Chapter 4

Monday morning came with the jarring sound of the mechanical alarm clock. At one time it was pleasant to wake up to some classical music gently playing from a radio. My hand went over to silence the alarm and felt the small hammer trying to strike the two bells. As the pulses came to my hand, my finger found the switch. It was thrown, and the spring-powered clanger stopped its incessant quest for noise.

Grade nine was both a long time ago and just a few months, depending on which set of memories I used. The young memories were fresh in my mind, while the old ones of this period were fuzzy around the edges. Every test I had ever taken was in my mind, as well as the answers I had put down. Rarely, I was wrong, or the teacher had been ambiguous and I had chosen a different response.

The school year meant that a subject was studied for ten months and a test was made at the end of that time. If a person forgot what was said at the first of the year, then that person could not get full marks. I could see documents that were printed as well as handwritten and they would stay with me till I died. Even magazines with interesting photographs were memorized. Voices, smells, feelings, sounds and even amorous encounters were probably the same as anybody else.

The work that Helen brought home for me was childishly simple. Math was algebra and a smattering of geometry. Geography covered the entire planet. History was mainly of England during the time of the war of the Roses, the Magna Carta, and a little of the English and the French, as their war played out in Canada. We had a machine shop that I loved, but now was a far cry from the machines I used in later years that employed computerized numerical control. Electricity was simply Ohm's Law and a bit of practical applications. French was compulsory, and a large number of French-speaking friends made the subject very easy. English composition and literature were two distinct subjects. Typing and draughting were fairly easy, but Phys Ed was tough. The fights were not that common at that time, and I think my shy nature was part of the reason some bullies thought I was a good person to push around. It wasn't until grade ten that I took to Phys Ed with a passion, and soon found that most bullies looked for others to antagonize.

The family was still at the mine site. Mom had laid down the law and said that I had to stay home and watch the farm. I believed she just wanted me out of the way so I could recover. They lived in poor conditions, even with the large tent. Trailers in this era were primitive and very small. I would have to correct that, or the family would suffer accordingly. Helen's death in my former life still plagued me in this one, and I was not going to let anything happen to her. Being clean was one of the best ways of staying healthy.

A bath was the only way of getting clean. Our house was old and did not have a shower. The units, though, were readily available, but there was no incentive to update the plumbing. The old claw-foot bathtub had come back into style in my old life. Here it was going through its first time and seemed adequate.

Breakfast was very substantial. The work at the mine and the exercises were causing my body to demand resources. I packed my own lunch and this, too, was larger than I had eaten before. With my pack full of notes I pushed off with my CCM bike and headed the few miles to school. Contrary to some grandfathers, it was not three miles to school, and both ways uphill. Some would even claim that they had to go through three-foot drifts of snow all year round.

A path through a field cut my distance down, and it also kept me off the busy roads. A bus came by, but that was for the children who lived much further from the school. There was no law about school buses in particular, and heavy trucks and cars would pass them when they were discharging kids at school. Once, in grade five, I remembered an older child being struck. He was not hurt badly and just scampered off to be with his friends.

There was no bike rack, so the bikes were just thrown against the fence. Most were not locked, because theft was rare. Here I locked the bike anyways and kept the key on a lace tied to my pack. The school was built about twenty years earlier and had one extension put on. There were only three hundred and twenty or so students covering grades nine to thirteen. The number in each class decreased, as students quit early and went into the work force. Education was not nearly as important as it was in later years, especially for the more labourious jobs.

I walked through the grass and found many of my classmates coming up to see how I was doing. Even Rita came up to see how I was doing. She was a shy girl of Italian descent and had a heart of gold. I liked her, but I had been too shy to do anything about it. Now I would not let such foolish considerations occur.

"Alex, I heard how you were hurt. Are you better now?"

"Hello, Rita. Thank you for your concern. I am still recovering from the lightning and I am even clumsier than I was before. It will be a while before I can do much in Phys Ed. How are you doing? By the way, you look pretty in that dress. I remember that you had a blue scarf that you tied your hair up with before. I think that would make you look even more attractive. Are the boys still bothering you?" I felt good to be saying this. In my old life I would just be petrified to talk to any girl.

She just blushed. She was a very nice person, and this was a way of brightening her life. The girls cliqued into groups of their own gender, and the boys were the same way. Girls and boys of this age dated with chaperones, and usually a girl went to her wedding bed a virgin. This also had the effect of having two people fumbling around for years, trying to find what was good for each. Most of the enjoyable acts were thought of as disgusting or immoral. The 1970s were a good time for the pendulum to have swung in the other direction.

