white. A moment later, he was running towards Sammy's room fearing the worst. Sammy's mother, previously unable to ambulate without assistance, was running towards the room with the speed of Mercury. The doctor brought up the rear.
Entering Sammy's room, the three of them froze. Sitting up and grinning, albeit groggily, was Sammy. Confused by his surroundings, he was looking around the room in an attempt to jog his memory to determine how he ended up here. Upon seeing his parents, his grin turned into a full-fledged groggy smile, his eyelids still at half-mast. His parents both burst into tears and rushed to the bed. "Hi guys," Sammy said lazily. He yawned, "why'd you bring me here."
Grabbing and hugging Sammy, his parents started crying harder, but this time there was an edge of relief in their sobs. Summoning his energy, Sammy's mom said, "You hurt yourself, baby, but you're going to get better. We're going to get you the best medical treatment and you're going to get better. I promise."
"Okay." With that, Sammy laid back down, turned over and went to sleep. The doctor, seeing the parents' worried faces start anew said, "Do not worry. He's exhausted. Let him sleep. You can wait here if you'd like but you look pretty exhausted yourselves. If you want to go home, I'll make sure you are called to come here, when he wakes up."
Sammy's parents were of one voice. "We'll wait here," they said in unison and then hugged each other fiercely as the doctor and the nurse made their departure.
Sammy slept and slept and slept but when he woke he was full of energy. Despite his awakening and no matter how much he racked his brains in response to his parent's questions, he couldn't remember what happened. He couldn't even remember what he was doing before every thing went black. When his parents told him he was jumping from a running start and he went through the storm door, he still drew a blank. His last memory was of the handball game and resting in the park. His parents pressed no further and neither did Sammy. All of them were only concerned that Sammy was getting better.
Days stretched into weeks and weeks stretched into months. Even to the doctor's surprise Sammy's recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Sammy was back at school in September and had been well enough to complete his studies over the summer so he would not be left back. All of his classmates were happy to see him, even treating him like royalty for having been through such an ordeal.
While Sammy appeared perfectly normal, his parents noticed small, otherwise imperceptible changes in him. Before his accident, Sammy was what his father called a "straight-shooter". He would never tell a fib, never a white lie, never shade the truth, even if it meant being punished for something he'd done wrong. When his teacher sent a note home saying that Sammy was unprepared for class, Sammy would tell the truth and confess, hoping that his plea that "it will never happen again" would work. It usually did.
The first time Sammy's father noticed a change was when the teacher sent home a note stating that she wanted to see Sammy's parents regarding cheating on an exam. Sammy's parents spoke with Sammy who said that he didn't cheat on a test but it was, rather, a classmate who was cheating on his test. Sammy said that the test was in Social Studies and that he knew all the answers because he stayed up late to study for it the previous night. What struck his parents as strange was that they went out to dinner at the Sizzler and Sammy was asleep by nine o'clock. From eight to nine Sammy sat with his parents and watched an episode of 'Laugh-In.' When Sammy's parents told him what he did the previous night, Sammy yelled "You're wrong" and stormed out of the room. Sammy's parents decided not to press the issue further but did agree that an immediate appointment with the teacher was necessary.
These instances of lying became more and more frequent. He began speaking of an uncle who was in the movies and of potentially being in the movies himself because good kid actors were hard to find. One particularly interesting story he floated about was that he was part Italian and his original name was Guiseppe Giovannini. His parents were pure Irish and there was no way this could be true. No one believed this and many of his friends disassociated themselves from him.
His parents were frantic, so much so that they felt that psychiatric help was in order. They didn't blame Sammy but felt that his bouts of lying were caused by his accident; however, Sammy would not admit that anything was wrong.
His parents sent him to Dr. Bernard Feintuch, a noted psychiatrist specializing in neurological disorders. Very often, he explained, many cases of head trauma result in some manifestation of neurological disorder. While most cases result in some form of epilepsy, he told Sammy's parents, there are those cases in which behavioral changes are noted. This seemed to fit Sammy's condition and the doctor, most intrigued by the case, agreed to see Sammy.
Sammy's first visit came eight months after his accident. Dr. Feintuch started with seemingly casual conversation in order to get Sammy comfortable with the process. "Tell me a little bit about yourself," he asked.
"I'm nine years old and I am in the fourth grade at the Kennedy elementary school."
"What do you like to do?" Dr. Feintuch asked.
"Not much nowadays. A lot of my friends don't play with me anymore."
"Why is that, do you think?"
"I don't know."
"Do you have any friends?"
"Well, my best friend is Davey McCoy. He was my best friend before the accident and he is my best friend now. He was the one who found me after the accident and called the ambulance. We play together all the time."
"What do you play?"
"G.I. Joe and my erector set and my Tonka trucks."
"Did you do this before the accident?"
"Yes."
"What else did you do before the accident?"
"I used to jump."
Dr. Feintuch sat up in his chair, a look of befuddlement passing over his face. "What?" he asked, almost laughing.
"I used to jump."
"What do you mean 'jump?'"
"Well, I like to imagine that I'm an Olympic hurdler and I would pretend that my front steps were the hurdles. I would jump over them."
"How often would you do this?"
"Before the accident, I jumped a few hours every day."
Wide-eyed the doctor asked, "a FEW hours a day?"
"Yeah." Nothing else.
"What about now?"
"I want to, but my mom won't let me."
“Why won’t she let you jump?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have absolutely no idea?”
“Well, I must have gotten hurt because one day I remember jumping for my friend Davey, but the next thing I knew I was in the hospital. I ask my parents about it but they won’t tell me about it.”
“Your parents haven’t told you about your accident.”
“No. Can you tell me?”
“I think you should discuss it with your parents. I’m sure they’ll tell you.” Changing subjects, the doctor asked, “How are things in school?”
“Fine.”
“How are the other kids treating you”
“Fine. They were super nice to me when I got out of the hospital.”
“Really,” exclaimed Dr. Feintuch. “How do they treat you now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are they nice to you. Are they not nice to you. Things like that.”
“”They treat me like I’m a regular kid, I guess.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, some of the kids are not so friendly anymore.”
“Do you know why?”
“No.”
"I see." He decided to change his course now. "Sammy, your parents tell me that you've been having problems lying about some things."
Sammy started to yell loudly. "No, I haven't. That's a lie. I want to leave."
"Sammy, your parents are not here right now. They've gone out to do some shopping. They told me they'd be back at eleven o'clock, when your appointment is over."
"You're lying." In fact, the doctor was lying. Sammy's parents were in the waiting room outside the office. He was hoping Sammy wouldn't check. He was a poor gambler. Sammy ran to the office door and opened it, revealing his waiting parents. They jumped up and ran to him. "I don't like this doctor. He lies. I want to go home." Sammy's father glared and the world-renowned Feintuch looked back at him, helplessly. Sammy's parents dragged Sammy out of the office without saying another word.
“Done in by a nine year old,” said Feintuch to himself.
Sammy apologized to his parents and told them that he would do his best not to lie anymore. For his parents, this was music to their ears. This was the first time that Sammy acknowledged he had a problem. They decided to work with Sammy and teach him right from wrong themselves. They felt they could do a better job of it anyway.
Sammy for his part was a cooperative student and worked with his parents to stop any lying that he was doing. However, he enjoyed lying and planned on continuing to do so. It made him feel better about himself. He wasn’t good at sports, didn’t have a lot of friends and felt alone. If he had to lie to get kids to like him better, he’d do it, but he would be more careful this time. He would, though, start anew and write down everything he said and stop making the lies outlandish. Let's face it, he thought, if you make yourself sound better, people will like you better. You just have to do it right.
And it worked, too. Although it took several months to overcome the damage he previously caused, he started making friends again. His lies were little white lies, saying he had done this or that, he had played with some new game and had done really well at it, had gone to such and such a place for dinner. Children being fickle as they are anyway were ready to accept Sammy back into the fold. His lack of lying hastened the process. Unfortunately, he had not stopped lying but had become more calculated about it. His composition notebook was filled with pages of writing catalogued by topic and with entries regarding specific lies he had told and to whom he had told the prevarication. Instead of watching television at night with his parents he spent extra time doing his homework and memorizing his notebook. At first this was a daunting task but he was soon able to grasp the information and memorize it. Further, his review of the information on a daily basis further reinforced the information into his brain. He would often pass up studying for tests if he had to pick between tests and his notebooks; however, the regimen of studying on a daily basis not only made him a better student but developed an ingrown talent that he did not know he had, a photographic memory. It’s not widely known, but only three percent of the population have the ability to remember anything that they read. Most people have heard of photographic memories and there has not been one child in all of history who has not wished that he possessed such a talent while studying for an exam, especially a history exam, where dates and places are so important. What is even less known is that unless those three percent of the individuals exercise their talent, they lose it, much the way as pugilist loses his edge when he does not go to the gym to practice.
The years passed and the little boy who had severe troubles found himself to be one of the most popular kids in school. While all the kids were starting to grow their hair long and wear denim jeans to school, Sammy preferred to dress wearing chinos, button down shirts, topsiders and keeping his hair neatly trimmed. He excelled in his classwork and constantly finished within the top five kids in class. In high school, he was elected president of the senior class and was involved in all manner of extracurricular activities.
Throughout all of his days in elementary, junior high and high school his best friend remained Davey McCoy. Davey had grown exponentially in size and was one of the largest kids in the class, perfectly suited for the football uniform he wore so well. Davey could tell when Sammy was lying but it didn't bother him because he felt that Sammy was only fibbing and telling small harmless lies that didn't matter. In addition, Davey was no small slouch in the lying area. In fact, his favorite line was "the dog ate my homework." Given the success of the high school football program, Davey's coach was able to exert pressure on the teachers to pass those football players who were marginal at best. Not that Davey was in this category, but the spillover effect was that teachers accepted his excuse and didn't bother him. Both Davey and Sammy found this amusing as both knew, and the teachers didn't, that Davey didn't even own a dog.
Despite their differences, the two of them were inseparable. They did everything together, from going out on dates and to drinking with the aid of Davey's older brother's ID card. Therefore, when it came time to select colleges they were scared with the prospect of being separated for the first time in many years. Davey, with an average of 83 and SATs of 1100 applied to all of the schools in the State University of New York system. Sammy, with his 96 average and 1450 SATs, applied to four schools: Harvard, Yale, Princeton and his safe school, State University of New York at Albany. Sammy got accepted to all four schools and Davey got accepted to SUNY Albany, among other schools in the state system. Faced with the first separation in their lives, the boys went into a panic.
Sammy made a decision that made everyone, including parents, guidance counselors, principals, college admissions officers, and friends sit up and take notice. He rejected the offers from Harvard, Princeton and Yale and sent an acceptance letter to the State University at Albany. He felt it was a matter of loyalty. He clearly remembered when he fell out of favor in the fourth grade. Only Davey stood by him. Now, he felt, it was time to repay the favor. It was a decision that no one understood, not even his parents (although, admittedly, his dad’s bank account was grateful). Only Davey had an inkling as to what Sammy was doing, but he could still not comprehend that someone would do such a thing for him. No one had ever done anything like that for Davey McCoy. Had Sammy taken the prudent course and gone to an Ivy League school he would have had it made. As it was, it was a decision that would alter his life and was one that Sammy would later regret as it brought him into contact with Bennett Armstrong, the man who brought him into the Company.
Bennett Armstrong was the chairman of the Political Science department at Albany State. Ever since Sammy was an outspoken student in PoliSci 101 (Introduction to Political Science) Armstrong took a shine to the young man and was glad to be his mentor when the time came. To Sammy, Armstrong was a nice man who was providing educational and career guidance for him. He did not know that Armstrong was once a field agent for the CIA in Germany at the height of the cold war in the late fifties and early sixties. His mentor was none other than James Lee Patterson. When he decided to retire from active duty, Patterson allowed him to do so on the condition that he act as a scout, looking for new talent. Over the years, he had recruited 50 potential stars. None, Patterson was later heard to say, amounted to anything near young Mr. Johnston.
Meanwhile, Sammy was enjoying college life. He found that he was able to breeze through his course work and partake in the fun the Albany nightlife had to offer. He spent many evenings in the Rathskellar, the University operated bar that was located conveniently in the campus center. One dollar pitchers were the norm, even if it was such slop as Genessee Cream Ale. Getting drunk was important to Davey so it was important to Sammy and they engaged in what they referred to as their "occupation" nightly, raising drinking to an art form. It was at the Rathskellar where they met William Williams and Steve Winterbottom when, one crowded Thursday/ half price pitcher night, the four had to share a table and a fast friendship was formed over a few pitchers of beer. They spent a lot of their time at the movies, especially convenient at Albany State, which sported three movie groups, Albany State Cinema and Tower East Cinema, which showed new releases, and International Film Group, which showed the classics. Sammy found himself immersed in the movies often pretending to himself that he was the writer, producer and director of the movies by visualizing his name appearing in the credits. He further fueled his capacity for lying by being able to recall movie lines instantaneously and injecting them into conversation. By doing so, he had taken his photographic memory the proverbial step further by training his mind to recall the spoken word. By the time he got to his junior year of college he had no further use for his notebook, using, rather, his mind which acted as a computer.
His mental acuity impressed Armstrong so much that, as graduation drew near, an interview was arranged with a man named Henry Richardson who was scouting for talented graduates to work as research analysts for the government. Richardson was so impressed with Sammy that he offered him a researcher position on the spot. What with the $40,000 per year starting salary, Sammy was hard pressed to refuse. He accepted on the spot and his future was sealed.
Meanwhile, Davey had absolutely no career aspirations. Along with Steve and Bill, Davey decided to stay in Albany and find some job. Steve liked the school and the kids who went there so he got a job with the SUNY Albany Department of Public Safety. He got to act as campus security, which wasn't that bad since crime wasn't that bad. Occasionally he'd have to give a speeding ticket to someone tooling around the long roadway that circled the school or he'd have to show up at some freshman party on Colonial Quadrangle (where most of the freshmen were herded) in order to quiet down an over-rambunctious party. Davey and Bill, and even Sammy, found his job quite amusing and would often join in wild, frenetic calls of "one Adam 12, one Adam 12, a 211 in progress. one Adam 12 handle code 3." At first, Steve didn't like this but after a while he stopped snarling as he actually found it funny and often joined in the battle cry himself.
Steve’s true ambition, though, was to be an actor. He had been a drama major in college, much to the consternation of his parents. Their lukewarm reception to his choice of major quickly dissipated when they traveled to Albany to see the school’s student production of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, starring Steve as Stanley Kowalski. Not only did his parents support his career choice, but he received excellent critical reviews from local area drama critics. But he still had not yet received a professional nibble. He subscribed to Variety and traveled to New York for casting calls, but all of his trips had been in vain. His true love, however, was makeup. He was nuts about the subject and voraciously devoured articles about the masters like Rick Baker and Wally Westmore. When he wasn’t acting in a production, he was the makeup artist. He eschewed the use of pancake makeup and opted for the use of latex in order to alter one’s appearance. He was so good at what he did that he still worked on the productions after his campus security ‘gig’ so he could keep up on his skills. Little did he know he would soon get the role of a lifetime.
Davey, on the other hand, in quite typical Davey fashion, found a job in nearby Troy as the Commissioner of Sanitation. He did this by being lazy. Not being one to hit the books, he took advantage of the SUNY intern program, which placed students into the real world for a semester and gave them a full semester's worth fifteen credits for doing so. Davey, always looking for a shortcut, befriended the son of the incumbent mayor of Troy, who was a shoo-in for re-election. Davey was to be the campaign manager, a job less prestigious than the title sounded as the campaign was less real than imagined. When the Mayor was declared the winner on election night (and the local news declared him a winner just five minutes after the polls closed) he thanked his young campaign manager and declared that if Davey wanted to continue his work for the Mayor's administration as sanitation commissioner, he could do so. Davey, to the delight of the local newscasters (despite their being unawares of his slightly inebriated condition) gave the thumbs-up and the deal was struck, leading local weatherman and area fixture Howard Ware to comment "That's one lucky small fry. I wish could have been in charge of garbage when I was 22."
Bill, the quietest of the bunch, took the same internship program, but using his father's connections, was able to secure a campaign spot on the staff of then Albany District Attorney Joseph Humphreys and when that man won his election, Bill was offered the spot of chief of staff. Unlike Davey, Bill was all hard work and very little play. In Bill's instance, his only playtime came when he was with his three friends. At all other times, he did everything he could to get ahead. Some people said he was just plain mean, ruthless. Even Senator Humphreys was, at some times, taken aback by the activities of his senior administrative assistant. Nevertheless, since none of Bill's activities were overtly underhanded, he chose not to approach him, but, rather, kept an eye out for his activities. In him, Humphreys saw a young man who, troubled by something from his past, was overcompensating in the present.
Friday, September 23, 2005
chapter 3
I have written a Novel. It is called LIAR. It is copyrighted. Here is chapter Three. Please provide feedback.(c) Michael Fried 1997, 2005
Chapter 3--STORM
WEATHERSHIP TANGO DELTA," were the only words that the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone spoke. They were the only words that needed to be spoken for they were the words that told Sammy that he was being activated for an assignment, in this case the final assignment of his career. He would need to make preparations to go to the nation’s capital. But first things first. Whenever Sammy received a call for an assignment it was necessary, for security reasons, for him not to go directly to Washington, D.C. but to use a circuitous route in order to avoid detection. Once the call was received he knew he would have to report to the office in precisely 168 hours. The only good thing about the week preceding an assignment was that Sammy’s trips were paid for by the Company. The bad thing, of course, was that he had a week to think about what he could potentially be assigned to accomplish. Once he flew to Chicago (during baseball season when the Cubs were in town) once to San Francisco (the Giants) and once to Paris, just because he wanted to go. This time he wanted to do something different. He decided that he would spend a full week in Alaska. He knew he always wanted to go there (he also wanted to go to Australia but didn’t need the long flight preventing him from carrying out his responsibilities) and, with the uncertainties of knowing if he’d live to ever go there on his own, he decided to make the arrangements. The next day he boarded a commuter flight from Albany to JFK and took a connecting Anchorage Airways flight from JFK to Anchorage, Alaska.
