Chapter Text
June 12, 1961
Sam was not surprised when Jill leaned in for a second kiss. He could still feel her bare shoulders as she stood in front of him in her sleeveless, white lace trimmed, mint-green dress. Warm afternoon summer sun beat down on him as they kissed. A familiar blue glow began to surround him. He thought, “Cam is certainly going to be surprised to find himself kissing Jill.” Jill faded out of Sam’s reality, and memory, as the blue glow took him into another leap. Cam’s sister Cheryl and the drag race in 1961 were fading fast, as were Al and the music from the radio on the shoeshine stand.
“Al.” Sam thought, “He had to remember Al. Al had once told him he would be bouncing around in time for as much as a week between landing his leaps. Al was… important, yes, but why?” His memories continued to fade.
Friday, December 20, 1968
The blinding blue glow began to fade. Sam found himself in another place and another embrace. “Who was trying to kiss him?” Sam thought to himself, “And why did their breath smell of stale pepperoni and cheap whiskey?”
His eyes adjusted, from the bright summer day, and the blue light of the accelerator chamber field effect, to this unpleasant fluorescent lighting. “But my eyes must be playing tricks on me,” Sam thought. Because the first thing he saw was that he was about to be kissed by Santa Claus!
“Oh, boy!” said Sam.
It was too absurd. The smells, the lights, the Santa moving toward his face. It was all too much. Sam tried to push away from the kiss, only to smash the back of his head into a sheet metal wall. He could tell it was sheet metal from the ringing clang it made when he hit it. But he managed to startle Santa, and turn his now throbbing head to the left to avoid the kiss.
Santa whispered harshly, “Well you’re not acting too ‘Oh, Boy’ now are you? Come on, Pat. You said you didn’t want me telling anyone your… our, little secret didn’t you?”
Sam had no clue what this guy was talking about. He decided to agree, in hopes of drawing out the conversation. “No, uh, no, Santa, I- I wouldn’t want anyone finding out our secret.”
Sam pushed him away a bit, and realized this Santa with the bad breath was wearing a fake beard. It was a good fake, but this close up Sam could see the spirit gum holding it on. He looked down at his own clothes and saw that he was dressed as an elf. A green tunic trimmed in red ric-rac. Red and white candy cane striped sleeves under the tunic. Men’s green cotton twill shorts that reached to his knees, and red and green striped knee socks, with incongruous black and white sneakers.
As Santa was coming in for another kiss, Sam heard a voice, in the next room call out, “Dave? Are you decent? What was that big bang?”
Sam thought to himself, “Santa had called me Pat, so who was Dave? We are the only two people in the room.” A locker room it seemed. Rows of drab green sheet metal lockers lined up on either side of a long wooden bench. The bench was supported by steel pipes sunk in the concrete floor.
At the sound of the voice Santa backed away from Sam and held up a white-gloved index finger to his lips. Sam remembered that this meant to be quiet. “Yes sir, Mr. Whitehead. Nothing sir,” Santa said, spinning toward the on-coming voice, “just accidentally slammed the locker.” Just then a tall, thin, tanned, blonde man in a tailored black suit, white dress shirt, and Christmas-themed necktie walked in the door from the other room.
Sam always disliked the first few moments of a leap for being so disorienting. Now he knew who Dave was. Dave was playing Santa. Dave side-eyed Sam, intent that he go along with the explanation for all the noise.
“There you are, Dave.” said Mr. Whitehead as he came into the room, “Oh, hi Pat. I thought you had gone already.” The tall man looked quizzically at the two of them as they stood side by side now.
“Uh… no.” mumbled Sam, “That is, I was just leaving, Mr. Whitehead, sir.”
“You had better run along, son,” Mr. Whitehead said to Sam, “Dave and I have some things to discuss in private.”
“Right away, sir.” said Sam. In an instant the next thoughts flew through Sam’s mind.