I reached out with my right hand and put a finger under her jaw. "It is good to be shy sometimes, Rita, but it is good to be sure of yourself too. Look people in the eye like you do me, and they will treat you much better. The boys will find you as attractive as I do. We all talk the same way you girls talk. Now I have to go to the office. Maybe we can talk later." I gave her a smile and left.

I was stopped a few times before making it to the office and stayed just long enough to let the well wishers know that their thoughts were appreciated. I stepped up to the large, imposing counter, and only my head and shoulders were over the top. There were three secretaries busily typing or using a pen. When one of the secretaries looked my way, and I said, "Hello Mrs. Cranston, how are you today?"

The older gray-haired woman looked at me more seriously, and then decided to come closer. "Hello, Mr. Kramer. I heard you got out of the hospital a while ago."

"Yes, I did. It took me three weeks more to learn how to use my muscles. I am afraid; I will only have to use my tongue for a quick repartee and not my muscles."

"Well, have a seat. Mr. Summers will be free in a moment." The woman went back to her seat and I sat in a chair. I felt like a kid, for my feet still did not reach the floor the same way as anybody else's in the school did. Mrs. Cranston, instead of going back to work, seemed to pause and study me much more intently. From time to time the younger two secretaries got up to put files away but ignored me.

Shyness had a detrimental effect when negotiating. It took a while to put up a suitable image of myself, and I learned to hide my shyness well. A patient did not feel safe if his doctor was hesitant. Negotiating for a business was the same way.

In a moment Mr. Summers' door opened and he used his hand to bid me to enter. When I stepped within his office, I did not take a seat or stand at attention but walked close enough and said, "Hello, Mr. Summers. Thanks for taking the time to see me."

"Hello, Mr. Kramer. I hear you are ready to come back to us."

"I think I can. although my body will take a month, at least, to get back to what it was."

"That is what I was worried about. Do you have the report from your doctor?"

"I have a report from the school doctor. He is not my family's physician but an employee of the school board. He suggested that I be excused from the usual activities of Phys Ed till I have recovered."

The man looked at the long form and saw the comment at the bottom in Latin. Leave it to a doctor to want to tell the world that he is better than the rest of us. I did a double take for a moment, for I was the same way until I took a while to grow up more.

Mr. Summers said, "I see you can read Latin now." He said it in Latin though; a good way to put an uppity boy in his place.

I replied in Latin, "Latin was the language of scholars for centuries. I believe that would include me, as I am trying to gain an education also." I looked at him as he stared at me. I continued in Latin, "Is there anything else that you need me for, sir? Classes will start in fifteen minutes."

It took him a while to work out what I said. Latin is fine for common things, but you need to have an agile mind to speak in it, if you have let it lapse for forty some years. My time as a doctor allowed me to learn much more Latin. The old texts written in that language, explaining common maladies of the fourteenth century, were quite interesting to me. I doubted if the Vice Principal had used his Latin since he was a student in high school himself.

"You are required to see Miss Vachon," he said in English.

"Thank you, sir. That is a very pleasant way to start my day." I said with a wide smile. I held out my hand and Mr. Summers gave me back the slip for the nurse's records.

On the way out I stopped at the high and wide counter and one of the young secretaries came over. "Hello. My name is Alex. My sister Helen will not be able to make it in for the remainder of the week. Here is a letter from my mother stating the facts. My own translation into English is below."

The pretty girl took the note and read what she could of it. She appeared to be dispirited about something and I hoped it was just because it was Monday.

"Ok, I'll inform her teachers." She just turned and left. I wondered if maybe her home life was what was really bothering her.

Our school had a higher than average incidence of medical reports. Colds, influenza, and especially aches and pains had to be treated by the young nurse. She had worked in a Toronto hospital, but had moved up here for some reason. Stress was a major concern in the twenty first century. This era had much less, but still this amount was too much for some people.

This made me think about myself all over again. I had not really known anything about Miss Vachon last time around. She became a jerk-off fantasy after I entered puberty. This was nothing new for she must have been the focus of every other male in the school also -that did not exclude the teachers. The certainty that stress had caused the beautiful nurse to hide her beauty in drabness had come from later information I had accumulated, combined with my analytical abilities as a doctor. The knowledge that all health care professionals were under the same stress just reinforced the idea.

One of the jocks was just leaving the nurse's station when I arrived. He had a smile on his face that would probably continue till he reached his class. The door was propped open and I stepped in. This was the first time I had been in this room. In my previous life, this occurrence had to wait another year.