Sammy was attracted to Alaska for its splendid scenery. With 51 million acres set aside as National Park Service land, Sammy knew that there would be no shortage of sightseeing opportunities. He enjoyed the idea of going to a state that was the largest in area, but the least populated; however, once he got there he could see why the population increase in the past two years was four times the national average. The landscape was beautiful and the entire state was nearly pristine, touched by man, yet nearly untouched in many respects. It was a cold and brutal place in some areas, but he had not seen any of those places. He rented an airplane and a pilot and flew over much of Denali National Park and Mount Mckinley, the highest point in North America. Named for future President McKinley in 1896, he knew, its South Peak was first climbed in 1913. The trip wasn’t as onerous as he thought it would be because he had expected it to be much colder. It was a warm May day with temperatures hovering around a comfortable 56 degrees. He spent time hiking around the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge with a guide and toyed with the idea of renting a plane to fly past the Seward Peninsula and across the international dateline but gave up on that idea when none of the bush pilots he talked to would consider the opportunity for any amount of money. He went fishing and caught many salmon and halibut, which he had packed in ice and sent to his parents. He also met a gorgeous big-chested female eskimo named Anouk, whom he spent a large portion of the week with and took with him on his travels. One of the sites they enjoyed the most was the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, which included tours of buildings associated with the gold rush of 1897-98. But the fun was not to last. As was his procedure on his pre-assignment trips, he had nothing more than a fling with any female he met because he never knew if he would be coming back from the assignment.
Before he knew it his time in Alaska was up. At the airport, he did not fly back on the ticket he purchased, but rather checked in at the gate and pretended to board. He told the flight attendant that he left something in the waiting area and wanted to get it. She told him to hurry up and to make sure that he held onto his boarding pass. With a brief smile he patted his jacket pocket indicating that the pass was securely on his person. He accomplished all of this as other passengers were boarding so that he would be lost in the shuffle of packing the overhead bins, making sure the items were stowed securely and performing the menial housekeeping functions of distributing magazines, pillows and blankets. Evidently, it worked as the plane left the terminal without any concern for his whereabouts.
His luggage was stashed in an airport locker and after the plane departed he retrieved it. He then proceeded back to the main terminal, luggage in hand, and purchased another ticket in cash from a different ticket agent using the assumed name of Richard Billings. He proceeded to his gate and awaited his boarding call. When the flight was called he quickly took his first class window seat. As he had no carry-on luggage he was able to stretch out comfortably. He accepted a local newspaper and that day’s New York Times and declined a glass of champagne, asking, instead, for a glass of orange juice.
Scanning the Times he noted that the lead story on the front page announced:
PRESIDENT TO FORM PANEL TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF WRONGDOING IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
special to the New York Times
Sammy’s eyes widened at the next paragraph:
Sammy bolted upright in his seat. His hands began to get clammy and sweat started to pour from his forehead. Chesterton, DePasquale, Eastman. He was responsible for those. They were his previous assignments. He realized, like a lightning bolt hitting him between the eyes, that the President was investigating him. His breathing became shallow and labored. He felt the color draining out of his cheeks. A major storm was brewing and he was at its eye. He reached up to turn on the air vent located directly above his seat. The rush of cool air made him feel slightly better but his hopes of sleeping for the rest of the flight evaporated. He had the desire to throw the paper away and not read anymore but he couldn’t. He read on:
Sammy couldn’t read any further. He put down the newspaper but just as quickly picked it up again. He looked at the dateline. It was yesterday’s news. Was there any way the Chief knew it was going to break. There had to be. The Company was so wired into everything that it was possible there were a couple of agents elected to Congress. The thought scared him. Could his summons to D.C. be because they knew of this development and were bringing him in for "closure", a Company euphemism that he did not wish to think about. He was now fully terrified that he would be sacrificed and that his body would be turned over with forged documents indicating that he was a rogue CIA agent, operating beyond the pale of any authority extended to him. His mind swam with so many thoughts he couldn’t think straight. He was glad no one was sitting in the seat next to him witnessing his strange behavior. Had there been such a companion they might have believed that the young man sitting next to them was having a myocardial infarction. Frantically, he grabbed for and pushed the flight attendant call button.
"Yes sir, may I help you?," she said. Her name was Christine, according to her name tag.
"Yeah, I’ve changed my mind about that drink. Do you have any tequila?"
No, I’m afraid we don’t."
"Then I’ll have a Scotch. Please give me two. No ice. Just straight up." As she started to walk away, he asked, "Excuse me, do you have any Jack Daniels, instead?"
"Why, yes we do"
"Okay, two of those instead."
The drink burned his throat when he took his first swallow, but afterwards it went down smoothly and had a tremendous calming effect upon him. He decided to watch the movie that was beginning in the hopes that it would take his mind off his current predicament and help him pass the time easily. Since this was a long flight there were two movies. The first was one of those mindless comedies with a threadbare plot whose sole existence was necessary to keep all of the endless sight gags and tired one-liners coming. This one was a war movie spoof. While it wasn’t a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, watching it made Sammy relax to the point where he was even laughing at those endless sight gags and tired one-liners. He actually felt that he would be able to sleep for a while on the plane and did, in fact, doze off during the news program that was shown between the first and second movie.
When he woke up, he was calmer, but the second movie was a spy film that only served to remind him of his problem. He remembered that he had some big time problems, indeed, but felt he could deal with them if he forced some rational thought on the issue. He knew that if the Company did not want him to be safe, he would very well be the target of the investigation, but what could he do. If he ran, the Agency would dispatch an untold amount of agents to take him down. In all reality, even if he were able to keep running, he would never be able to stop. And, unfortunately, he did not have the resources to keep running. While he was paid handsomely for his efforts and had an extraordinarily large bank account for most people, not to mention a twenty three year old, his finances were not sufficient to allow him to constantly move. In addition, while he had $5,000 in cash on him presently, it was more likely than not that the Company would freeze his bank accounts, thus preventing him to obtain the funds to keep on the lam. With the Company’s strings carefully placed all over the world, internationally and domestically, it was highly unlikely that he would be safe in the FBI’s witness protection program. In fact, that would probably be the most dangerous. He could never be anonymous. The Agency could easily find out his new identity and he would be liquidated shortly thereafter. For Christ’s Sake, he was dealing with the "blackest" and most covert unit within the government. Goddamit, he had to think.
He took a deep breath. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe he was not going to be a scapegoat. He had served the Company well and it was quite possible that they would not use him as a sacrificial lamb. Yet he could not wonder what effect his attempts at resignation had. Damn! He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He should have realized that he could never leave. That they would never let him. He should have asked for reassignment from the field to an intelligence analyst position, one of those desk jockeys that monitor threats to the nation’s (and the Company’s) security. He knew that he hadn’t asked for this previously because of his conscience. He was directly responsible for the deaths of three people and becoming indirectly responsible for future deaths was no salve. He couldn’t live with himself so he proffered his resignation. Well, hell’s bells, he thought. A dead man has no conscience. Should’ve thought of that before, Sammy. Now you can meet up with your victims in the afterlife.
He had no choice. He would report tomorrow morning and withdraw his resignation and request re-assignment to a desk position. He hoped it was not too late. If asked, he would feign ignorance of the Congressional inquiry and the Presidential panel. He would do his best to act surprised. That was one thing he was good at, maintaining a cover. No reason for them to even doubt him one bit. He’d been in Alaska for a week and it was widely known that he preferred to rent a video and watch a movie rather than watching the news. While his specific assignments may have mandated his keeping current with the news, his overall job responsibilities did not and he avoided television news programs or newspapers whenever possible.
He would carry out his last assignment, be re-assigned to a desk position and would then live the rest of his life in a cloak of anonymity, keeping his mouth shut and assisting the CIA and the Company to deflect all criticisms. He, of all people, would find a way to do so because of his intimate knowledge of the questioned activities.
His thoughts were interrupted by the announcement from the Captain. "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the Captain speaking. We have begun our final descent into the Capital area. As we make our approach in to Dulles Airport you will be able to see the downtown D.C. area on the right hand side of the cabin. The flight crew has asked me to ask you to fasten your seat belts and make sure that your tray tables are in the upright position. I’m glad the flight has been uneventful. On behalf of the flight crew and myself we thank you for flying Trans National Airlines and hope you come back to see us again. We hope you enjoy your stay in Washington, D.C."
Sammy laughed to himself. ‘Uneventful flight’ my ass, he thought. For him, it was one of the worst flights he had ever been on.
After retrieving his luggage from the baggage carousel, he waited an interminable period of time for a taxi. When he finally got his cab, he was dismayed to see that the driver was a rancid Pakistani with little or no experience in driving in the Washington area. While wanting to fall asleep during the twenty minute cab ride, he felt very pissed off that he had to force himself to stay awake to give directions to the cabby. With the cab driver not really understanding English all too well, the twenty minute drive turned into a forty minute drive. When they pulled up to Sammy’s apartment, a faded brownstone in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, Sammy paid the metered amount and refused to give a tip. The cab driver vehemently yelled "Fuck you."
Sammy replied quietly, " I guess I was wrong about you not knowing English." He shut the door with a bang and carried his bags up to the front stoop. After unlocking the door, he stopped to collect his mail and walked up the stairs to his apartment, which was on the second floor of the brownstone. As much as he hated the Company, he was glad that they paid for two apartments for him so he had easy accessibility. He had requested the second apartment to be in Albany so he could be close to his friends when he was not working and the Company was glad to oblige.
Friends, he thought. It was good to be with them. Davey, Steve and Bill. Wait a minute, he thought. Bill was on the staff of Senator Joseph Humphreys, a freshman senator who hailed from Schenectady. Bill’s father, a lawyer, got him an internship during college in which Bill helped manage Humphreys’ senatorial campaign. When Humphreys ousted the incumbent, Senator Paul George, Bill, through the wonderful patronage system, was proffered a high level staff position in the Senator’s office. He was given the job on graduation day, a nice present from mentor to mentee.
Maybe he could talk to Bill. If he funneled information to Bill, perhaps he could make inquiries, using the power of his office. After all, Congressional leaks were more common than holes in Swiss cheese. He’d have to look into that.
Once inside his apartment, he did not bother to unpack. He took a shower and shaved and then promptly went to sleep, setting his alarm for 6:30 in the morning. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow and slept soundly throughout the night and, as far as he could remember, he did not dream.
So well did he sleep, in fact, that he woke up fifteen minutes before the alarm went off. He turned off the alarm and made coffee. He was glad that he did not sleep until the alarm went off because if he woke up before the alarm went off and decided to sleep until it did go off, he suffered major bouts of undesired grogginess. That was something he didn’t want to experience today.
While drinking his coffee, a special Colombian brew he ordered via a catalog from the Egyptian Coffee House in Walla Walla, Washington, he went through the mail that accumulated during his two week absence. Nothing remarkable. Two issues of Newsweek, a phone bill, the cable bill and an ad for a credit card offering a low 18.7% APR. He also received an ad from a computer company hawking their wares and a catalog from an order by mail electronics company. He threw everything out but the two Newsweeks and the two bills.
After finishing his coffee, he showered and shaved and dressed in his most conservative gray suit, white shirt and paisley tie. He left his apartment at 8:30 and hailed a cab, not an easy feat given the amount of people who took cabs at this time of morning to get to work. He was lucky and got a cab within five minutes. The cab took him to an inauspicious office building on 13th Street near the National Theatre.
Entering the building, he took the elevator to the basement offices of Renfro Sales Corporation, the Company’s cover. "Nice to have you back Mr. Johnston" greeted Julie, the red-headed, big chested receptionist that was rumored to have slept with most of the guys at this place. "Mr. Renfro is expecting you."
"Thanks, Julie." Passing Julie’s desk and entering the sales floor, Sammy marveled at the cover the Company used. In fact, this was not a new feeling for him. Every time he passed through he was awed by the meticulous care the Company used to maintain the cover. Renfro Sales Corporation was a company that procured job lots of items and then sold them to various liquidation warehouses and retail stores that were located throughout the country. With the decline of the department store as the prime buying source, and people looking for a bargain, many of these stores catered to people who wanted to save a buck and began popping up all over suburban America. The dozen salesmen in cheap off-the-rack suits were actually salesman employed by Renfro totally unaware of the true nature of the operation. Their cries, actually selling items procured by Renfro, could be heard as Sammy passed through the sales floor.
"Come on, you gotta help me here."
"So what are we talking about? Two dozen grosses. Is that all?"
"Listen, I can cut a hundred bucks off the whole shipment but that’s it."
Renfro Sales Corporation was a real company with a very healthy bottom line. These salesmen were responsible for net profits of $10 million last year and this year proved to be even better. Renfro paid all of its taxes on time, gave to charities and if anyone from the Internal Revenue Service ever desired to see detailed sales records, they would be able to produce them. Of course, that eventuality had never come to pass, to Sammy’s knowledge. Renfro took less deductions than a normal corporate entity would and, therefore, the Internal Revenue Service would never audit them, lest they actually lessen the amount of taxes paid.
As Senior Vice President in charge of marketing, he was known to all of them as Harry James and they waved to him as he crossed the floor. He returned every wave with one of his own. At the end of the sales floor he came up to a set of double doors that said "Executive Personnel Only." This was a security area and it was necessary for him to push his access card into a slot to unlock the doors. Passing through them, he entered into a long corridor with an elevator at the end. Once again using his security card, he summoned the elevators by pushing the button marked "one". After a few seconds, the elevator doors opened and he walked into an area right out of a spy movie. Computers lined one entire wall, enclosed in glass sarcophagi. Banks of monitors rested against another set of walls. More monitors lay in a console located towards the middle of the floor. Glass walls with world maps on them dotted the perimeter of the room. Large Screen Television monitors were scattered throughout. Printers were located in strategic positions near the computers and monitors. The crowning achievement, however, was the glass enclosed conference room with its own set of computers, monitors, printers and maps as well as a large oak conference table that was surrounded by twenty luxuriously appointed leather chairs. The conference room was empty, for the moment, but the rest of the supermarket sized floor was busily traveled by the one hundred or so analysts monitoring various intelligence operations.
This was the heart of The Company, the ultrasecret arm of the Central Intelligence Agency created by its Director, James Lee Patterson, with his own personal funds. No one, aside from Patterson and a handful of others who reported directly to him, in official Washington knew that The Company even existed. Created in 1961, the Company was established by Patterson to operate domestically and to carry out activities that could not be handled by the CIA proper. Patterson wanted all threats to the nation’s security, no matter how trivial, monitored. He also wanted any threat to his own power base effectively eliminated with no trace. So secret was the Company’s true identity that most of the people who actually worked as analysts believed that they were working for the CIA proper. Through use of secret funds and access to the government’s highly sophisticated and encrypted computer system Patterson was able to ensure that all of his analysts were paid by official government checks like their official counterparts, although no record of them as a group ever existed. Patterson knew that the federal bureaucracy was so large that no one, but no one, would catch one or two additional personnel per federal agency. No bureaucrat performed a line by line search of personnel or inventory. All they cared about was the bottom line. Thus, it was easy to place Company employees inside various departments within the CIA, but also within other agencies of the federal government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency. The last agency was the best as they had begun a massive expansion in light of the recently enacted Superfund legislation and were counting head growth in the hundreds per month.
It was never Patterson’s intention to call the secret side of Renfro Sales Corporation ‘The Company." He started referring to it as Renfro, as in ‘let’s see what Renfro can dig up’ or ‘let the boys at Renfro handle it’. Patterson’s direct subordinates merely got to the now official name by saying they had to get back to Company premises, or that the people at the Company were looking for them, and thus creating the name. Patterson did nothing to dissuade the use of the name. He reasoned that in the unlikely event that any communication from Renfro referencing ‘the Company’ was intercepted, the interceptees would assume that the CIA proper was involved. And if Patterson was questioned about it, he could open up his doors and prove that the CIA was not involved.
The current head of Renfro was George Connolly. He was Patterson’s most trusted aide and, although titularly in charge of the Company for only a short time, he had unofficially been Patterson’s pipeline to Renfro since its inception. For ten years prior to Connolly, Henry Richardson headed up Renfro and his removal had been mysterious. Most of the analysts were young and had only been around for Richardson’s tenure so they had not known the nameless man who preceded Richardson and who disappeared under even more mysterious consequences. After Richardson’s demise, Patterson installed Connolly to avoid further upheaval as Connolly was the only person Patterson trusted anywhere close to one hundred percent.
Most of the staff were analysts, monitoring transmissions from all over the globe. A small corps of elite personnel were known as The Liars, Patterson’s intelligence version of the Delta Force. Sammy was one of these elite individuals and, despite his youth and relative inexperience, was considered to be the best. The Liars were the ultimate undercover personnel, chameleons who could fit into any situation at any time. They were utilized by Patterson to infiltrate any person or organization that he felt was inimical to his self perceived best interests. Some had fit in as White House Aides (and were, to Patterson’s chagrin, named as unindicted co-conspirators some eight years ago) some had been FBI agents and some had been Congressmen. Whatever the task, the liars were best suited for the job because of their intelligence and loyalty. Not one of the Liars had ever broken rank and divulged information about Patterson and the Company. And Patterson’s strict selection criteria and generosity in terms of huge payments for assignments ensured that it would remain that way. However, none of the Liars had Sammy’s effectiveness, especially considering his short tenure with the Company. In fact, Patterson, not one to heap praise upon any of his subordinates, said that Sammy’s last two assignments had been nothing short of miraculous.
