Chapter 9: The Sergeant

I opened my eyes and saw myself, twice. I saw me, Sammy Kendall — the me I'd already met, and whose body we both now occupied, but standing a few feet off my other shoulder was another Sam Kendall, and this one looked a lot more like the new me than the old one. "I know which one of me you are, Sammy," I said giving him a nod. "And you?" "Sergeant Sam Kendall, United States Marine Corp," came my answer. "Hmm. I did the military bit in my own life, but I'm guessing you did it with enthusiasm?" No answer, other than a scary grin. "Sammy, we needed to bring this Sam out now, because of the danger, and because you need to know how to protect us," the younger Sammy explained. "But I still don't get to know what the big picture is?" "Need-to-know-basis, Sam," the Sergeant said. "Right now, you don't need to know. In fact, right now its important you not know." "But I need to know something, or you wouldn't be here?" I asked. "Exactly, old man," the Sergeant laughed. "Now come over here and do what I do.

It should be easy, I would think, teaching yourself something you already knew. Problem is, me in multiple numbers was not exactly simple addition. It wasn't even simple multiplication, and who the hell understood what was going on in the first place? Someone, somewhere, I had to believe.

Still, the me that taught was a patient teacher, and the me that learned was a quick study. I seemed to be a quick study in general this life, with all the iterations of Sam Kendall hiding beneath the surface of me.

I learned to move. I learned to see with more than my eyes, and hear with more than my ears. Within the infinite possibilities of my own mind, the scene could change to match the lesson, and it did, many times. Jungle, desert, mountain and forest. City, town and village.

Time, in the unconscious world where I learned was not the same, it seemed, and Sam and Sammy learned all the Sergeant could teach, until sleep was once more allowed to creep in.

I think I woke up multiple times, once while moving, flat on my back with someone in a white coat staring down at me, and again while I was being lifted by a couple of other white-garbed forms, but when I woke up for real, I was in the hospital. Mom and Dad where there, which was different than my last hospital memory, and the room was far different than the last hospital room I had been in. I missed the beeping and blipping of the equipment I had been used to. I wasn't hooked up to a big computerized device that could monitor everything. Seeing the two of them, I tried to say something, but it just came out as a groan.

"He's awake!" I heard Dad say.

"Oh Sammy!" Mom cried, trying to rush over. Dad actually grabbed her arm and held her back.

"Helen stop!" he cried. "Broken ribs, remember?"

"Broken ribs?" I gargled. Dad walked over to the door and called "He's awake!" through it.

A man in a white jacket and a stethoscope came to stand beside and over me. A white clad nurse came to stand on the other side. She began taking my pulse, holding my wrist and staring at the watch on her wrist. The doctor held a little penlight up to my eyes, moving it around, and began generally poking and prodding.

"Sam, I'm Doctor Garrison. How are you feeling?"

"Broken ribs?" I repeated.

"Yes son, and a concussion. You've got a dislocated shoulder as well, although that went back into place pretty smoothly, and there doesn't appear to be anything but minor damage to the joint or the tissue."

So I got to spend a couple days in the hospital, mostly for observation, and I left with my torso wrapped to protect two broken ribs and my right arm in a sling to take the load of the mistreated shoulder joint. By the time I left, I knew exactly what had happened, and the name was Steve Jackson.

The slight glimpse of movement I'd caught almost cost me my life, the doctor told me, but also potentially saved me from far more serious injuries than I wound up sustaining. As I raised my arm and turned, I deflected the blow of the baseball bat Steve was wielding from the back of my neck where it had been aimed. Unfortunately, I deflected it up and into the side of my head, just behind my right ear. The blow was robbed by much of its force when it was deflected, but it still had a fair amount left, and it knocked me out cold.

The broken ribs were from the three kicks Steve got in before someone came rushing up to stop him. None of the damage was serious, but it did effectively end my football season, at least as a player.

Shortly after breakfast the next morning at the hospital, I was visited by two officers from the Hermiston Police Department who were investigating the assault. Officer Owens and Officer Black introduced themselves, asking if I felt up to answering a few questions.

"Sure," I said.

"We already have a pretty good description of the assault itself from other witnesses at the scene, but we'd like to know what you remember of it," Officer Owens asked.

"Not much," I answered truthfully. "I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, and thought someone had tossed an egg or something, so I raised my arm and turned, to try and duck it. The last thing I remember after that is a flash of light, and then nothing but vague images until I woke up here."

"Do you have any idea what might have led the alleged assailant to do this?" Officer Black asked.

"Yeah, not that it really makes sense," I answered. I told them the whole story then, of the first day of cross country practice, the earlier mood at the dance and my efforts to enlist Matt Thorson as an intermediary, and finally of Alice Fenner's exit from the gym and return.

"So this appears to be an act of jealousy?"

"Don't ask me to interpret his motives," I complained. "I barely understood his attitude to begin with, I never did anything to him except run fast and make some friends at a new school."

Steve Jackson was a junior, and his actions got him expelled. He was seventeen and that was the only reason he wasn't charged with attempted murder. As it was, he never went to trial on the assault with a deadly weapon charge. He plea bargained a suspended sentence in exchange for his joining the navy and getting the hell out of Hermiston in a hurry.

In a way I was glad. I had never wanted anything bad to happen to anyone, and that included him.

The football season finished with little in the way of team or individual glory, though we did win more games than we lost, which I was told was an improvement over the previous year. We were still a small team on the lines, and only our better than average speed kept us in most games. Our kicking also sucked, and that always hurt us in close games, as we couldn't kick a field goal reliably from any distance, and not at all from any further than 30 yards.

Restricted to the sidelines, I offered my services to Coach Turner in whatever capacity he thought he could use me.

"Son, I have plenty of pencil pushers and towel boys." Coach told me. "You're still a member of the team, so grab a play book and a clip board and come hang out on the sidelines during games. Take the opportunity to learn the offense inside and out. You're going to be a big part of it next year."

So I roamed the sidelines.

With my arm still in a sling for the first week, the clipboard option was out, but once the sling was gone, I toted one happily. In the meantime, I was free to study the play book, and beyond that, I took it upon myself to watch the opposing team's tight ends and receivers while our defense was out on the field. I was no sideline genius, I didn't yet understand football well enough to understand everything I had been doing, let alone the entire team. I memorized the facts of the play book like they were dates and battles in my history book. This mirrored my current history strategy — memorize now, understand later. Unfortunately I was beginning to think that the understanding portion was going to come in a later year, under a different teacher. Mr. Spier was not winning my confidence so far in his ability to instill anything beyond the raw facts of history.