The young woman had her black hair in a tight bun. This caused it to pull back the skin on her face; it made me think that she was in pain. Her dress was two sizes too big, and she had ugly glasses that jarred with her fine features. Her shoulders were pulled forward. The poor posture and the other attributes suggested that she was not taking well all the attention she was getting. She had to have been beautiful since she was a child, and this was the way she tried to hide it.

She must have received almost every pick-up line going and was trying to keep it from happening to her again. I did not know if this was just low self-esteem, or possibly hiding from an unpleasant incident.

Her voice, though, was low and sultry. A man would be able to fall in love with that alone. "May I help you?"

"I had hoped you would ask that. Hello, my name is Alex Kramer. I was the person hit by lightning recently. I have a minor myofascial pain extending to the thoracic rib cage. This is also centred at the acromioclavicular joint and the coracoclavicular ligament. I participated in a submaximal aerobic activity. This precipitated an effort headache."

My terms were meant to be technical without overdoing her grasp of the language. If I had guessed wrong, she would be further upset by not being able to understand.

She smiled at me and said, "What would Doctor Kramer recommend as treatment?" This was the first time someone had actually said this in this era and I felt good to hear it.

"Well, Miss Vachon, the patient has obviously suffered a substantial amount of trauma and muscle dysfunction. In some cases the manipulation of the underlying tissue will bring long-term relief, though it would also bring about a temporary dull distress. Would you recommend a suitable person, both medically trained and willing to alleviate some of this condition?"

She laughed at my remarks and said, "Well, let's see the afflicted area."

I took a different tact now and said in a child's voice. "I will show you my manly chest, but I must have your assurances that you will be able to control yourself at the sight of my physique. I have not entered puberty yet, but I know for a fact that women will become infatuated with my most masculine features."

This time she laughed very loudly and immediately caught herself. At once she put her hand over her mouth and just smiled. "I will do my utmost to resist you, sir."

"Thank you for that consideration. It relieves my mind completely." The shirt came off and she saw a skinny chest. It was a bit better than after the hospital stay but not much yet. I flexed my muscles like a body builder would, but there was not much tissue to move. It did have the effect of hurting the wounds on my back. I flexed my arms like Charles Atlas once did and turned around. I heard an indrawn breath at the damaged skin but ignored it.

I felt her cool hands on me and she rubbed them lightly over my small shoulders. "Where does it hurt, Alex?"

"The deltoid is stiff. The abrasions are healing and are not tender. If you look at the muscle, you will see that it is in spasm. Put your hand on it; you should be able to feel the elevated temperature."

Her hands did start to manipulate the muscle but she was too gentle. "Don't be afraid to work it harder. There is very little pain from the trauma."

Her hands pushed harder and covered the entire area. My earlier description had said that the other shoulder was similarly affected. She started to work that, too. The bell rang, but I did not move. This was a very enjoyable experience, even if I did not have the functioning equipment to take it to the next step.

"Your classes have started. I will give you a note."

"Thank you. I do not usually let a pretty woman run her hands over me without knowing her first name. Mine, as you know, is Alex."

She thought for a moment and said, "Laura, but don't call me that in front of the other pupils."

"Thank you for trusting me, Laura. We physicians have a code of honour to not divulge such intimate knowledge of our patients."

"Am I one of your patients now?"

"You would be one of many since getting my degree from the University of Toronto. I interned at St. Mike's, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. I would show you my diploma, but it has sadly been held up in the mail. Those medical correspondence courses are the worse."

She laughed again and then sat at her desk and filled out a note. I handed her the slip from the doctor in return. When she handed me her note I held her hand in mine and said, "My shoulders feel much better. Thank you very much, Laura. I probably would have had a cramp in the muscle before the day was out." I had held her hand as long as I could and released it. She slowly took her hand away never taking her eyes off mine.

"You are welcome, Alex. Come in if you have any more problems."

"If my body was producing more testosterone, I would never leave you. You may put the heart of a thirteen-year-old boy into your vast collection."

She said nothing as I finished buttoning up my shirt then tucked it in. I walked close this time, and took her hand and placed the palm on my cheek. With a small rub I pulled it away, kissed her palm and stepped back. "Thank you again, Laura. May you find peace from all your demons," I said in a serious voice.

I left a confused young nurse and headed for my first class with her note in hand. 'God save the Queen' had played through the school speakers and then 'O Canada'. There were no announcements given. I knew that the teacher had said the Lord's Prayer just before the canned music. When the anthems were over, I opened the door and walked to Mr. Ross, my math teacher. As I handed him the note I said, "Sorry for disturbing the class, sir." I waited to see what he was going to do. It was not uncommon for someone to be turned from the class if they were not respectful. He read the note and just pointed to my desk.