Now, Sammy passed through the floor, sidestepping people running back and forth with reams of paper in their hands or talking excitedly to other colleagues and swerving around the monitor bank workstations that were set up haphazardly on the floor until he came to a solitary door cut so precisely into the wall that one would not notice it except for the security keypad to its left. He ran his card through the slot and typed in a six digit acknowledgment code that would announce his identity to the Chief. Sammy was still amazed that the Chief operated without a secretary; however, Connolly felt the less known about him the better. None of the clerical people had ever seen him and only a handful of the analysts had ever met with him. If he required a briefing, the analysts would brief their respective section chiefs who would then, in turn, brief the Chief. He stayed in his office all day long and when he left it was by a secret passage in his office. One of the things Sammy liked to do when he was bored during a meeting with the Chief was to peruse the room to determine where the secret entryway was. To date, he hadn’t been able to find it.
Sammy heard a buzz from the security console and an unlatching sound within the door mechanism. He pushed the door inward and entered the Chief’s office. He noticed for the first time that the door was four inches thick. He heard the door close behind him and heard the noise again, indicating that the door was securely locked. There was an oversized mahogany desk with two highback Queen Anne chairs in front of the desk for the visitors as well as a luxurious brown leather couch against the far right wall. The walls were covered in mahogany from the floor to six feet high and the remaining four feet was painted a splendidly ungovernmental cream color. While there were no windows because they were underground, there was a set of expensive drapes behind the Chief’s desk that gave the impression they could be opened at any time to let the sun in. What it really hid was a large screen television capable of broadcasting everything from regular television stations to satellite broadcasts to state of the art computer generated video.
George Connolly came around his desk to greet Sammy, appearing genuinely happy to see him. "How are you, Sammy? How was your week’s vacation? Where did you go?" he asked as if he didn’t know. Yet he had hoped to be sort of a father figure towards the young man. Sammy had some, but not a hell of a lot of contact with his parents and Connolly decided to step in and mold the young man to his own ends. That was how Sammy moved from the Company’s version of the Directorate of Intelligence to the Directorate of Operations.
"Alaska" was Sammy’s reply.
"Alaska," The Chief asked, feigning polite surprise. "I can’t wait to see your expense account. Why did you go there?"
"I’ve always wanted to go there. Take a dog sled over the tundra, see the midnight sun, fall in love with a pretty Eskimo."
The Chief laughed. "Did you do and see what you wanted?"
"And more." They both laughed this time.
"Please, Sammy, sit down and make yourself comfortable." He repositioned himself behind the desk. "Are you ready for your last assignment?"
"I am, but first I’d like a favor."
"What’s that."
"I want to change my request for resignation into one for re-assignment to an analyst spot."
"No shit," the Chief replied. This time he sounded truly surprised. "When did you decide this?"
"I had the idea brewing in my head for a while now and I got to think about it more and more when I was out in the wilderness last week. I think I would miss the environment. And you seem to like my work so I thought I could be a great resource staying on as an analyst. If you’ll still have me I’ll be happy to stay on when I finish my last assignment."
"If we’ll still have you," the Chief exclaimed, getting up and coming around his desk once again. "Hell, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long while."
"Really?"
"Hell, yes. You’re the best that’s happened to the Company in a long time. You’ve accomplished things that no one else has had the capability of doing. In fact, I’ll let you in on something else. The Director was truly upset when I told him about your resignation. He said that I had unlimited authority to keep you on board. He wants me to convey to you that you can have any position within the Company that you want after you accomplish your last assignment. I didn’t even need to tell you that since you asked for reassignment without any carrot in front of you, but, goddamit, I’m so tickled pink that the offer stands." He grabbed Sammy’s shoulders. "You made my day."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Now that we’ve taken care of that, let’s get down to brass tacks about your last assignment. Have you read yesterday’s or today’s papers or watched the news on TV?" he asked as he walked around the desk to his chair.
Here it comes. I’m being given up after all, thought Sammy. Hell, here goes nothing. "No, why?"
"Well, it seems our beloved fucking president has taken a major step towards endangering America’s national security system."
"How," asked Sammy. So far, so good.
"Read for yourself." With that, the Chief tossed over copies of yesterday’s and today’s Washington Post. Sammy did his best to appear as if he never read the story before. He shook his head back and forth, feigning disbelief. He also muttered a couple of "Christs" under his breath. When he got to the part of the article regarding the suspicious deaths, he started to squirm in his seat. This was not feigned, however. This was the same reaction he had reading yesterday’s paper. Reading it again made him nervous a second time. The Post’s reporting was less genteel than the Times’ and listed the manner and cause of each suspicious death. As Sammy clearly remembered each one, he became more nervous and began to sweat. Loosening his collar, he exclaimed, "I can’t believe this."
"We’re in a very dangerous situation, here."
"You mean, I’m in a very dangerous situation."
"No, I mean we. You may have been the assassin, but here we are, a super secret arm of the CIA, established over twenty years ago by James Patterson, without Presidential or Congressional knowledge. Our sole purpose has been to carry out domestic activities in contravention of our charter. We are answerable only to Patterson and have carried out secret and illegal orders that has caused the CIA to be besieged with rumors that have upset its very existence. In fact, the only reason that the CIA has not been caught with their pants down is that there is not one shred of paper contained within any files at the CIA. All orders are issued by Patterson verbally to this office directly via a secure line. To be frank, I don’t think that anyone else within the CIA is aware of our existence."
"No one?"
"Think about it. Here we are. The world’s foremost intelligence operation. Patterson has been in charge of it for twenty five years. Twenty-five. If it hadn’t been for Hoover’s super tenure, Patterson’s longevity would’ve been unheard of. And Jimmy Lee got the idea to create us when he started accumulating evidence of activities by Presidents and Congressman to wield should there be any attempt to remove him from office. He’s been through three democrats, three republicans and now he’s on his third republican. And you know what we’ve done. Watergate, Watts, King, Malcolm X and Jack and Bobby Kennedy. We’ve precipitated all of these. What if the American public found out that we that we attempted to have one President impeached and actually had another one shot, along with his baby brother senator. Holy Shit. I don’t even want to think about it."
"You sold me."
"What would happen in the other superpowers’ intelligence communities if word of this got out. Utter chaos. It would be like gangland warfare. They would stop dealing with our agents and our ability to maintain the national security of this country would be totally compromised and that, I don’t need to tell you, is something we don’t need. You are the least of the problems. No one is going to place the blame on you or I or anyone in this office. There are contingency plans to shut down this operation without a trace so no one will discover us. But to do this will mean that that damage to America’s intelligence community would be irreparable."
"What can we do?"
"That’s where you come in. We are sending you under very deep cover into the White House to determine the status of this investigation and to report back. You will have a top security clearance and the background check will show that you are a very bright, resourceful government researcher for the NSA who has been found to possess a keen intellect and an ability to pick documents apart with a microscope. Your researcher background will be attractive to the White House as there will be volumes upon volumes of papers to go through on behalf of the panel. You will be an Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff and will be privy to all meetings regarding the panel. You will be in constant contact with President Jenkins. By the way, here is your cover. Memorize it."
With that, he tossed a five inch thick manila folder towards Sammy’s side of the desk. "Learn everything in there to the point where you become Paul Kalvin, which will be your cover, and are able to recite everything as second nature. As you report back we will determine the effectiveness of the panel. If it is not being effective, you will continue in your assignment until the panel adjourns. If the panel is effective and is coming close to the truth and there is no way for you to derail the investigation, you will have no choice but to kill the President of the United States.
"May God help us all and have mercy on our souls."
Chapter 3--STORM
WEATHERSHIP TANGO DELTA," were the only words that the disembodied voice on the other end of the phone spoke. They were the only words that needed to be spoken for they were the words that told Sammy that he was being activated for an assignment, in this case the final assignment of his career. He would need to make preparations to go to the nation’s capital. But first things first. Whenever Sammy received a call for an assignment it was necessary, for security reasons, for him not to go directly to Washington, D.C. but to use a circuitous route in order to avoid detection. Once the call was received he knew he would have to report to the office in precisely 168 hours. The only good thing about the week preceding an assignment was that Sammy’s trips were paid for by the Company. The bad thing, of course, was that he had a week to think about what he could potentially be assigned to accomplish. Once he flew to Chicago (during baseball season when the Cubs were in town) once to San Francisco (the Giants) and once to Paris, just because he wanted to go. This time he wanted to do something different. He decided that he would spend a full week in Alaska. He knew he always wanted to go there (he also wanted to go to Australia but didn’t need the long flight preventing him from carrying out his responsibilities) and, with the uncertainties of knowing if he’d live to ever go there on his own, he decided to make the arrangements. The next day he boarded a commuter flight from Albany to JFK and took a connecting Anchorage Airways flight from JFK to Anchorage, Alaska.
Sammy was attracted to Alaska for its splendid scenery. With 51 million acres set aside as National Park Service land, Sammy knew that there would be no shortage of sightseeing opportunities. He enjoyed the idea of going to a state that was the largest in area, but the least populated; however, once he got there he could see why the population increase in the past two years was four times the national average. The landscape was beautiful and the entire state was nearly pristine, touched by man, yet nearly untouched in many respects. It was a cold and brutal place in some areas, but he had not seen any of those places. He rented an airplane and a pilot and flew over much of Denali National Park and Mount Mckinley, the highest point in North America. Named for future President McKinley in 1896, he knew, its South Peak was first climbed in 1913. The trip wasn’t as onerous as he thought it would be because he had expected it to be much colder. It was a warm May day with temperatures hovering around a comfortable 56 degrees. He spent time hiking around the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge with a guide and toyed with the idea of renting a plane to fly past the Seward Peninsula and across the international dateline but gave up on that idea when none of the bush pilots he talked to would consider the opportunity for any amount of money. He went fishing and caught many salmon and halibut, which he had packed in ice and sent to his parents. He also met a gorgeous big-chested female eskimo named Anouk, whom he spent a large portion of the week with and took with him on his travels. One of the sites they enjoyed the most was the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, which included tours of buildings associated with the gold rush of 1897-98. But the fun was not to last. As was his procedure on his pre-assignment trips, he had nothing more than a fling with any female he met because he never knew if he would be coming back from the assignment.
Before he knew it his time in Alaska was up. At the airport, he did not fly back on the ticket he purchased, but rather checked in at the gate and pretended to board. He told the flight attendant that he left something in the waiting area and wanted to get it. She told him to hurry up and to make sure that he held onto his boarding pass. With a brief smile he patted his jacket pocket indicating that the pass was securely on his person. He accomplished all of this as other passengers were boarding so that he would be lost in the shuffle of packing the overhead bins, making sure the items were stowed securely and performing the menial housekeeping functions of distributing magazines, pillows and blankets. Evidently, it worked as the plane left the terminal without any concern for his whereabouts.
His luggage was stashed in an airport locker and after the plane departed he retrieved it. He then proceeded back to the main terminal, luggage in hand, and purchased another ticket in cash from a different ticket agent using the assumed name of Richard Billings. He proceeded to his gate and awaited his boarding call. When the flight was called he quickly took his first class window seat. As he had no carry-on luggage he was able to stretch out comfortably. He accepted a local newspaper and that day’s New York Times and declined a glass of champagne, asking, instead, for a glass of orange juice.
Scanning the Times he noted that the lead story on the front page announced:
PRESIDENT TO FORM PANEL TO INVESTIGATE ALLEGATIONS OF WRONGDOING IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
special to the New York Times
Washington, D.C.- President Walter Jenkins announced today that he would, based
upon a recommendation from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, appoint
a blue ribbon panel of investigators, including former judges, prosecutors and
law enforcement officials, to work with the Committee to determine if the
Central Intelligence Agency has been operating domestically in contravention of
its 1947 charter, which prohibits the CIA from carrying out any domestic
activities.
Sammy’s eyes widened at the next paragraph:
At least one congressional source has stated that the reason the panel is being
formed is the deaths of influential government and public figures in the past
several months. These include William Chesterton, Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, United States Senator Vincent DePasquale (D-NY) and movie
star Paul Eastman. All were outspoken opponents of the activities of the Central
Intelligence Agency who were attempting, through various means, to have
legislation introduced to limit the CIA’s activities with an eye towards
eventual elimination of the agency.
Sammy bolted upright in his seat. His hands began to get clammy and sweat started to pour from his forehead. Chesterton, DePasquale, Eastman. He was responsible for those. They were his previous assignments. He realized, like a lightning bolt hitting him between the eyes, that the President was investigating him. His breathing became shallow and labored. He felt the color draining out of his cheeks. A major storm was brewing and he was at its eye. He reached up to turn on the air vent located directly above his seat. The rush of cool air made him feel slightly better but his hopes of sleeping for the rest of the flight evaporated. He had the desire to throw the paper away and not read anymore but he couldn’t. He read on:
James Lee Patterson, Director of the CIA, often called ‘Gentleman Jim’ because
of his courtly manner to even his staunchest opponents was uncharacteristically
vehement in defense of his Agency. " I am appalled and ashamed to think that
this President would even dare to question the loyalty of myself and of those
people who work for me. We have acted, at all times, well within the bounds of
the law, despite there having been many temptations to operate outside of it to
strengthen this nation’s security. In any event, any major operation is done
with full advice given to the President and Congress, a point the President
seems to overlook. If the President continues to make unsupported insinuations,
I will have no choice but to resign this post which I have held during the
bipartisan tenure of seven different presidents."When the President was advised of Mr. Patterson’s ultimatum, he responded only by saying, "I can only respect and admire Mr. Patterson for doing what he, in his heart, thinks is right. I hope he respects me for doing the same thing."
Meanwhile, other sources say...
Sammy couldn’t read any further. He put down the newspaper but just as quickly picked it up again. He looked at the dateline. It was yesterday’s news. Was there any way the Chief knew it was going to break. There had to be. The Company was so wired into everything that it was possible there were a couple of agents elected to Congress. The thought scared him. Could his summons to D.C. be because they knew of this development and were bringing him in for "closure", a Company euphemism that he did not wish to think about. He was now fully terrified that he would be sacrificed and that his body would be turned over with forged documents indicating that he was a rogue CIA agent, operating beyond the pale of any authority extended to him. His mind swam with so many thoughts he couldn’t think straight. He was glad no one was sitting in the seat next to him witnessing his strange behavior. Had there been such a companion they might have believed that the young man sitting next to them was having a myocardial infarction. Frantically, he grabbed for and pushed the flight attendant call button.
"Yes sir, may I help you?," she said. Her name was Christine, according to her name tag.
"Yeah, I’ve changed my mind about that drink. Do you have any tequila?"
No, I’m afraid we don’t."
"Then I’ll have a Scotch. Please give me two. No ice. Just straight up." As she started to walk away, he asked, "Excuse me, do you have any Jack Daniels, instead?"
"Why, yes we do"
"Okay, two of those instead."
The drink burned his throat when he took his first swallow, but afterwards it went down smoothly and had a tremendous calming effect upon him. He decided to watch the movie that was beginning in the hopes that it would take his mind off his current predicament and help him pass the time easily. Since this was a long flight there were two movies. The first was one of those mindless comedies with a threadbare plot whose sole existence was necessary to keep all of the endless sight gags and tired one-liners coming. This one was a war movie spoof. While it wasn’t a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, watching it made Sammy relax to the point where he was even laughing at those endless sight gags and tired one-liners. He actually felt that he would be able to sleep for a while on the plane and did, in fact, doze off during the news program that was shown between the first and second movie.
When he woke up, he was calmer, but the second movie was a spy film that only served to remind him of his problem. He remembered that he had some big time problems, indeed, but felt he could deal with them if he forced some rational thought on the issue. He knew that if the Company did not want him to be safe, he would very well be the target of the investigation, but what could he do. If he ran, the Agency would dispatch an untold amount of agents to take him down. In all reality, even if he were able to keep running, he would never be able to stop. And, unfortunately, he did not have the resources to keep running. While he was paid handsomely for his efforts and had an extraordinarily large bank account for most people, not to mention a twenty three year old, his finances were not sufficient to allow him to constantly move. In addition, while he had $5,000 in cash on him presently, it was more likely than not that the Company would freeze his bank accounts, thus preventing him to obtain the funds to keep on the lam. With the Company’s strings carefully placed all over the world, internationally and domestically, it was highly unlikely that he would be safe in the FBI’s witness protection program. In fact, that would probably be the most dangerous. He could never be anonymous. The Agency could easily find out his new identity and he would be liquidated shortly thereafter. For Christ’s Sake, he was dealing with the "blackest" and most covert unit within the government. Goddamit, he had to think.
He took a deep breath. Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe he was not going to be a scapegoat. He had served the Company well and it was quite possible that they would not use him as a sacrificial lamb. Yet he could not wonder what effect his attempts at resignation had. Damn! He shouldn’t have been so stupid. He should have realized that he could never leave. That they would never let him. He should have asked for reassignment from the field to an intelligence analyst position, one of those desk jockeys that monitor threats to the nation’s (and the Company’s) security. He knew that he hadn’t asked for this previously because of his conscience. He was directly responsible for the deaths of three people and becoming indirectly responsible for future deaths was no salve. He couldn’t live with himself so he proffered his resignation. Well, hell’s bells, he thought. A dead man has no conscience. Should’ve thought of that before, Sammy. Now you can meet up with your victims in the afterlife.
He had no choice. He would report tomorrow morning and withdraw his resignation and request re-assignment to a desk position. He hoped it was not too late. If asked, he would feign ignorance of the Congressional inquiry and the Presidential panel. He would do his best to act surprised. That was one thing he was good at, maintaining a cover. No reason for them to even doubt him one bit. He’d been in Alaska for a week and it was widely known that he preferred to rent a video and watch a movie rather than watching the news. While his specific assignments may have mandated his keeping current with the news, his overall job responsibilities did not and he avoided television news programs or newspapers whenever possible.
He would carry out his last assignment, be re-assigned to a desk position and would then live the rest of his life in a cloak of anonymity, keeping his mouth shut and assisting the CIA and the Company to deflect all criticisms. He, of all people, would find a way to do so because of his intimate knowledge of the questioned activities.
His thoughts were interrupted by the announcement from the Captain. "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the Captain speaking. We have begun our final descent into the Capital area. As we make our approach in to Dulles Airport you will be able to see the downtown D.C. area on the right hand side of the cabin. The flight crew has asked me to ask you to fasten your seat belts and make sure that your tray tables are in the upright position. I’m glad the flight has been uneventful. On behalf of the flight crew and myself we thank you for flying Trans National Airlines and hope you come back to see us again. We hope you enjoy your stay in Washington, D.C."
Sammy laughed to himself. ‘Uneventful flight’ my ass, he thought. For him, it was one of the worst flights he had ever been on.
After retrieving his luggage from the baggage carousel, he waited an interminable period of time for a taxi. When he finally got his cab, he was dismayed to see that the driver was a rancid Pakistani with little or no experience in driving in the Washington area. While wanting to fall asleep during the twenty minute cab ride, he felt very pissed off that he had to force himself to stay awake to give directions to the cabby. With the cab driver not really understanding English all too well, the twenty minute drive turned into a forty minute drive. When they pulled up to Sammy’s apartment, a faded brownstone in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, Sammy paid the metered amount and refused to give a tip. The cab driver vehemently yelled "Fuck you."
Sammy replied quietly, " I guess I was wrong about you not knowing English." He shut the door with a bang and carried his bags up to the front stoop. After unlocking the door, he stopped to collect his mail and walked up the stairs to his apartment, which was on the second floor of the brownstone. As much as he hated the Company, he was glad that they paid for two apartments for him so he had easy accessibility. He had requested the second apartment to be in Albany so he could be close to his friends when he was not working and the Company was glad to oblige.
Friends, he thought. It was good to be with them. Davey, Steve and Bill. Wait a minute, he thought. Bill was on the staff of Senator Joseph Humphreys, a freshman senator who hailed from Schenectady. Bill’s father, a lawyer, got him an internship during college in which Bill helped manage Humphreys’ senatorial campaign. When Humphreys ousted the incumbent, Senator Paul George, Bill, through the wonderful patronage system, was proffered a high level staff position in the Senator’s office. He was given the job on graduation day, a nice present from mentor to mentee.
Maybe he could talk to Bill. If he funneled information to Bill, perhaps he could make inquiries, using the power of his office. After all, Congressional leaks were more common than holes in Swiss cheese. He’d have to look into that.
Once inside his apartment, he did not bother to unpack. He took a shower and shaved and then promptly went to sleep, setting his alarm for 6:30 in the morning. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow and slept soundly throughout the night and, as far as he could remember, he did not dream.
So well did he sleep, in fact, that he woke up fifteen minutes before the alarm went off. He turned off the alarm and made coffee. He was glad that he did not sleep until the alarm went off because if he woke up before the alarm went off and decided to sleep until it did go off, he suffered major bouts of undesired grogginess. That was something he didn’t want to experience today.
While drinking his coffee, a special Colombian brew he ordered via a catalog from the Egyptian Coffee House in Walla Walla, Washington, he went through the mail that accumulated during his two week absence. Nothing remarkable. Two issues of Newsweek, a phone bill, the cable bill and an ad for a credit card offering a low 18.7% APR. He also received an ad from a computer company hawking their wares and a catalog from an order by mail electronics company. He threw everything out but the two Newsweeks and the two bills.
After finishing his coffee, he showered and shaved and dressed in his most conservative gray suit, white shirt and paisley tie. He left his apartment at 8:30 and hailed a cab, not an easy feat given the amount of people who took cabs at this time of morning to get to work. He was lucky and got a cab within five minutes. The cab took him to an inauspicious office building on 13th Street near the National Theatre.
Entering the building, he took the elevator to the basement offices of Renfro Sales Corporation, the Company’s cover. "Nice to have you back Mr. Johnston" greeted Julie, the red-headed, big chested receptionist that was rumored to have slept with most of the guys at this place. "Mr. Renfro is expecting you."
"Thanks, Julie." Passing Julie’s desk and entering the sales floor, Sammy marveled at the cover the Company used. In fact, this was not a new feeling for him. Every time he passed through he was awed by the meticulous care the Company used to maintain the cover. Renfro Sales Corporation was a company that procured job lots of items and then sold them to various liquidation warehouses and retail stores that were located throughout the country. With the decline of the department store as the prime buying source, and people looking for a bargain, many of these stores catered to people who wanted to save a buck and began popping up all over suburban America. The dozen salesmen in cheap off-the-rack suits were actually salesman employed by Renfro totally unaware of the true nature of the operation. Their cries, actually selling items procured by Renfro, could be heard as Sammy passed through the sales floor.
"Come on, you gotta help me here."
"So what are we talking about? Two dozen grosses. Is that all?"
"Listen, I can cut a hundred bucks off the whole shipment but that’s it."
Renfro Sales Corporation was a real company with a very healthy bottom line. These salesmen were responsible for net profits of $10 million last year and this year proved to be even better. Renfro paid all of its taxes on time, gave to charities and if anyone from the Internal Revenue Service ever desired to see detailed sales records, they would be able to produce them. Of course, that eventuality had never come to pass, to Sammy’s knowledge. Renfro took less deductions than a normal corporate entity would and, therefore, the Internal Revenue Service would never audit them, lest they actually lessen the amount of taxes paid.
As Senior Vice President in charge of marketing, he was known to all of them as Harry James and they waved to him as he crossed the floor. He returned every wave with one of his own. At the end of the sales floor he came up to a set of double doors that said "Executive Personnel Only." This was a security area and it was necessary for him to push his access card into a slot to unlock the doors. Passing through them, he entered into a long corridor with an elevator at the end. Once again using his security card, he summoned the elevators by pushing the button marked "one". After a few seconds, the elevator doors opened and he walked into an area right out of a spy movie. Computers lined one entire wall, enclosed in glass sarcophagi. Banks of monitors rested against another set of walls. More monitors lay in a console located towards the middle of the floor. Glass walls with world maps on them dotted the perimeter of the room. Large Screen Television monitors were scattered throughout. Printers were located in strategic positions near the computers and monitors. The crowning achievement, however, was the glass enclosed conference room with its own set of computers, monitors, printers and maps as well as a large oak conference table that was surrounded by twenty luxuriously appointed leather chairs. The conference room was empty, for the moment, but the rest of the supermarket sized floor was busily traveled by the one hundred or so analysts monitoring various intelligence operations.
This was the heart of The Company, the ultrasecret arm of the Central Intelligence Agency created by its Director, James Lee Patterson, with his own personal funds. No one, aside from Patterson and a handful of others who reported directly to him, in official Washington knew that The Company even existed. Created in 1961, the Company was established by Patterson to operate domestically and to carry out activities that could not be handled by the CIA proper. Patterson wanted all threats to the nation’s security, no matter how trivial, monitored. He also wanted any threat to his own power base effectively eliminated with no trace. So secret was the Company’s true identity that most of the people who actually worked as analysts believed that they were working for the CIA proper. Through use of secret funds and access to the government’s highly sophisticated and encrypted computer system Patterson was able to ensure that all of his analysts were paid by official government checks like their official counterparts, although no record of them as a group ever existed. Patterson knew that the federal bureaucracy was so large that no one, but no one, would catch one or two additional personnel per federal agency. No bureaucrat performed a line by line search of personnel or inventory. All they cared about was the bottom line. Thus, it was easy to place Company employees inside various departments within the CIA, but also within other agencies of the federal government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Labor and the Environmental Protection Agency. The last agency was the best as they had begun a massive expansion in light of the recently enacted Superfund legislation and were counting head growth in the hundreds per month.
It was never Patterson’s intention to call the secret side of Renfro Sales Corporation ‘The Company." He started referring to it as Renfro, as in ‘let’s see what Renfro can dig up’ or ‘let the boys at Renfro handle it’. Patterson’s direct subordinates merely got to the now official name by saying they had to get back to Company premises, or that the people at the Company were looking for them, and thus creating the name. Patterson did nothing to dissuade the use of the name. He reasoned that in the unlikely event that any communication from Renfro referencing ‘the Company’ was intercepted, the interceptees would assume that the CIA proper was involved. And if Patterson was questioned about it, he could open up his doors and prove that the CIA was not involved.
The current head of Renfro was George Connolly. He was Patterson’s most trusted aide and, although titularly in charge of the Company for only a short time, he had unofficially been Patterson’s pipeline to Renfro since its inception. For ten years prior to Connolly, Henry Richardson headed up Renfro and his removal had been mysterious. Most of the analysts were young and had only been around for Richardson’s tenure so they had not known the nameless man who preceded Richardson and who disappeared under even more mysterious consequences. After Richardson’s demise, Patterson installed Connolly to avoid further upheaval as Connolly was the only person Patterson trusted anywhere close to one hundred percent.
Most of the staff were analysts, monitoring transmissions from all over the globe. A small corps of elite personnel were known as The Liars, Patterson’s intelligence version of the Delta Force. Sammy was one of these elite individuals and, despite his youth and relative inexperience, was considered to be the best. The Liars were the ultimate undercover personnel, chameleons who could fit into any situation at any time. They were utilized by Patterson to infiltrate any person or organization that he felt was inimical to his self perceived best interests. Some had fit in as White House Aides (and were, to Patterson’s chagrin, named as unindicted co-conspirators some eight years ago) some had been FBI agents and some had been Congressmen. Whatever the task, the liars were best suited for the job because of their intelligence and loyalty. Not one of the Liars had ever broken rank and divulged information about Patterson and the Company. And Patterson’s strict selection criteria and generosity in terms of huge payments for assignments ensured that it would remain that way. However, none of the Liars had Sammy’s effectiveness, especially considering his short tenure with the Company. In fact, Patterson, not one to heap praise upon any of his subordinates, said that Sammy’s last two assignments had been nothing short of miraculous.
Now, Sammy passed through the floor, sidestepping people running back and forth with reams of paper in their hands or talking excitedly to other colleagues and swerving around the monitor bank workstations that were set up haphazardly on the floor until he came to a solitary door cut so precisely into the wall that one would not notice it except for the security keypad to its left. He ran his card through the slot and typed in a six digit acknowledgment code that would announce his identity to the Chief. Sammy was still amazed that the Chief operated without a secretary; however, Connolly felt the less known about him the better. None of the clerical people had ever seen him and only a handful of the analysts had ever met with him. If he required a briefing, the analysts would brief their respective section chiefs who would then, in turn, brief the Chief. He stayed in his office all day long and when he left it was by a secret passage in his office. One of the things Sammy liked to do when he was bored during a meeting with the Chief was to peruse the room to determine where the secret entryway was. To date, he hadn’t been able to find it.
Sammy heard a buzz from the security console and an unlatching sound within the door mechanism. He pushed the door inward and entered the Chief’s office. He noticed for the first time that the door was four inches thick. He heard the door close behind him and heard the noise again, indicating that the door was securely locked. There was an oversized mahogany desk with two highback Queen Anne chairs in front of the desk for the visitors as well as a luxurious brown leather couch against the far right wall. The walls were covered in mahogany from the floor to six feet high and the remaining four feet was painted a splendidly ungovernmental cream color. While there were no windows because they were underground, there was a set of expensive drapes behind the Chief’s desk that gave the impression they could be opened at any time to let the sun in. What it really hid was a large screen television capable of broadcasting everything from regular television stations to satellite broadcasts to state of the art computer generated video.
George Connolly came around his desk to greet Sammy, appearing genuinely happy to see him. "How are you, Sammy? How was your week’s vacation? Where did you go?" he asked as if he didn’t know. Yet he had hoped to be sort of a father figure towards the young man. Sammy had some, but not a hell of a lot of contact with his parents and Connolly decided to step in and mold the young man to his own ends. That was how Sammy moved from the Company’s version of the Directorate of Intelligence to the Directorate of Operations.
"Alaska" was Sammy’s reply.
"Alaska," The Chief asked, feigning polite surprise. "I can’t wait to see your expense account. Why did you go there?"
"I’ve always wanted to go there. Take a dog sled over the tundra, see the midnight sun, fall in love with a pretty Eskimo."
The Chief laughed. "Did you do and see what you wanted?"
"And more." They both laughed this time.
"Please, Sammy, sit down and make yourself comfortable." He repositioned himself behind the desk. "Are you ready for your last assignment?"
"I am, but first I’d like a favor."
"What’s that."
"I want to change my request for resignation into one for re-assignment to an analyst spot."
"No shit," the Chief replied. This time he sounded truly surprised. "When did you decide this?"
"I had the idea brewing in my head for a while now and I got to think about it more and more when I was out in the wilderness last week. I think I would miss the environment. And you seem to like my work so I thought I could be a great resource staying on as an analyst. If you’ll still have me I’ll be happy to stay on when I finish my last assignment."
"If we’ll still have you," the Chief exclaimed, getting up and coming around his desk once again. "Hell, this is the best news I’ve heard in a long while."
"Really?"
"Hell, yes. You’re the best that’s happened to the Company in a long time. You’ve accomplished things that no one else has had the capability of doing. In fact, I’ll let you in on something else. The Director was truly upset when I told him about your resignation. He said that I had unlimited authority to keep you on board. He wants me to convey to you that you can have any position within the Company that you want after you accomplish your last assignment. I didn’t even need to tell you that since you asked for reassignment without any carrot in front of you, but, goddamit, I’m so tickled pink that the offer stands." He grabbed Sammy’s shoulders. "You made my day."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Now that we’ve taken care of that, let’s get down to brass tacks about your last assignment. Have you read yesterday’s or today’s papers or watched the news on TV?" he asked as he walked around the desk to his chair.
Here it comes. I’m being given up after all, thought Sammy. Hell, here goes nothing. "No, why?"
"Well, it seems our beloved fucking president has taken a major step towards endangering America’s national security system."
"How," asked Sammy. So far, so good.
"Read for yourself." With that, the Chief tossed over copies of yesterday’s and today’s Washington Post. Sammy did his best to appear as if he never read the story before. He shook his head back and forth, feigning disbelief. He also muttered a couple of "Christs" under his breath. When he got to the part of the article regarding the suspicious deaths, he started to squirm in his seat. This was not feigned, however. This was the same reaction he had reading yesterday’s paper. Reading it again made him nervous a second time. The Post’s reporting was less genteel than the Times’ and listed the manner and cause of each suspicious death. As Sammy clearly remembered each one, he became more nervous and began to sweat. Loosening his collar, he exclaimed, "I can’t believe this."
"We’re in a very dangerous situation, here."
"You mean, I’m in a very dangerous situation."
"No, I mean we. You may have been the assassin, but here we are, a super secret arm of the CIA, established over twenty years ago by James Patterson, without Presidential or Congressional knowledge. Our sole purpose has been to carry out domestic activities in contravention of our charter. We are answerable only to Patterson and have carried out secret and illegal orders that has caused the CIA to be besieged with rumors that have upset its very existence. In fact, the only reason that the CIA has not been caught with their pants down is that there is not one shred of paper contained within any files at the CIA. All orders are issued by Patterson verbally to this office directly via a secure line. To be frank, I don’t think that anyone else within the CIA is aware of our existence."
"No one?"
"Think about it. Here we are. The world’s foremost intelligence operation. Patterson has been in charge of it for twenty five years. Twenty-five. If it hadn’t been for Hoover’s super tenure, Patterson’s longevity would’ve been unheard of. And Jimmy Lee got the idea to create us when he started accumulating evidence of activities by Presidents and Congressman to wield should there be any attempt to remove him from office. He’s been through three democrats, three republicans and now he’s on his third republican. And you know what we’ve done. Watergate, Watts, King, Malcolm X and Jack and Bobby Kennedy. We’ve precipitated all of these. What if the American public found out that we that we attempted to have one President impeached and actually had another one shot, along with his baby brother senator. Holy Shit. I don’t even want to think about it."
"You sold me."
"What would happen in the other superpowers’ intelligence communities if word of this got out. Utter chaos. It would be like gangland warfare. They would stop dealing with our agents and our ability to maintain the national security of this country would be totally compromised and that, I don’t need to tell you, is something we don’t need. You are the least of the problems. No one is going to place the blame on you or I or anyone in this office. There are contingency plans to shut down this operation without a trace so no one will discover us. But to do this will mean that that damage to America’s intelligence community would be irreparable."
"What can we do?"
"That’s where you come in. We are sending you under very deep cover into the White House to determine the status of this investigation and to report back. You will have a top security clearance and the background check will show that you are a very bright, resourceful government researcher for the NSA who has been found to possess a keen intellect and an ability to pick documents apart with a microscope. Your researcher background will be attractive to the White House as there will be volumes upon volumes of papers to go through on behalf of the panel. You will be an Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff and will be privy to all meetings regarding the panel. You will be in constant contact with President Jenkins. By the way, here is your cover. Memorize it."
With that, he tossed a five inch thick manila folder towards Sammy’s side of the desk. "Learn everything in there to the point where you become Paul Kalvin, which will be your cover, and are able to recite everything as second nature. As you report back we will determine the effectiveness of the panel. If it is not being effective, you will continue in your assignment until the panel adjourns. If the panel is effective and is coming close to the truth and there is no way for you to derail the investigation, you will have no choice but to kill the President of the United States.
"May God help us all and have mercy on our souls."