I smiled at my friends as I passed them and sat down. This school was actually modern. It was only recently that we had got out of the old desks, where the desk behind supported the seat for the person in front. These new desks were even better because they were not bolted to the floor. Above the slate blackboards were the Union Jack, our national flag till '65, and a picture of King George VI. Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip would not take the throne till February next year. I had met both a few times when I had business in Britain.

The class started taking on polynomials. This was more in the way of review, because they had been presented much earlier in the year. I just listened to the teacher's voice drone on as I tried to remember more of its qualities and compared them to my first set of memories. My memory was good, but I found it to fail in this instance. The man before me did not seem to inspire me as he once did. It seemed that one of my childhood heroes was less than I remembered him to be. He was still a good teacher, the students respected or feared him, and some of the girls were infatuated. I could see some girls that simply stared at him and he gave them more than their share of looks in return.

Before, the girls were glamorous older students with much more developed chests. Here, they were simply teenage girls that had problems with acne. Their hair was clean, but the rule of one bath a week must have been at their home as well as at mine. The boys who looked tough were usually dirty, except one; Nick, who was well groomed and had his own circle of friends. Nick was into sports and loved to lord it over the weaker students, even though he was in grade nine, too. From the first of the year, he had made my life miserable, and he was one of the reasons I had decided to build my body and take martial arts.

The boys talked among themselves, but did not let Mr. Ross catch them. I must have caught the teacher's eye for he said, "Do I seem to be boring you, Mr. Kramer?"

I looked back at him but did not have the same old fear, "No, sir, I can repeat every word you've said since I came to class. It is the fact that polynomials don't seem to have the same fascination they once did."

He said sarcastically, "Would you wish to have some other facet of mathematics taught?"

"Thank you, sir, for the offer. May I speak to you about it after school is out?"

"I was going to suggest the same thing." I heard some tittering from the girls and even a laugh from Nick.

There were nine classes a day, with lunch being one. There were twelve subjects taught, and they were simply juggled according to what the ministry of education thought best.

English Lit was a good class, and the books by Shakespeare were great. I had read them a long time ago in both lives and got more from them in my later years. We naturally had the abridged versions because of the sexual innuendo in the original versions. The students were the same in this class and did not change till we had machine shop, Phys Ed, and draughting. Here; both of the other grade nine classes worked with us to fill the room. None of the girls would dare take a course that was not feminine, though a few, I thought, were tempted.

Typing was next. I had made the choice to not go into business, which was a mistake I soon rectified in grade ten. In the mean time I learned to type. We were getting to the end of the year, and I was up to 35 words per minute with the old Underwood mechanical typewriter. We did a bit of practice, and it took a while to re-teach my hands that seemed to have forgotten the high mechanical keyboard. My old laptop could take up to 145 words per minute and the Microsoft natural could get me to close to 200 words a minute. Now I was having trouble with twenty.

I had never even checked when the IBM electric typewriter with the golf-ball printing head had come out. Perhaps I should look. Homework was piling up, and I had many reports of my own to make. My penmanship still had not come back to its old standards.

History was the last class before lunch. For some reason my body wanted the period to end so I could indulge myself. We were discussing British history with Mr. Lockhart. King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta by his barons at Runnymede in 1215. I had actually been one of the few people to see the original document.

My courses in college also covered this time period, and at that time it was much more in-depth. Homework was assigned and we all rushed to eat.

I dropped off my books in my locker and headed with my lunch to the cafeteria. I dropped my lunch off at the usual table. Everybody was now in line trying to pay for what they got. Usually I got a half pint of milk. This time I had to go for the pint container. Along the way I picked up a salad. I was being jostled, but that was nothing new for me, or any person my size. I did manage to get a few swallows of milk to tide me over till I ate my sandwich.

At the cash register, I paid for my meal with a twenty-dollar bill. The woman looked hard at me. This was a very high denomination. A man only made four or five dollars a day. This was some of the money from the gold. Ordinarily, I would have just a quarter and many times not even that.

The table with my friends was on the far wall and I walked carefully towards it. I had left the tray. A fork and packet of dressing was safely in my shirt pocket, and a hand held either milk or salad.

Disturbingly, I seemed to notice more. A person's IQ is based on their age. It is not quite true that doubling your age will double the numerator of this ratio. I seemed to be even more observant and perhaps more intelligent than I was before I was flung back in time.