Sunday, September 11, 2005
chapter 2
I have written a Novel. It is called LIAR. It is copyrighted. Here is chapter TWO. Please provide feedback. (c) Michael Fried 1997, 2005
Chapter 2--HANDBALL
May 1967
he eight year old boy walked up to the steps of the large "splanch", a split ranch, style house that used to be painted white, then blue but was now covered with one of the newest innovations in the market: aluminum siding. His parents got it because a tin man told them that they would have none of the wear and tear problems that were associated with paint. Imagine, the guy said, when your buddies (he was talking to Sammy’s father, the man-to-man style working perfectly) are busy painting their houses on that beautiful summer day and you can take the wife and child to the beach or an amusement park and it won’t be crowded because everyone will be painting their houses. And it worked. The obvious puffery was lost when contrasted with the fun, fun, fun that ensued was imagined. That was the pitch that got Sammy Johnston’s parents (rather, his dad) to turn what was once a beautifully painted house of brick and wood into a house that Sammy presumed looked like Fort Knox. And it wasn’t just Sammy’s parents, although they were the first. All of the people on the block got hooked in by the tin man and the same line of bullshit. The whole neighborhood was undergoing a facelift and it took a whole summer for all of the men in the neighborhood to realize that they, as a group, put themselves back at square one. Now all of them had the time, once again, to go to the beaches, so the beaches were once again crowded. However, the siding was something new to Sammy. He liked the way the house used to look. It reminded him of Fred MacMurray’s house on My Three Sons. His cries of protest fell on deaf ears. So, for the eleven days of spring break in April of this year, he refused to leave his room in the hopes of getting his parents to change their mind. He, of course, lost.
Now, one month later, Sammy stood in front of his house. More than just resigning himself to the new look of the house, he adopted it as a new friend. He would play ‘Moonbase Alpha’, the house being transformed into the moonbase being threatened by aliens. The aliens, of course, had blown up the entrance to the moonbase so it was up to space cadet Sammy Johnston to find his way into the moonbase to save the astronauts. To do this, he had to jump over the steps of his house, which he pretended were the mountain of rubble created by the aliens. He played this over and over. At any given time, Sammy’s neighbors would see him standing by the steps that became his friendly foe. He would size up the steps as one would size up an enemy; luckily for him, this enemy never changed size. Once he sized it up, he would jump. When he first started jumping he would need a running start. The first time he jumped the toe of his sneaker got caught on the steps and he fell and cut his leg, his head landing only inches from his front door.
He quickly got better at his jumping, mostly from skill but also because he experienced a quick little growth spurt enabling him to become more agile. For the past two weeks he was able to jump up the four steps from a standing position. From doing this repetitively, his legs became very muscular, especially for an eight year old, so much so that he was teased in school by the other children, not so much because this was his only true hobby, but because they were jealous of his new found strength. And because he was teased so much, Sammy started up with a lot of kids, some older and some younger. Unfortunately, for Sammy, his arms were not as strong as his legs. He won some fights, but not often.
He obtained such a reputation for starting fights that everyone knew who he was even if they never met him before. He should have been on a first-name basis with the principal since he visited him on a daily basis. The principal, Jim Harvey, was a 56 year old man with thirteen children who rarely raised his voice. He had his share of aggravation from his children, but never had a child who was constantly getting into trouble. He could never understand why Sammy was unruly and, during the many meetings he had with Sammy’s parents, found out that the parents had the same lack of understanding. The principal continually asked the parents to be on the lookout for any objectionable behavior or any psychological manifestations and bring them to his attention.
It was lunchtime and Sammy Johnston was running at breakneck speed around the school, an ugly single-level brick building built three years earlier. Many people in the neighborhood spoke up at the school board meetings about the plainness of the school in relation to the taxes they paid. The kids had no such objection as they savored the vast size of the school grounds that enabled everyone to play their own games without crowding anyone else. If Sammy would have been running with other kids around the school he might have left them behind and passed them before they completed one lap. One person who did not like Sammy’s jumping and running exploits was Tommy Williams. Before Sammy’s jumping enabled him to increase his speed, Tommy was known as the fastest kid in the class. He was a tall boy, slightly chubby, but was very popular at the Kennedy Elementary School, playing with all the other kids during recess and lunch. He was on the little league baseball team, he played touch football, he ran in peewee track events and played many, many other sports. He often joked that he could "change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and leap tall buildings in a single bound."
But Tommy was best at handball. He loved marathon games, lasting the entire lunch hour, opting to gobble his sandwich between volleys. The more players the better. Often, there were fourteen kids playing an elimination game at the school, where the player who flubbed the last shot had to sit out the rest of the game. Tommy, very often, won these elimination games. He did not let Sammy play because he didn’t like him one bit. Tommy’s parents were not as rich as Sammy’s and as a result Tommy never got the great toys to play with like Sammy did. Not that it makes sense to harbor a grudge in this manner, yet such is the stuff that makes little human beings children. Sammy didn’t really care how Tommy felt about him but he would have liked to be included in the daily handball tournament because it looked like fun. One day towards the end of lunch, Sammy’s friend, Davey McCoy told Tommy that he probably wouldn’t win all the time if Sammy played. This infuriated Tommy because not only did he feel it wasn’t even close to the truth but primarily because Davey said it in front of Tommy’s friends, who could best be described as looking like Butch in The Little Rascals shows, torn and dirty. He needed to set the record straight and therefore he sought out Sammy. He spied him running around the building and waited for him to complete another lap before stopping him by stepping in his path.
"So your friend McCoy thinks you can beat me at handball. Today, 3:30 after school by the wall next to the gym" Tommy yelled, all the while jabbing his finger into Sammy’s chest. When they stood next to each other, the difference could be seen. While only two inches taller than Sammy, it was Tommy’s bulk that made it appear as if a David and Goliath match would occur when school let out.
"No problem" replied Sammy, bravely. However, he was scared stiff. He was good at handball but not good enough to beat Tommy. He didn’t want to be ridiculed and he dreaded waiting the entire afternoon.
"Fine," Tommy replied. "I’ll bring the balls." He regretted saying it as soon as it left his mouth, but he didn’t let it show.
"I didn’t know you had any." All of the kids started their catcalls at this remark. Tommy, embarrassed, grabbed Sammy by the shirt collar and quietly said, "Just wait." He released his grip and walked away as the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period.
Sammy was fidgeting throughout the entire afternoon and by the last hour was ready to kill. He was so on edge he thought his heart would stop. Everything said by his teacher, Mrs. Schwaberhoffer, a 63 year old spinster, went in one ear and out the other. "Samuel" came from the lips of Mrs. Schwaberhoffer. God, he hated that name. In fact, he hated it so much that he had conditioned himself not to hear it and not to respond to it. Samuel sounds like a prophet, he thought. He didn’t care for bible stories and he didn’t care for his full name. He preferred Sammy, or even Sam, which is what his namesake grandfather called him, but he didn’t care for that one too much. In fact, as he grew up and passed through his early thirties there was only one person who got away with calling him by his full name.
"Samuel." His conditioning worked. He earnestly did not realize Mrs. Schwaberhoffer was speaking to him, despite the fact that they were looking directly at each other. He wasn’t day dreaming. He just didn’t hear his name, that is, "Sammy", and thought she was calling on someone else. That was, of course, until he saw ‘Schwabby’ as she was called behind her back, approaching him with a steel ruler, her favorite weapon for inattentive children, in her hand. He snapped out of his haze quickly and moved his hand out of the line of fire, just as the ruler connected with the desk. I guess she was talking to me, he thought, and I guess she’s mad now. He realized how mad she was when he noticed that the portion of the desk where his hand rested before he moved it was badly splintered. Sweat beaded on his forehead. What did he do that was so terrible, he wondered. It must’ve been real bad since she was approaching him again, ruler in hand and a fire in her eyes. Her lips were pulled back in a sneer and her teeth were bared as if she were a snarling dog. She swung. Sammy ducked. The ruler hit the closet door directly behind him and splintered some more wood. Jeez, that would’ve taken my head off he thought. She had messed up children’s penmanship before but had never come close to performing a ritualistic decapitation.
Schwabby was madder than ever, having missed him twice. None of the other children in the class moved for fear that they would be next. When she approached him, he got up and tried to move away. She swung again and caught him on the small of his back. He winced and fell to the floor in pain, turning over as he did so. It was a direct hit. She swung the ruler again and hit him right on his left kneecap causing him to scream loudly. "Why the fuck are you trying to kill me? What did I do?" Sammy’s foul language broke Schwabby out of her deadly reverie.
Once again, Sammy found his way to the principal’s office, but his visit did not last long. When the principal heard what happened and saw the blood on the back of Sammy’s Tee shirt and saw Sammy limping he walked Sammy back to his classroom.
"The Principal wants to see you, Schwabby," he said in a sing-song voice as he entered the classroom. The class fell silent. No one had ever dared to call her by her nickname to her face. Sammy was held in awe and new found respect by his classmates, except Tommy Williams.
Schwabby, disbelieving, said, "I’m teaching a class right now. It will have to wait." She noticed that her forehead was beginning to perspire.
At that moment the door to the classroom opened and Principal James Harvey walked in. Standing about a foot taller than the teacher, Harvey possessed one of the oddest faces. His complexion was sallow and his face was gaunt, giving him the look of a monster. Nevertheless, he had the kindest eyes and the nicest smile. The contrast between these two looks, which could be shown at once, was unnerving. "No, Mrs. Schwaberhofer. It will not wait," he said softly with a smile and penetrating eyes. He turned to the class. "Children, you will have a substitute teacher starting tomorrow. Mrs. LoGreco will watch you for the rest of today." He turned and walked out of the classroom, holding the door for her and beckoning for her to follow.
Then Sammy quietly said, "I think you’re going to lose your job. Serves you right, you know." The class looked on in disbelief. This hated teacher had been done in by an eight year old. At this point, even Tommy Williams’ mouth was hanging open, although he would later deny it. Sammy limped in silence to his seat. Schwabby walked to the door, turned and said to the class "the rest of your year will be pure hell and you have Samuel Johnston to thank for it." And she left.
Her threat meant nothing as they never saw Schwabby again.
Shortly after Schwabby left, the three o’clock bell rang. School was out and the children departed quietly through the halls and then scattered frenetically when they hit the great outdoors. The only kids that hung around were Sammy, Tommy and about twenty kids that were waiting for the big match. Sammy felt that he had the psychological edge that he needed having properly trounced Schwaberhoffer in the classroom. He was still high from his confrontation with her and even though he knew that he would see her again tomorrow, he was happy now. Classmates were crowding around him, slapping him on the back for having the guts to do what they never dreamed of. Kids from other classes were doing the same thing once they heard what he had done. In fact everyone gave congratulations to Sammy, except Tommy, who stood off to the side, by himself, watching his nemesis receive his laudits. He had always called Sammy a wimp but now he wasn’t so sure.
The area around the gym was so crowded by game time that Tommy and Sammy had to ask everyone to move back so they wouldn’t get in the way of the ball and so that the two of them had a proper playing area for this championship game. The mood was like that before a prize fight when the crowd is evenly split about whom they want to win. Half of the kids were chanting "Sammy, Sammy" while the other half of the kids were yelling Tommy’s name. The game was about to begin and the crowd hushed in anticipation. Even old Mr. Phillips, the janitor, neglected the start of his daily afterschool chores to watch some of the match. The first serve was decided by the toss of a coin, in Sammy’s favor. He was glad he got the serve because he heard how hard it was to return one of Tommy’s serves. He was sure he could do it, but the longer he could put off finding it out, the better. He sized up the ball and looked to see where Tommy was standing. He let the ball bounce two times to feel its rhythm. And then he served.
The ball hit the ground and caromed up to hit the wall. The ball sailed over Sammy’s head towards Tommy, who only had to take two steps to properly return it. Sammy just watched as Tommy smashed the ball which hit the ground and then the wall with such force that the ball once again sailed over Sammy’s head and out of his reach.
It was now Tommy’s serve.
Sammy felt that Tommy would start off with a big serve to announce his presence so he stayed toward the back of the court. Tommy’s first serve was light and just barely landed in fair territory. Sammy tried to rush in, and did, in fact, get some hand on the ball but was unable to return the serve. "C’mon, Tommy" he said, limping while he was talking, "give me a break, my knee is killing me because of Schwabby." His knee wasn’t hurting all that bad. Let Tommy think it was and get a few points under his belt and then Sammy would bring out the heavy artillery.
"Tough shit" replied Tommy and proceeded to win six points in a row. His last serve was too strong, causing the ball to fly too far and land in foul territory. It was Sammy’s turn again. His serve was hit so hard that it sailed over Tommy, who was playing close to the serving line. Six-one. The next serve landed in the same spot and Tommy was unable to do anything more than hit it halfway to the wall. Six-two. Tommy moved back. The next serve landed close to the serving line and Tommy couldn’t reach it. Six-three. "All luck" yelled Tommy. "Serve it up."
The fourth serve was a smash that sailed straight at Tommy’s head. Tommy dropped himself to the ground to avoid being hit. The kids watching the game started laughing and Tommy got up, red-faced. The next ten minutes went basically the same way with Tommy only able to regain his serve twice and score four points. The entire crowd was now yelling "Sammy, Sammy" in unison, their voices getting louder with each point Sammy won. It was obvious that Sammy’s knee wasn’t bothering him as much as he said raising Tommy’s ire to the boiling point. Unfortunately, he could do nothing about it. If he confronted Sammy on the court he would be laughed at by everybody and called a sore loser.
And so it went. Sammy scored twenty-one points answered by only four of Tommy’s to beat Tommy by eleven.
Tommy was furious. When Sammy came up to Tommy to shake his hand, Tommy slapped Sammy’s extended hand away from him. "You’re going to pay for this," Tommy cried. "You’re going to regret the day that you lied to me about your knee and making me look like a fool in front of everyone."
"I’m sorry, Tommy. I didn’t lie about my knee. It did hurt but I guess it didn’t bother me once we got into the game," he added plaintively.
"The hell you didn’t lie," Tommy replied and with a huge shove, pushed Sammy to the ground. He landed right on his ass. Tommy stood above him, laughing, and toeing Sammy with his foot. Sammy was yelling for Tommy to stop it. Quickly, most of the kids were yelling for Tommy to stop, but he continued. Soon, his prods turned into full kicks. He kicked each exposed part of Sammy’s body and Sammy winced in pain as each blow was delivered. As Tommy was about to deliver a hard kick to Sammy’s kidneys, Sammy rolled over causing Tommy’s foot to miss connecting with Sammy’s body. The resultant centrifugal force caused Tommy to lose his own balance and fall on the ground next to his nemesis.
Sammy, seizing probably his own opportunity to get the advantage, jumped on top of Tommy and, despite his pain, started to punch Tommy repeatedly in the chest and face. When it was over, Tommy was hurting. His nose was bleeding, he had a black eye and his chest was bruised. Most of all, his pride was shattered. He was no longer the toughest, and therefore the most popular, kid in school.
Tommy swore revenge and he knew he would get it. "You know good lying little shit. The day you think you can put one over on me is the day you are going to die. I’m never going to let you forget this. You just wait and see. For as long as you live, you’ll regret this day."
And Sammy did regret it, but not for a long time.
Tommy, with the aid of his cousin Bill who was visiting from Albany for the week, decided that Sammy had to be taught a lesson. Bill Williams was a tall for an eight year old, like his cousin Tommy; however, where Tommy was a bully, Bill was downright malevolent. But Tommy never saw this side of Bill. Bill was born and bred in Albany but his parents grew up on Long Island and decided to take Bill out of school for a week so that Bill’s mother could visit her sister, Tommy’s mother.
Despite the 200 mile gap between the two of them Bill and Tommy were very close. Unlike most boys their age, they kept up a steady stream of correspondence and, if they were behaving or did well in school, spoke to each other on the phone for a few minutes at a time each week. Therefore, it came as no surprise that Bill wanted to help Tommy defend his honor against that little punk, Sammy Johnston.
"What do you think we should do, " Tommy asked.
"Well, let’s teach him a lesson he’ll never forget. How ‘bout we hit him a few times with a baseball bat?" Bill replied.
Tommy was leery. "Awww, I don’t know. I don’t want to do anything where he can really get hurt." While this was not the first time Tommy heard Bill talking about beating someone up, he didn’t like the tone in Bill’s voice. He certainly sounded very, very strange. Tommy was beginning to think, so what if Sammy beat him at handball. Did he really have to get back at him, especially so severely?. Unfortunately, when he saw the look in his cousin’s face he knew that he would not be able to turn back.
"Are you kidding?" Bill was incredulous. "You go to the school this morning and you’re king of the hill. By the end of the day, you’re a piece of shit. You can do what you want but if it was me, he’d be dogmeat."
"I know, I know," Tommy said wistfully. "Let’s think of something, but let’s make sure it isn’t so drastic."
"Fine by me" replied Bill, hiding his disgust for his cousin’s lack of cojones, a word he recently learned and had come to love. "Let’s surprise him." And then: "I have an idea. I’ll be right back." And with that Bill got up and went into Tommy’s garage, where he disappeared for several moments, leaving Tommy bewildered. When Bill came out he was holding Tommy’s father’s fishing pole. "I did this to someone once before. I used the fishing wire to trip somebody. We’ll string it across someplace. The wire is practically invisible. He’ll trip and break his face. He’ll never know what hit him. Now think, is there any place to tie up both ends of the wire?"
"Well," Tommy replied enthusiastically, now realizing that there was no intent to seriously hurt Sammy, but just to put the scare into him. "Lemme think....wait!.. I got it! Sammy likes to jump on his steps."
"Huh?", Bill said, projecting one of the blankest stares ever recorded on a human face. "He does what?"
"He has this porch in front of his house," Tommy said by way of explanation. "It has four steps. He likes to jump up the steps without touching them. On each side of the stoop is a tree that the wire could be tied to."
"Perfect," replied Bill, pulling the wire off the rod and reel and replacing the fishing pole back in the garage. "Let’s go over to his house to see if anyone’s around."
"Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t do this."