Mike, one of my classmates and a member of Nick's clique, was on the aisle side of their table. There was still a bit of traffic, and I would have to walk close to their table. Nick gave a subtle signal and Mike's foot came out right in front of me. I could have sidestepped the leg, or stepped down hard and hurt his leg but I had a better idea. I fell forward and squeezed the container of milk and the contents gushed out over Nick's face and chest. My other hand kept the salad from falling and pushed his tray of food into his lap.

I pushed the now empty carton into Nick's face, but tried to not do too much damage. I pushed myself up and dropped the carton in his lap. Nick was in shock at this happening. I turned to Mike who was equally flustered.

I composed my voice and said, "Thanks, Mike. I have been looking for a way to show the leader of your rat pack that he better leave me alone. Now, give me fifteen cents for the milk. You tripped me on purpose." I held out my hand and when there was no movement I dropped my salad on the table and made a fist with my other hand. "Give me the money, Mike. I will not wait too much longer," I growled.

His hand dove into his corduroy pants and all he had was a dime. "That will do, Mike. Thank you for being such a gentleman." Nick was sputtering and threatening me. He was quite a bit taller and outweighed me by about thirty pounds.

"Look what you did, Kramer? You owe me the money to clean these clothes."

"Take it out of the money you owe me for the times you have tripped me and ripped my clothes. If you want satisfaction, then see me behind the supermarket thirty minutes after school. Otherwise, close you mouth and go get cleaned up like a man, instead of acting like a spoiled child."

He was going to get up now and fight, but he must have heard the silence. He looked around at all the witnesses and sat back down.

"After school, asshole." He growled under his breath.

I completed his sentence; "You better not be late. Thirty minutes after, and I will wait ten more if necessary. Now, go get washed, boy." The last was said as I picked up my salad and left for my table. It probably galled him to do as I said when he knew that he had to do this anyway.

Even after walking past six more tables the silence had not ended. I simply sat down, slapping one of my friends on the shoulder, in one of the four empty seats. They all just looked at me, and I reached out and used a finger to close the closest person's jaw. This happened to be Andrew, my closest friend. He was not that close, for he had not come to visit or to find out how I was doing. He probably saw me as a friend of convenience, especially when there was need for my notes or answers to some particularly complex questions.

"Close your mouth, Andy. You will have flies landing on your tongue."

"Alex, he is going to kill you."

"Is that any reason for you to eat flies? You even have some lunch you could eat instead."

"You are not paying attention. He is a football player and will kill you."

"He will not, Andy. First, he will have to run home and get changed. When he comes back, he will get a detention for being late. He will have to stay for at least a half-hour after school and will have to run to get to the shopping market. There will be many of his friends and impartial witnesses. He will try to sucker punch me, and then I will lay him out."

"Sucker punch?"

"Yes, as in try to punch me when I am not prepared."

"He doesn't have to do that. He is strong enough to hit you without pretending."

I simply opened the salad and poured on the dressing. I ate slowly and smiled at the group around the table. In between forkfuls of salad I heard what had been happening with the group when I had been in the hospital. I tried to act more like I had at this age, but it was difficult. They were children who happened to appear both older and bigger than I presently was.

Carl was the biggest of our group and claimed to have an unnamed girlfriend. He insinuated to have gone all the way, but like most boys of this age he was boasting for his public and for his own ego. I knew that most boys went through this stage, and it was perhaps even necessary to grow up.

I explained in some detail what had happened to me. I did not leave out that I was just recovering from a full paralysis.

When the warning bell came, I cleaned up my mess and made sure the rest of the table was at least clear of rubbish. Some of the people who left garbage looked at me. I had time to stare at two for doing such a thing before they became uncomfortable and left.

The next class was French. I had been fairly good at the language. Over the years though I had become much more proficient because of the business deals I made in Québec. This had also assisted me in similar deals in France, where I had to learn a completely different way to speak the language. After this was accomplished, I was on at least equal footing with other European businessmen, and much further than Americans that refused to learn other languages.

Once seated in the class, young Mademoiselle Bouchard noticed that I had returned. She asked in simple Québécois how I was, and what had happened to me. I was required to stand, which I did. She was quite shocked when I replied with a much richer vocabulary and expressed myself in what I thought was the best grammar. Some of the medical terms, though, I had to resort to Latin, but I did not go overboard. Part way through my conversation, I sat on my desk and just mentioned about my own needs to get my body built up to what it once was.

"Alex," she said in Québécois. "How did you learn to speak so well?"

"My paralysis was only of my body, my brain worked even harder to compensate. I also came to the conclusion that I should be acting differently. I was too meek and mild mannered. Now, I will still be a gentleman, but not nearly so meek. How have you been doing since our last class together?"