"Don’t pussy out now, Tommy. He made a fool out of you. What would the kids at school say if you didn’t get back at him?"
"Yeah, I know, but..." Tommy’s voice trailed off.
"There are no buts about it, Tommy. He’s not getting away with it." Tommy didn’t like the look on his cousin’s face and didn’t know how good the plan sounded, but he went ahead with it anyway. He didn’t want to do it, on the one hand, but one the other hand, all the things that Bill said rang true. However, as time passed he became more and more angry. The more he thought about what Sammy did, the more infuriated he became. He, like his cousin, now wanted revenge. And he made it clear to himself that he would not regret the consequences, no matter how grave. Bill, on the other hand, not knowing Sammy, never had the slightest hesitation or regret.
At least he wouldn’t for a number of years. Then it would come back to haunt him like Jacob Marley’s ghost. But for Tommy, there was no ghosts of Christmas past, present or future. He would be given no chance to repent.
"Let’s go," Tommy said, his face set with a savage sneer.
Sammy was on his way home after school when he stopped at the park near his house. It was a nice park that most kids liked to play in. It had the obligatory swings, sand box and jungle gym and had plenty of room in which children could run around in. It was the type of park that was frequented by adults from the neighborhood during the afterschool hours, creating a safe haven for the children to play. Today, since it was right after school, most of the neighborhood kids were getting their homework out of the way before they came out to play. So when Sammy got to the park, its only occupants were a few pigeons and their feeders, two old retired men named Jerry and Lew, grandfathers to two of his friends. On nice days, he liked to sit in the park and read or watch the old men feed the birds. Today was an absolutely great day so he just sat and relaxed. There was no need to rush home as both of his parents worked and they were not home. In addition, as Schwabby was rushed out of the room before giving out the assignments, he did not have homework. So he sat and he thought. Today he thought what it would be like when he was older. He didn’t know what he wanted to be. Sometimes he thought he would be a fireman or a policeman, sometimes it would be a doctor or a lawyer. Today he thought about being a spy. He enjoyed watching The Man from Uncle and Secret Agent and I Spy. In fact, all of his friends watched those shows and they talked about them with great enthusiasm the day after they were broadcast. He was in such a good mood he pretended he was a spy right then and there, looking suspiciously at all of the people in the park to determine if they were Russian spies. Yes, today he wanted to be a spy when he got older.
And he got his wish because he stayed in the park so long.
Blocks away, the Johnston house was being set up for an ambush. Bill and Tommy tied the wire around the trunk of the fir tree to the left of the porch. Tommy tugged at it a few times to make sure that the wire was secure enough to stand its ground when Sammy tripped over it. The hard part was the next tree, the one to the right of the porch. Tommy attempted it first; however, he left too much slack while tying it to the tree. Bill untied the fishing wire from the tree, took up the slack and huddled next to the tree bringing his left arm around the tree to meet the hand with the wire. When the two hands met he pulled the wire tighter to take up all of the slack, causing the trees to bend a bit. The wire glistened in the sunlight. Bill didn’t mind. The wire was barely noticeable, but as if being watched over by some benevolent devil-god, he noticed a large mass of clouds in the distance that were headed their way. Once they covered the sunlight, the wire would be effectively invisible. He tied the wire around the tree. When he was finished tying it, he gave it a little tug with his finger. "It’s tight, " Bill said. "Let’s go hide in those bushes" he said, pointing to the small row of evergreens at the edge of the Johnston’s front yard." "I can’t wait to see him smash his face"
"Bill, maybe we shouldn’t do this," Tommy said.
Bill jabbed his finger in Tommy’s chest. "You know we should and we’ve come too far to stop. You’re in this with me, Tommy, and if you want to back out, I’ll get you. I’ll tell them it was all your idea. Boy, you’ll be in big trouble."
"You can’t do that."
"Try me."
Enough said. He knew Bill had already done something to set him up in case anything went wrong. Tommy capitulated and the two boys both knelt down behind the bushes like the buzzards awaiting their prey. Bill was absolutely still. Tommy was fidgety as the evergreen needles were jabbing into his bare arms and legs. They both waited for the moment of triumph. They knew it was near when they heard the small whistling sound of the little boy who had finally left the park and continued his way home.
Sammy walked up the path leading to the front of his house. He looked up to the sky and noticed that it was clouding up fast. "I hope it doesn’t rain," he thought aloud. He did not notice the two heads rising over the top of the bushes, like savage predators zeroing in for the kill.
The eight year old stood looking up at the big white aluminum sided house that he called home. He wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to jump today. Today was tiring enough already and it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. But looking at the house longer and longer, he realized that he was not as tired as thought he was. He was in good enough of a mood that he laid his books on the grass at the base of the big oak tree to his left and prepared to pounce.
Tommy and Bill stirred. "This is it," the latter said.
But it was not. In the course of his jumping, Sammy developed different jumps. He had a standing jump, a running jump, a hurdle jump and even a hop, skip and jump. He first tried the standing jump and cleared the wire about three inches. Tommy and Bill first tightened with anticipation and then relaxed miserably when they saw him miss the wire. They felt cheated when he missed and didn’t think they would get their revenge. "His books," Tommy said. "He has to come back over to get his books. Maybe he’ll jump again."
And, indeed, that is exactly what Sammy had to do. But first, he took out his keys and opened the plate glass storm door (god, he couldn’t understand why his parents never put screens in during the nice months) and then unlocked the wooden door to his house opening it up all the way. He went into the house and yelled down the steps that led into the basement. "Mom," he yelled. No answer. He went upstairs. "Mom," he asked questioningly. Again, no answer. Must’ve gone out shopping, he thought. He was now glad that his parents had recently decided to give him a key to the house so he could let himself in if they weren’t home. They felt that he had shown enough maturity to earn it. At the top of the stairs he realized that he had forgotten his book bag. Letting out a groan, he turned to go back the way he came in order to get them. Opening up the storm door he let it close of its own volition. Jumping back over the wire, which he now missed by nearly a foot because of his elevated position, he decided to try the running jump. He hadn’t done the running jump in quite a while and felt he was out of practice. In addition, he felt, it would give him the additional speed necessary because he would be carrying his book bag. And, he thought, scientifically, of course, that when you do the running jump you come in lower so he needed the speed so he wouldn’t trip on the top step.
All the while Sammy was in the house, Tommy and Bill were stirring uneasily in the bushes. What if someone else came by, Sammy’s mother for instance and tripped over the wire and got hurt. This they didn’t want. They were about to get out of the bushes and remove the wire when Sammy came out of the house. They breathed easier but then tightened up when they saw Sammy clear the wire a second time. They were sweating nervously by now. "Jesus, doesn’t this guy ever walk or run up the stairs like a normal person?," Bill muttered.
Sammy picked up his book bag and walked up to the steps, stopping just short of the unseen wire. He might have seen it this up close and personal, but he heard his name being called out and turned.
It was Davey McCoy. He was Sammy’s age, had light brown hair, was a gargantuan 50" tall and had brown eyes. He was also Sammy’s best friend. He came over walking with a limp, the result of a botched operation when he was merely three. He had torn ligaments in his leg and they needed to be surgically repaired. The doctor, otherwise normally a competent and respected surgeon, was not on his game that day as a result of just being asked for a divorce by his wife. The operation was performed poorly, to say the least. Although the muscles were reattached, they were made shorter, leaving Davey with his limp. Fortunately for Davey, while he was between Junior High and High School his parents took him to the world renowned Dr. Samuel Goldfarb, an orthopedic surgeon who was looking for this type of surgery to perform as part of a treatise he was writing. Goldfarb was able to correct the injury with no resultant problems. Meanwhile, Davey and his parents got rich from the Medical Malpractice lawsuit they filed against the original doctor. All that was needed was an 8mm home movie of Davey walking with a limp to get the insurance company to open its checkbook real wide.
"Hiya Davey, How’re ‘ya doin’" Sammy asked.
"Pretty Good. Whatcha doin’?"
"Jumping."
"Awww, You’re always jumping" was Davey’s slightly teasing reply.
Sammy uttered a little chuckle and said, "Yeah. You know, for a second I was thinking about doing a running jump but I don’t know if I want to do it. To be honest, I was scared."
"Yeah, I know. Ever since your fall six months ago you haven’t done it, but, c’mon Sammy, it was icy out then. It’s nice now. You gotta try. When I first got this limp, I didn’t want to play any games, but you talked me into it. If I were you I’d do it."
"I can’t."
"Yes, you can."
"I don’t know. Every time I think about it I get the shivers."
"So start further back and build up speed."
Reluctantly, Sammy said "okay."
Sammy gave his book bag to Davey who sat on the grass to watch Sammy’s jump. Sammy moved twenty feet down the front walk and for good measure backed up another five feet until he was almost at he sidewalk. He carefully eyed his sights. Better not overshoot, he thought. But no matter. The worst that could happen is that he would bang into the storm door. Nothing could break that. He remembered when he threw a baseball against the door by accident and waited for glass to fly everywhere. It just thudded against the glass and landed on the stoop.
He started his run, slowly but built up speed as he approached his "blast-off" point as he called it. He was running fast now and for the first time in six months he wasn’t scared because he knew he was going to make it. He was glad that Davey talked him into jumping. All his concentration was focused on the jump. He saw nothing around him. His only sense was of sight, and a tunnelvision sight at that, with Sammy only seeing the porch in front of him as he built up speed.
His feet left the ground and he pulled his knees slightly up to his chest so that they would clear the top step. The feeling of weightlessness exhilarated him. It was a feeling he would always remember. Unfortunately, it was one he would always try to forget.
Davey McCoy looked on in horror as he saw Sammy’s figure plummet, like a projectile straight to the door as if Sammy leaped at it deliberately. What was happening?
Tommy and Bill saw everything, too, as if it was in slow motion. It seemed as if it took forever from Sammy to get from the sidewalk into his leap. They, too, couldn’t understand why Sammy was leaping so long and hard. What was happening?
Sammy was picking his knees up to his chest so that they couldn’t come up any further. His legs felt paralyzed. He couldn’t move them up and he was scared. He was going very fast now. Strangely enough, his feet stayed in one spot while the rest of his body felt as though it moved forward through time and space instead of rising to a pinnacle. His arms flew out from his sides to a point directly in front of his head, which began to dip. His shoulders pushed forward as his head lowered and his legs straightened out behind him. He was now as straight as a ruler, going as fast as a pint sized tactical nuclear missile. He felt his body lengthen as if someone or something was holding onto his feet. Then it felt that whoever or whatever was holding onto his feet let go. He saw the plate glass door loom larger and larger until he flew into a black hole that pulled him into its vortex. What was happening?
He never knew what hit him. In his fright he lost consciousness before he smashed through the plate glass storm window that never broke before. The shards of glass embedded themselves to his entire body, ripping his clothes to shred and slicing his body all over. Most prevalent were the large splinters of glass emanating from the top of his head. With the light shining off of these pieces, it looked as though Sammy was wearing a halo.
The window did not stop Sammy’s forward momentum. He kept flying through the plate glass and landed at the precipice of the steps leading downstairs; however, his forward thrust did not end there and he went over the edge and bounced down the ten steps that led to his finished basement. He came to rest at the bottom of the stairs and lay in a mangled and bloody heap at the base.
Davey quickly unfroze and ran to the house yelling Sammy’s name at the top of his lungs. What he saw defied belief. Sammy was laying in a large pool of blood with sharp pieces of glass protruding out of his body. He quashed the urge to cry or scream and, instead, ran to the phone, grabbed the receiver and dialed "0". He never saw Tommy or Bill who made a hasty departure when Davey went into the house.
All the operator heard on the other end of the phone was a young voice, panting, yelling for an ambulance and asking for it to come to 422 Wilson Lane. Before there was a chance for the operator to respond she heard a click signifying the end of the conversation. Although this operator had her share of prank phone calls in the past, this one did not fit the mold. The child was just too direct and appeared to be in terror. She called over her supervisor and told him what happened. He made the phone call to the local police department to check out the call.
Later, the policeman told Davey that if he didn’t call the operator when he did his friend might have died in his basement where he lie. The policeman told him he was going to talk to his bosses but wanted to give him something called a sytahshun for his good deed. Davey couldn’t sleep for a week. His face was pale and he stayed up at nights maintaining a vigil for his friend. Everyday, after school, he made his mother take him to the hospital to wait on his friend. He just knew that Sammy would be all right. He just had to be. Sammy was his best friend.
Tommy and Bill beat a hasty retreat when Davey ran into Sammy’s house. Bill felt like the heavyweight champion of the world, pumping his arms as he ran. Tommy, however, had never suffered as much abject terror as he experienced at that moment. While running towards his home with Bill, he became more sullen and withdrawn as each second passed. Bill continued in his upbeat mood slapping Tommy on the back and telling him how good it felt to "teach that little prick a lesson he wouldn’t forget" totally oblivious to the fact that Tommy was becoming more and more unresponsive. The two boys stopped at the same park that Sammy had been resting at not thirty minutes earlier. Bill exercised his arms and legs on the playground equipment while Tommy sat quietly on the park bench staring straight ahead, his eyes devoid of emotion as they stared into an emotional abyss.
In the distance they heard the wail of the sirens that were no doubt headed to the Johnston residence. Bill marveled at, and remarked to Tommy, who again did not respond, how groovy it was hearing the sirens grow louder and then fainter as the ambulance and police cars passed. While Bill danced around like the winner of a championship prize fight, Tommy, upon hearing the sirens, began to scream. He screamed a bestial bloodcurdling sound for fifteen seconds and fell silent again. By the time Bill dragged Tommy out of the park, the entire neighborhood had heard of the horror at the Johnston household. Many of the people in the neighborhood who knew Sammy, especially youngsters, were in a state of shock. Bill heard the distressed cries of people in the neighborhood and seized upon it for his partner in crime’s lack of responsiveness. In fact, he nearly had to carry Tommy as it appeared that the boy was losing his motor coordination. Tommy’s father came running out of the house yelling for an explanation. Bill told him that Tommy seemed to be different after he heard about the kid’s accident. Tommy’s father, who was a bit of a bully himself and regaled in Tommy’s tales of torment, eyed Bill suspiciously, but said nothing. His first concern was for his child.
Tommy’s parents immediately called their general practitioner who told them that they should not worry. They should let the boy have a good night’s sleep and come see him in the morning if Tommy wasn’t his usually rambunctious self.
While Bill slept peacefully, Tommy experienced the worst nightmare in his life yet as hard as his internal controls tried to rouse him from it, he could not wake up. He dreamed he was alone in the desert, standing on a cliffside, watching a sunset. He was older, in his twenties. He thought he was in the Grand Canyon, but couldn’t be sure. All of a sudden a bright light filled his field of vision, temporarily blinding him. When his eyes recovered, he heard a large metallic whining noise behind him. He spun around and saw behind him a large spacecraft of some kind. He walked over to the ship, which looked like the one in his favorite science fiction movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still. Looking as though two pie plates had been joined together the exterior structure of the craft was nearly thirty feet high and almost one hundred feet in diameter. He touched the craft and pulled his hand back.
Damn, the surface was hot, he thought. He tried to touch it again, ever so slightly and this time the ship was cool to the touch. He backed up to get another look at the craft and started walking around it. Seamless, he thought. He wondered where the exit was. He would love to have a chance meeting with some aliens, but how could he get their attention? So he did the only thing he could think of. He walked up to the spaceship and knocked on the cool surface and yelled "Anybody home?" To his right, a panel of the spacecraft disengaged and started lowering to form a plank. From within, an ugly ten-eyed creature with a long trunk-like snout stuck out his gnarled hand and beckoned a wide eyed Tommy to come aboard for a view that could not be rivaled. Tommy reluctantly moved up the solid gangplank and entered the spaceship trepidatiously. When he was inside, he was taken to a large video screen that showed him the canyon he was spying before. He felt the spaceship rumble as it took off and he marveled at the sight of the Grand Canyon from the sky. Suddenly, a voice spoke from behind him. "Nice view, huh?" He spun around and faced his eight year old cousin Bill. "You know, Tommy," Bill was saying, "I could get in a lot of trouble if you tell someone what I did." And with lightning fast speed, he grabbed Tommy’s wrist. Tommy tried to pull away, but the alien’s strength was too strong for him. He was dragged across the cavernous floor and placed in a tube that ran from ceiling to floor. "Now, you can experience the feeling of flight that your friend Sammy felt. So long." And with that the floor disappeared from beneath Tommy and he fell towards the Grand Canyon at incredible speed screaming his apologies all the way down.
In the morning his bedsheets were soaking wet and he looked as though he had lost ten pounds. The doctor, who was remorseful over his cavalier attitude the previous evening suggested hospitalization and Tommy’s parents readily agreed. Later that night, Tommy had another nightmare. He was playing a game of handball with the devil. The devil kept repeating "Never lose. Never lose. Never lose." Yet Tommy was beating the Devil with little difficulty. "Never lose. Never lose. Never lose," the Devil kept repeating. When Tommy beat the Devil 21 to 1, he walked over to shake the Devil’s extended hand, but he realized that it was not a hand but a long serrated knife which the Devil repeatedly plunge into his chest, all the while yelling, "Never lose, Never lose, Never lose." When Tommy realized that the Devil’s face was that of his nemesis, Sammy Johnston, he screamed until he could scream no longer.
In the hospital, Tommy’s monitors flatlined and despite the valiant attempts by the hospital staff, the boy could not be revived. He was pronounced dead at 5:25 in the morning. Later, the doctor told Tommy’s distraught parents that he died of sleep-induced Apnea, a condition which ordinarily results from the failure of the lungs to produce adequate respiration during sleep. He could not, however, explain why Tommy’s hair was white when he died.
Tommy’s parents sent Bill back to Albany and only saw him one more time in his life.
Chapter 2--HANDBALL
May 1967
he eight year old boy walked up to the steps of the large "splanch", a split ranch, style house that used to be painted white, then blue but was now covered with one of the newest innovations in the market: aluminum siding. His parents got it because a tin man told them that they would have none of the wear and tear problems that were associated with paint. Imagine, the guy said, when your buddies (he was talking to Sammy’s father, the man-to-man style working perfectly) are busy painting their houses on that beautiful summer day and you can take the wife and child to the beach or an amusement park and it won’t be crowded because everyone will be painting their houses. And it worked. The obvious puffery was lost when contrasted with the fun, fun, fun that ensued was imagined. That was the pitch that got Sammy Johnston’s parents (rather, his dad) to turn what was once a beautifully painted house of brick and wood into a house that Sammy presumed looked like Fort Knox. And it wasn’t just Sammy’s parents, although they were the first. All of the people on the block got hooked in by the tin man and the same line of bullshit. The whole neighborhood was undergoing a facelift and it took a whole summer for all of the men in the neighborhood to realize that they, as a group, put themselves back at square one. Now all of them had the time, once again, to go to the beaches, so the beaches were once again crowded. However, the siding was something new to Sammy. He liked the way the house used to look. It reminded him of Fred MacMurray’s house on My Three Sons. His cries of protest fell on deaf ears. So, for the eleven days of spring break in April of this year, he refused to leave his room in the hopes of getting his parents to change their mind. He, of course, lost.
Now, one month later, Sammy stood in front of his house. More than just resigning himself to the new look of the house, he adopted it as a new friend. He would play ‘Moonbase Alpha’, the house being transformed into the moonbase being threatened by aliens. The aliens, of course, had blown up the entrance to the moonbase so it was up to space cadet Sammy Johnston to find his way into the moonbase to save the astronauts. To do this, he had to jump over the steps of his house, which he pretended were the mountain of rubble created by the aliens. He played this over and over. At any given time, Sammy’s neighbors would see him standing by the steps that became his friendly foe. He would size up the steps as one would size up an enemy; luckily for him, this enemy never changed size. Once he sized it up, he would jump. When he first started jumping he would need a running start. The first time he jumped the toe of his sneaker got caught on the steps and he fell and cut his leg, his head landing only inches from his front door.
He quickly got better at his jumping, mostly from skill but also because he experienced a quick little growth spurt enabling him to become more agile. For the past two weeks he was able to jump up the four steps from a standing position. From doing this repetitively, his legs became very muscular, especially for an eight year old, so much so that he was teased in school by the other children, not so much because this was his only true hobby, but because they were jealous of his new found strength. And because he was teased so much, Sammy started up with a lot of kids, some older and some younger. Unfortunately, for Sammy, his arms were not as strong as his legs. He won some fights, but not often.
He obtained such a reputation for starting fights that everyone knew who he was even if they never met him before. He should have been on a first-name basis with the principal since he visited him on a daily basis. The principal, Jim Harvey, was a 56 year old man with thirteen children who rarely raised his voice. He had his share of aggravation from his children, but never had a child who was constantly getting into trouble. He could never understand why Sammy was unruly and, during the many meetings he had with Sammy’s parents, found out that the parents had the same lack of understanding. The principal continually asked the parents to be on the lookout for any objectionable behavior or any psychological manifestations and bring them to his attention.
It was lunchtime and Sammy Johnston was running at breakneck speed around the school, an ugly single-level brick building built three years earlier. Many people in the neighborhood spoke up at the school board meetings about the plainness of the school in relation to the taxes they paid. The kids had no such objection as they savored the vast size of the school grounds that enabled everyone to play their own games without crowding anyone else. If Sammy would have been running with other kids around the school he might have left them behind and passed them before they completed one lap. One person who did not like Sammy’s jumping and running exploits was Tommy Williams. Before Sammy’s jumping enabled him to increase his speed, Tommy was known as the fastest kid in the class. He was a tall boy, slightly chubby, but was very popular at the Kennedy Elementary School, playing with all the other kids during recess and lunch. He was on the little league baseball team, he played touch football, he ran in peewee track events and played many, many other sports. He often joked that he could "change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and leap tall buildings in a single bound."
But Tommy was best at handball. He loved marathon games, lasting the entire lunch hour, opting to gobble his sandwich between volleys. The more players the better. Often, there were fourteen kids playing an elimination game at the school, where the player who flubbed the last shot had to sit out the rest of the game. Tommy, very often, won these elimination games. He did not let Sammy play because he didn’t like him one bit. Tommy’s parents were not as rich as Sammy’s and as a result Tommy never got the great toys to play with like Sammy did. Not that it makes sense to harbor a grudge in this manner, yet such is the stuff that makes little human beings children. Sammy didn’t really care how Tommy felt about him but he would have liked to be included in the daily handball tournament because it looked like fun. One day towards the end of lunch, Sammy’s friend, Davey McCoy told Tommy that he probably wouldn’t win all the time if Sammy played. This infuriated Tommy because not only did he feel it wasn’t even close to the truth but primarily because Davey said it in front of Tommy’s friends, who could best be described as looking like Butch in The Little Rascals shows, torn and dirty. He needed to set the record straight and therefore he sought out Sammy. He spied him running around the building and waited for him to complete another lap before stopping him by stepping in his path.
"So your friend McCoy thinks you can beat me at handball. Today, 3:30 after school by the wall next to the gym" Tommy yelled, all the while jabbing his finger into Sammy’s chest. When they stood next to each other, the difference could be seen. While only two inches taller than Sammy, it was Tommy’s bulk that made it appear as if a David and Goliath match would occur when school let out.
"No problem" replied Sammy, bravely. However, he was scared stiff. He was good at handball but not good enough to beat Tommy. He didn’t want to be ridiculed and he dreaded waiting the entire afternoon.
"Fine," Tommy replied. "I’ll bring the balls." He regretted saying it as soon as it left his mouth, but he didn’t let it show.
"I didn’t know you had any." All of the kids started their catcalls at this remark. Tommy, embarrassed, grabbed Sammy by the shirt collar and quietly said, "Just wait." He released his grip and walked away as the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch period.
Sammy was fidgeting throughout the entire afternoon and by the last hour was ready to kill. He was so on edge he thought his heart would stop. Everything said by his teacher, Mrs. Schwaberhoffer, a 63 year old spinster, went in one ear and out the other. "Samuel" came from the lips of Mrs. Schwaberhoffer. God, he hated that name. In fact, he hated it so much that he had conditioned himself not to hear it and not to respond to it. Samuel sounds like a prophet, he thought. He didn’t care for bible stories and he didn’t care for his full name. He preferred Sammy, or even Sam, which is what his namesake grandfather called him, but he didn’t care for that one too much. In fact, as he grew up and passed through his early thirties there was only one person who got away with calling him by his full name.
"Samuel." His conditioning worked. He earnestly did not realize Mrs. Schwaberhoffer was speaking to him, despite the fact that they were looking directly at each other. He wasn’t day dreaming. He just didn’t hear his name, that is, "Sammy", and thought she was calling on someone else. That was, of course, until he saw ‘Schwabby’ as she was called behind her back, approaching him with a steel ruler, her favorite weapon for inattentive children, in her hand. He snapped out of his haze quickly and moved his hand out of the line of fire, just as the ruler connected with the desk. I guess she was talking to me, he thought, and I guess she’s mad now. He realized how mad she was when he noticed that the portion of the desk where his hand rested before he moved it was badly splintered. Sweat beaded on his forehead. What did he do that was so terrible, he wondered. It must’ve been real bad since she was approaching him again, ruler in hand and a fire in her eyes. Her lips were pulled back in a sneer and her teeth were bared as if she were a snarling dog. She swung. Sammy ducked. The ruler hit the closet door directly behind him and splintered some more wood. Jeez, that would’ve taken my head off he thought. She had messed up children’s penmanship before but had never come close to performing a ritualistic decapitation.
Schwabby was madder than ever, having missed him twice. None of the other children in the class moved for fear that they would be next. When she approached him, he got up and tried to move away. She swung again and caught him on the small of his back. He winced and fell to the floor in pain, turning over as he did so. It was a direct hit. She swung the ruler again and hit him right on his left kneecap causing him to scream loudly. "Why the fuck are you trying to kill me? What did I do?" Sammy’s foul language broke Schwabby out of her deadly reverie.
Once again, Sammy found his way to the principal’s office, but his visit did not last long. When the principal heard what happened and saw the blood on the back of Sammy’s Tee shirt and saw Sammy limping he walked Sammy back to his classroom.
"The Principal wants to see you, Schwabby," he said in a sing-song voice as he entered the classroom. The class fell silent. No one had ever dared to call her by her nickname to her face. Sammy was held in awe and new found respect by his classmates, except Tommy Williams.
Schwabby, disbelieving, said, "I’m teaching a class right now. It will have to wait." She noticed that her forehead was beginning to perspire.
At that moment the door to the classroom opened and Principal James Harvey walked in. Standing about a foot taller than the teacher, Harvey possessed one of the oddest faces. His complexion was sallow and his face was gaunt, giving him the look of a monster. Nevertheless, he had the kindest eyes and the nicest smile. The contrast between these two looks, which could be shown at once, was unnerving. "No, Mrs. Schwaberhofer. It will not wait," he said softly with a smile and penetrating eyes. He turned to the class. "Children, you will have a substitute teacher starting tomorrow. Mrs. LoGreco will watch you for the rest of today." He turned and walked out of the classroom, holding the door for her and beckoning for her to follow.
Then Sammy quietly said, "I think you’re going to lose your job. Serves you right, you know." The class looked on in disbelief. This hated teacher had been done in by an eight year old. At this point, even Tommy Williams’ mouth was hanging open, although he would later deny it. Sammy limped in silence to his seat. Schwabby walked to the door, turned and said to the class "the rest of your year will be pure hell and you have Samuel Johnston to thank for it." And she left.
Her threat meant nothing as they never saw Schwabby again.
Shortly after Schwabby left, the three o’clock bell rang. School was out and the children departed quietly through the halls and then scattered frenetically when they hit the great outdoors. The only kids that hung around were Sammy, Tommy and about twenty kids that were waiting for the big match. Sammy felt that he had the psychological edge that he needed having properly trounced Schwaberhoffer in the classroom. He was still high from his confrontation with her and even though he knew that he would see her again tomorrow, he was happy now. Classmates were crowding around him, slapping him on the back for having the guts to do what they never dreamed of. Kids from other classes were doing the same thing once they heard what he had done. In fact everyone gave congratulations to Sammy, except Tommy, who stood off to the side, by himself, watching his nemesis receive his laudits. He had always called Sammy a wimp but now he wasn’t so sure.
The area around the gym was so crowded by game time that Tommy and Sammy had to ask everyone to move back so they wouldn’t get in the way of the ball and so that the two of them had a proper playing area for this championship game. The mood was like that before a prize fight when the crowd is evenly split about whom they want to win. Half of the kids were chanting "Sammy, Sammy" while the other half of the kids were yelling Tommy’s name. The game was about to begin and the crowd hushed in anticipation. Even old Mr. Phillips, the janitor, neglected the start of his daily afterschool chores to watch some of the match. The first serve was decided by the toss of a coin, in Sammy’s favor. He was glad he got the serve because he heard how hard it was to return one of Tommy’s serves. He was sure he could do it, but the longer he could put off finding it out, the better. He sized up the ball and looked to see where Tommy was standing. He let the ball bounce two times to feel its rhythm. And then he served.
The ball hit the ground and caromed up to hit the wall. The ball sailed over Sammy’s head towards Tommy, who only had to take two steps to properly return it. Sammy just watched as Tommy smashed the ball which hit the ground and then the wall with such force that the ball once again sailed over Sammy’s head and out of his reach.
It was now Tommy’s serve.
Sammy felt that Tommy would start off with a big serve to announce his presence so he stayed toward the back of the court. Tommy’s first serve was light and just barely landed in fair territory. Sammy tried to rush in, and did, in fact, get some hand on the ball but was unable to return the serve. "C’mon, Tommy" he said, limping while he was talking, "give me a break, my knee is killing me because of Schwabby." His knee wasn’t hurting all that bad. Let Tommy think it was and get a few points under his belt and then Sammy would bring out the heavy artillery.
"Tough shit" replied Tommy and proceeded to win six points in a row. His last serve was too strong, causing the ball to fly too far and land in foul territory. It was Sammy’s turn again. His serve was hit so hard that it sailed over Tommy, who was playing close to the serving line. Six-one. The next serve landed in the same spot and Tommy was unable to do anything more than hit it halfway to the wall. Six-two. Tommy moved back. The next serve landed close to the serving line and Tommy couldn’t reach it. Six-three. "All luck" yelled Tommy. "Serve it up."
The fourth serve was a smash that sailed straight at Tommy’s head. Tommy dropped himself to the ground to avoid being hit. The kids watching the game started laughing and Tommy got up, red-faced. The next ten minutes went basically the same way with Tommy only able to regain his serve twice and score four points. The entire crowd was now yelling "Sammy, Sammy" in unison, their voices getting louder with each point Sammy won. It was obvious that Sammy’s knee wasn’t bothering him as much as he said raising Tommy’s ire to the boiling point. Unfortunately, he could do nothing about it. If he confronted Sammy on the court he would be laughed at by everybody and called a sore loser.
And so it went. Sammy scored twenty-one points answered by only four of Tommy’s to beat Tommy by eleven.
Tommy was furious. When Sammy came up to Tommy to shake his hand, Tommy slapped Sammy’s extended hand away from him. "You’re going to pay for this," Tommy cried. "You’re going to regret the day that you lied to me about your knee and making me look like a fool in front of everyone."
"I’m sorry, Tommy. I didn’t lie about my knee. It did hurt but I guess it didn’t bother me once we got into the game," he added plaintively.
"The hell you didn’t lie," Tommy replied and with a huge shove, pushed Sammy to the ground. He landed right on his ass. Tommy stood above him, laughing, and toeing Sammy with his foot. Sammy was yelling for Tommy to stop it. Quickly, most of the kids were yelling for Tommy to stop, but he continued. Soon, his prods turned into full kicks. He kicked each exposed part of Sammy’s body and Sammy winced in pain as each blow was delivered. As Tommy was about to deliver a hard kick to Sammy’s kidneys, Sammy rolled over causing Tommy’s foot to miss connecting with Sammy’s body. The resultant centrifugal force caused Tommy to lose his own balance and fall on the ground next to his nemesis.
Sammy, seizing probably his own opportunity to get the advantage, jumped on top of Tommy and, despite his pain, started to punch Tommy repeatedly in the chest and face. When it was over, Tommy was hurting. His nose was bleeding, he had a black eye and his chest was bruised. Most of all, his pride was shattered. He was no longer the toughest, and therefore the most popular, kid in school.
Tommy swore revenge and he knew he would get it. "You know good lying little shit. The day you think you can put one over on me is the day you are going to die. I’m never going to let you forget this. You just wait and see. For as long as you live, you’ll regret this day."
And Sammy did regret it, but not for a long time.
Tommy, with the aid of his cousin Bill who was visiting from Albany for the week, decided that Sammy had to be taught a lesson. Bill Williams was a tall for an eight year old, like his cousin Tommy; however, where Tommy was a bully, Bill was downright malevolent. But Tommy never saw this side of Bill. Bill was born and bred in Albany but his parents grew up on Long Island and decided to take Bill out of school for a week so that Bill’s mother could visit her sister, Tommy’s mother.
Despite the 200 mile gap between the two of them Bill and Tommy were very close. Unlike most boys their age, they kept up a steady stream of correspondence and, if they were behaving or did well in school, spoke to each other on the phone for a few minutes at a time each week. Therefore, it came as no surprise that Bill wanted to help Tommy defend his honor against that little punk, Sammy Johnston.
"What do you think we should do, " Tommy asked.
"Well, let’s teach him a lesson he’ll never forget. How ‘bout we hit him a few times with a baseball bat?" Bill replied.
Tommy was leery. "Awww, I don’t know. I don’t want to do anything where he can really get hurt." While this was not the first time Tommy heard Bill talking about beating someone up, he didn’t like the tone in Bill’s voice. He certainly sounded very, very strange. Tommy was beginning to think, so what if Sammy beat him at handball. Did he really have to get back at him, especially so severely?. Unfortunately, when he saw the look in his cousin’s face he knew that he would not be able to turn back.
"Are you kidding?" Bill was incredulous. "You go to the school this morning and you’re king of the hill. By the end of the day, you’re a piece of shit. You can do what you want but if it was me, he’d be dogmeat."
"I know, I know," Tommy said wistfully. "Let’s think of something, but let’s make sure it isn’t so drastic."
"Fine by me" replied Bill, hiding his disgust for his cousin’s lack of cojones, a word he recently learned and had come to love. "Let’s surprise him." And then: "I have an idea. I’ll be right back." And with that Bill got up and went into Tommy’s garage, where he disappeared for several moments, leaving Tommy bewildered. When Bill came out he was holding Tommy’s father’s fishing pole. "I did this to someone once before. I used the fishing wire to trip somebody. We’ll string it across someplace. The wire is practically invisible. He’ll trip and break his face. He’ll never know what hit him. Now think, is there any place to tie up both ends of the wire?"
"Well," Tommy replied enthusiastically, now realizing that there was no intent to seriously hurt Sammy, but just to put the scare into him. "Lemme think....wait!.. I got it! Sammy likes to jump on his steps."
"Huh?", Bill said, projecting one of the blankest stares ever recorded on a human face. "He does what?"
"He has this porch in front of his house," Tommy said by way of explanation. "It has four steps. He likes to jump up the steps without touching them. On each side of the stoop is a tree that the wire could be tied to."
"Perfect," replied Bill, pulling the wire off the rod and reel and replacing the fishing pole back in the garage. "Let’s go over to his house to see if anyone’s around."
"Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t do this."
"Don’t pussy out now, Tommy. He made a fool out of you. What would the kids at school say if you didn’t get back at him?"
"Yeah, I know, but..." Tommy’s voice trailed off.
"There are no buts about it, Tommy. He’s not getting away with it." Tommy didn’t like the look on his cousin’s face and didn’t know how good the plan sounded, but he went ahead with it anyway. He didn’t want to do it, on the one hand, but one the other hand, all the things that Bill said rang true. However, as time passed he became more and more angry. The more he thought about what Sammy did, the more infuriated he became. He, like his cousin, now wanted revenge. And he made it clear to himself that he would not regret the consequences, no matter how grave. Bill, on the other hand, not knowing Sammy, never had the slightest hesitation or regret.
At least he wouldn’t for a number of years. Then it would come back to haunt him like Jacob Marley’s ghost. But for Tommy, there was no ghosts of Christmas past, present or future. He would be given no chance to repent.
"Let’s go," Tommy said, his face set with a savage sneer.
Sammy was on his way home after school when he stopped at the park near his house. It was a nice park that most kids liked to play in. It had the obligatory swings, sand box and jungle gym and had plenty of room in which children could run around in. It was the type of park that was frequented by adults from the neighborhood during the afterschool hours, creating a safe haven for the children to play. Today, since it was right after school, most of the neighborhood kids were getting their homework out of the way before they came out to play. So when Sammy got to the park, its only occupants were a few pigeons and their feeders, two old retired men named Jerry and Lew, grandfathers to two of his friends. On nice days, he liked to sit in the park and read or watch the old men feed the birds. Today was an absolutely great day so he just sat and relaxed. There was no need to rush home as both of his parents worked and they were not home. In addition, as Schwabby was rushed out of the room before giving out the assignments, he did not have homework. So he sat and he thought. Today he thought what it would be like when he was older. He didn’t know what he wanted to be. Sometimes he thought he would be a fireman or a policeman, sometimes it would be a doctor or a lawyer. Today he thought about being a spy. He enjoyed watching The Man from Uncle and Secret Agent and I Spy. In fact, all of his friends watched those shows and they talked about them with great enthusiasm the day after they were broadcast. He was in such a good mood he pretended he was a spy right then and there, looking suspiciously at all of the people in the park to determine if they were Russian spies. Yes, today he wanted to be a spy when he got older.
And he got his wish because he stayed in the park so long.
Blocks away, the Johnston house was being set up for an ambush. Bill and Tommy tied the wire around the trunk of the fir tree to the left of the porch. Tommy tugged at it a few times to make sure that the wire was secure enough to stand its ground when Sammy tripped over it. The hard part was the next tree, the one to the right of the porch. Tommy attempted it first; however, he left too much slack while tying it to the tree. Bill untied the fishing wire from the tree, took up the slack and huddled next to the tree bringing his left arm around the tree to meet the hand with the wire. When the two hands met he pulled the wire tighter to take up all of the slack, causing the trees to bend a bit. The wire glistened in the sunlight. Bill didn’t mind. The wire was barely noticeable, but as if being watched over by some benevolent devil-god, he noticed a large mass of clouds in the distance that were headed their way. Once they covered the sunlight, the wire would be effectively invisible. He tied the wire around the tree. When he was finished tying it, he gave it a little tug with his finger. "It’s tight, " Bill said. "Let’s go hide in those bushes" he said, pointing to the small row of evergreens at the edge of the Johnston’s front yard." "I can’t wait to see him smash his face"
"Bill, maybe we shouldn’t do this," Tommy said.
Bill jabbed his finger in Tommy’s chest. "You know we should and we’ve come too far to stop. You’re in this with me, Tommy, and if you want to back out, I’ll get you. I’ll tell them it was all your idea. Boy, you’ll be in big trouble."
"You can’t do that."
"Try me."
Enough said. He knew Bill had already done something to set him up in case anything went wrong. Tommy capitulated and the two boys both knelt down behind the bushes like the buzzards awaiting their prey. Bill was absolutely still. Tommy was fidgety as the evergreen needles were jabbing into his bare arms and legs. They both waited for the moment of triumph. They knew it was near when they heard the small whistling sound of the little boy who had finally left the park and continued his way home.
Sammy walked up the path leading to the front of his house. He looked up to the sky and noticed that it was clouding up fast. "I hope it doesn’t rain," he thought aloud. He did not notice the two heads rising over the top of the bushes, like savage predators zeroing in for the kill.
The eight year old stood looking up at the big white aluminum sided house that he called home. He wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted to jump today. Today was tiring enough already and it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. But looking at the house longer and longer, he realized that he was not as tired as thought he was. He was in good enough of a mood that he laid his books on the grass at the base of the big oak tree to his left and prepared to pounce.
Tommy and Bill stirred. "This is it," the latter said.
But it was not. In the course of his jumping, Sammy developed different jumps. He had a standing jump, a running jump, a hurdle jump and even a hop, skip and jump. He first tried the standing jump and cleared the wire about three inches. Tommy and Bill first tightened with anticipation and then relaxed miserably when they saw him miss the wire. They felt cheated when he missed and didn’t think they would get their revenge. "His books," Tommy said. "He has to come back over to get his books. Maybe he’ll jump again."
And, indeed, that is exactly what Sammy had to do. But first, he took out his keys and opened the plate glass storm door (god, he couldn’t understand why his parents never put screens in during the nice months) and then unlocked the wooden door to his house opening it up all the way. He went into the house and yelled down the steps that led into the basement. "Mom," he yelled. No answer. He went upstairs. "Mom," he asked questioningly. Again, no answer. Must’ve gone out shopping, he thought. He was now glad that his parents had recently decided to give him a key to the house so he could let himself in if they weren’t home. They felt that he had shown enough maturity to earn it. At the top of the stairs he realized that he had forgotten his book bag. Letting out a groan, he turned to go back the way he came in order to get them. Opening up the storm door he let it close of its own volition. Jumping back over the wire, which he now missed by nearly a foot because of his elevated position, he decided to try the running jump. He hadn’t done the running jump in quite a while and felt he was out of practice. In addition, he felt, it would give him the additional speed necessary because he would be carrying his book bag. And, he thought, scientifically, of course, that when you do the running jump you come in lower so he needed the speed so he wouldn’t trip on the top step.
All the while Sammy was in the house, Tommy and Bill were stirring uneasily in the bushes. What if someone else came by, Sammy’s mother for instance and tripped over the wire and got hurt. This they didn’t want. They were about to get out of the bushes and remove the wire when Sammy came out of the house. They breathed easier but then tightened up when they saw Sammy clear the wire a second time. They were sweating nervously by now. "Jesus, doesn’t this guy ever walk or run up the stairs like a normal person?," Bill muttered.
Sammy picked up his book bag and walked up to the steps, stopping just short of the unseen wire. He might have seen it this up close and personal, but he heard his name being called out and turned.
It was Davey McCoy. He was Sammy’s age, had light brown hair, was a gargantuan 50" tall and had brown eyes. He was also Sammy’s best friend. He came over walking with a limp, the result of a botched operation when he was merely three. He had torn ligaments in his leg and they needed to be surgically repaired. The doctor, otherwise normally a competent and respected surgeon, was not on his game that day as a result of just being asked for a divorce by his wife. The operation was performed poorly, to say the least. Although the muscles were reattached, they were made shorter, leaving Davey with his limp. Fortunately for Davey, while he was between Junior High and High School his parents took him to the world renowned Dr. Samuel Goldfarb, an orthopedic surgeon who was looking for this type of surgery to perform as part of a treatise he was writing. Goldfarb was able to correct the injury with no resultant problems. Meanwhile, Davey and his parents got rich from the Medical Malpractice lawsuit they filed against the original doctor. All that was needed was an 8mm home movie of Davey walking with a limp to get the insurance company to open its checkbook real wide.
"Hiya Davey, How’re ‘ya doin’" Sammy asked.
"Pretty Good. Whatcha doin’?"
"Jumping."
"Awww, You’re always jumping" was Davey’s slightly teasing reply.
Sammy uttered a little chuckle and said, "Yeah. You know, for a second I was thinking about doing a running jump but I don’t know if I want to do it. To be honest, I was scared."
"Yeah, I know. Ever since your fall six months ago you haven’t done it, but, c’mon Sammy, it was icy out then. It’s nice now. You gotta try. When I first got this limp, I didn’t want to play any games, but you talked me into it. If I were you I’d do it."
"I can’t."
"Yes, you can."
"I don’t know. Every time I think about it I get the shivers."
"So start further back and build up speed."
Reluctantly, Sammy said "okay."
Sammy gave his book bag to Davey who sat on the grass to watch Sammy’s jump. Sammy moved twenty feet down the front walk and for good measure backed up another five feet until he was almost at he sidewalk. He carefully eyed his sights. Better not overshoot, he thought. But no matter. The worst that could happen is that he would bang into the storm door. Nothing could break that. He remembered when he threw a baseball against the door by accident and waited for glass to fly everywhere. It just thudded against the glass and landed on the stoop.
He started his run, slowly but built up speed as he approached his "blast-off" point as he called it. He was running fast now and for the first time in six months he wasn’t scared because he knew he was going to make it. He was glad that Davey talked him into jumping. All his concentration was focused on the jump. He saw nothing around him. His only sense was of sight, and a tunnelvision sight at that, with Sammy only seeing the porch in front of him as he built up speed.
His feet left the ground and he pulled his knees slightly up to his chest so that they would clear the top step. The feeling of weightlessness exhilarated him. It was a feeling he would always remember. Unfortunately, it was one he would always try to forget.
Davey McCoy looked on in horror as he saw Sammy’s figure plummet, like a projectile straight to the door as if Sammy leaped at it deliberately. What was happening?
Tommy and Bill saw everything, too, as if it was in slow motion. It seemed as if it took forever from Sammy to get from the sidewalk into his leap. They, too, couldn’t understand why Sammy was leaping so long and hard. What was happening?
Sammy was picking his knees up to his chest so that they couldn’t come up any further. His legs felt paralyzed. He couldn’t move them up and he was scared. He was going very fast now. Strangely enough, his feet stayed in one spot while the rest of his body felt as though it moved forward through time and space instead of rising to a pinnacle. His arms flew out from his sides to a point directly in front of his head, which began to dip. His shoulders pushed forward as his head lowered and his legs straightened out behind him. He was now as straight as a ruler, going as fast as a pint sized tactical nuclear missile. He felt his body lengthen as if someone or something was holding onto his feet. Then it felt that whoever or whatever was holding onto his feet let go. He saw the plate glass door loom larger and larger until he flew into a black hole that pulled him into its vortex. What was happening?
He never knew what hit him. In his fright he lost consciousness before he smashed through the plate glass storm window that never broke before. The shards of glass embedded themselves to his entire body, ripping his clothes to shred and slicing his body all over. Most prevalent were the large splinters of glass emanating from the top of his head. With the light shining off of these pieces, it looked as though Sammy was wearing a halo.
The window did not stop Sammy’s forward momentum. He kept flying through the plate glass and landed at the precipice of the steps leading downstairs; however, his forward thrust did not end there and he went over the edge and bounced down the ten steps that led to his finished basement. He came to rest at the bottom of the stairs and lay in a mangled and bloody heap at the base.
Davey quickly unfroze and ran to the house yelling Sammy’s name at the top of his lungs. What he saw defied belief. Sammy was laying in a large pool of blood with sharp pieces of glass protruding out of his body. He quashed the urge to cry or scream and, instead, ran to the phone, grabbed the receiver and dialed "0". He never saw Tommy or Bill who made a hasty departure when Davey went into the house.
All the operator heard on the other end of the phone was a young voice, panting, yelling for an ambulance and asking for it to come to 422 Wilson Lane. Before there was a chance for the operator to respond she heard a click signifying the end of the conversation. Although this operator had her share of prank phone calls in the past, this one did not fit the mold. The child was just too direct and appeared to be in terror. She called over her supervisor and told him what happened. He made the phone call to the local police department to check out the call.
Later, the policeman told Davey that if he didn’t call the operator when he did his friend might have died in his basement where he lie. The policeman told him he was going to talk to his bosses but wanted to give him something called a sytahshun for his good deed. Davey couldn’t sleep for a week. His face was pale and he stayed up at nights maintaining a vigil for his friend. Everyday, after school, he made his mother take him to the hospital to wait on his friend. He just knew that Sammy would be all right. He just had to be. Sammy was his best friend.
Tommy and Bill beat a hasty retreat when Davey ran into Sammy’s house. Bill felt like the heavyweight champion of the world, pumping his arms as he ran. Tommy, however, had never suffered as much abject terror as he experienced at that moment. While running towards his home with Bill, he became more sullen and withdrawn as each second passed. Bill continued in his upbeat mood slapping Tommy on the back and telling him how good it felt to "teach that little prick a lesson he wouldn’t forget" totally oblivious to the fact that Tommy was becoming more and more unresponsive. The two boys stopped at the same park that Sammy had been resting at not thirty minutes earlier. Bill exercised his arms and legs on the playground equipment while Tommy sat quietly on the park bench staring straight ahead, his eyes devoid of emotion as they stared into an emotional abyss.
In the distance they heard the wail of the sirens that were no doubt headed to the Johnston residence. Bill marveled at, and remarked to Tommy, who again did not respond, how groovy it was hearing the sirens grow louder and then fainter as the ambulance and police cars passed. While Bill danced around like the winner of a championship prize fight, Tommy, upon hearing the sirens, began to scream. He screamed a bestial bloodcurdling sound for fifteen seconds and fell silent again. By the time Bill dragged Tommy out of the park, the entire neighborhood had heard of the horror at the Johnston household. Many of the people in the neighborhood who knew Sammy, especially youngsters, were in a state of shock. Bill heard the distressed cries of people in the neighborhood and seized upon it for his partner in crime’s lack of responsiveness. In fact, he nearly had to carry Tommy as it appeared that the boy was losing his motor coordination. Tommy’s father came running out of the house yelling for an explanation. Bill told him that Tommy seemed to be different after he heard about the kid’s accident. Tommy’s father, who was a bit of a bully himself and regaled in Tommy’s tales of torment, eyed Bill suspiciously, but said nothing. His first concern was for his child.
Tommy’s parents immediately called their general practitioner who told them that they should not worry. They should let the boy have a good night’s sleep and come see him in the morning if Tommy wasn’t his usually rambunctious self.
While Bill slept peacefully, Tommy experienced the worst nightmare in his life yet as hard as his internal controls tried to rouse him from it, he could not wake up. He dreamed he was alone in the desert, standing on a cliffside, watching a sunset. He was older, in his twenties. He thought he was in the Grand Canyon, but couldn’t be sure. All of a sudden a bright light filled his field of vision, temporarily blinding him. When his eyes recovered, he heard a large metallic whining noise behind him. He spun around and saw behind him a large spacecraft of some kind. He walked over to the ship, which looked like the one in his favorite science fiction movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still. Looking as though two pie plates had been joined together the exterior structure of the craft was nearly thirty feet high and almost one hundred feet in diameter. He touched the craft and pulled his hand back.
Damn, the surface was hot, he thought. He tried to touch it again, ever so slightly and this time the ship was cool to the touch. He backed up to get another look at the craft and started walking around it. Seamless, he thought. He wondered where the exit was. He would love to have a chance meeting with some aliens, but how could he get their attention? So he did the only thing he could think of. He walked up to the spaceship and knocked on the cool surface and yelled "Anybody home?" To his right, a panel of the spacecraft disengaged and started lowering to form a plank. From within, an ugly ten-eyed creature with a long trunk-like snout stuck out his gnarled hand and beckoned a wide eyed Tommy to come aboard for a view that could not be rivaled. Tommy reluctantly moved up the solid gangplank and entered the spaceship trepidatiously. When he was inside, he was taken to a large video screen that showed him the canyon he was spying before. He felt the spaceship rumble as it took off and he marveled at the sight of the Grand Canyon from the sky. Suddenly, a voice spoke from behind him. "Nice view, huh?" He spun around and faced his eight year old cousin Bill. "You know, Tommy," Bill was saying, "I could get in a lot of trouble if you tell someone what I did." And with lightning fast speed, he grabbed Tommy’s wrist. Tommy tried to pull away, but the alien’s strength was too strong for him. He was dragged across the cavernous floor and placed in a tube that ran from ceiling to floor. "Now, you can experience the feeling of flight that your friend Sammy felt. So long." And with that the floor disappeared from beneath Tommy and he fell towards the Grand Canyon at incredible speed screaming his apologies all the way down.
In the morning his bedsheets were soaking wet and he looked as though he had lost ten pounds. The doctor, who was remorseful over his cavalier attitude the previous evening suggested hospitalization and Tommy’s parents readily agreed. Later that night, Tommy had another nightmare. He was playing a game of handball with the devil. The devil kept repeating "Never lose. Never lose. Never lose." Yet Tommy was beating the Devil with little difficulty. "Never lose. Never lose. Never lose," the Devil kept repeating. When Tommy beat the Devil 21 to 1, he walked over to shake the Devil’s extended hand, but he realized that it was not a hand but a long serrated knife which the Devil repeatedly plunge into his chest, all the while yelling, "Never lose, Never lose, Never lose." When Tommy realized that the Devil’s face was that of his nemesis, Sammy Johnston, he screamed until he could scream no longer.
In the hospital, Tommy’s monitors flatlined and despite the valiant attempts by the hospital staff, the boy could not be revived. He was pronounced dead at 5:25 in the morning. Later, the doctor told Tommy’s distraught parents that he died of sleep-induced Apnea, a condition which ordinarily results from the failure of the lungs to produce adequate respiration during sleep. He could not, however, explain why Tommy’s hair was white when he died.
Tommy’s parents sent Bill back to Albany and only saw him one more time in his life.
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