“Mr. Whitehead had called him son, but had accepted Pat calling him Mr. Whitehead, the way Dave had addressed him. English is an imprecise language, but Sam did not think Mr. Whitehead was Pat’s father. Rather, it was an informal address. ‘Son.’ Okay, so now Sam knew he was a young boy named Pat. From the attempted kiss Sam knew that Dave was apparently attracted to him. Maybe he and Dave were gay lovers and that was the secret Dave had mentioned. Depending upon where and when Sam was, homosexuality could be illegal or even fatal. Another Oh, boy, went through Sam’s head. Sam, that is, Pat, was also supposed to be ‘running along’ but Sam didn’t know where he was now, much less where he was supposed to be running along to.”
Sam turned slowly to his left, away from the two men, hoping to gain some context. Locker room. Small, Sam could see all four walls above the lockers as he spun. A row of high windows in the room wall showed night sky and garland-strung fluorescent parking lot lights. At the end of the aisle a sign was posted on the wall that read ‘Employee Locker Room Rules.’ Sam surmised he was at work, and this was a changing room. Sam turned toward the lockers he had banged his head on. All eight of them had pad locks on them. The one that had been directly behind Sam had a brass pad lock hanging open in the hasp. A green and red sign on the door read, Pixie Pat. A locked locker near the end of the row had a similar sign that read Tiny Tom. Briefly Sam mused, “Do I work at the North Pole?” but quickly threw out that idea. Sam opened Pixie Pat’s locker and saw very little. There was a wallet, a set of keys, and a rolled up lunch sack on the storage area’s one shelf. The wire coat hangers on the rod in the locker were empty, save for a black sweater. It looked like Pat was wearing his Pixie Pat costume home from work. He quickly put the wallet in his hip pocket, grabbed the keys and put them in his side pants pocket and grabbed the lunch bag and sweater. Sam set his lunch on the bench and pulled on the sweater. As he got into the sweater he noticed a glittery name badge on his tunic that was preprinted with MAY CO in red and had PIXIE PAT neatly written on it in green felt marker. Sam decided to remove the name tag and leave it in the now empty locker. He picked up the lunch sack and turned just in time to see Mr. Whitehead following Dave out the door.
Sam closed the door and locked the padlock, belated wondering how Pat had unlocked it if his keys were inside the locker. Mr. Whitehead glanced back over his shoulder as he left and said, “Good night Pat. See you tomorrow.”
“Uh. G-good night Mr. Whitehead,” Sam called back, to no one. Mr. Whitehead had not waited around for a response. Now alone, Sam thought this would be a perfect time for Al to appear. Then half of the lights in the locker room suddenly went out. “Time to go,” Sam thought.
Sam went through the door that Dave and Mr. Whitehead had used. He was now in a small, empty, half dark, linoleum tiled lunchroom. There was a closed door to his left. Sam looked and saw that it was stenciled ‘Women’ above the door. Above the door he had just come though was stenciled ‘Men.’ A bulletin board between the two doors had a banner in construction paper letters that read, EMPLOYEE NEWS. An analog clock above the bulletin board said it was 9:28. There was only one other door off the lunchroom. He went through it into a hallway, tiled in the same off-white linoleum, and looked to his left. He saw a row of office doors, all closed. Looking right, he saw an industrial steel door with a six inch wide, eighteen inch high, window with wire squares embedded in the glass. The door, five or six steps away, was stenciled Employee Exit.
“Right it is then,” Sam thought.
As he walked up to the door the lights inside the hallway, and the darkness outside, made a mirror of sorts out of the safety glass in the exit. Sam saw a rather plain looking young man, with short, shaggy red hair and freckles. He also saw that there was a Pixie Pat Elf hat cocked on the back of his head that he had not noticed before. Sam glanced around and saw that he was still alone. He reached in his pocket for the wallet. There was no driver license. There was a bus pass, three one-dollar bills, a folded up mimeographed work schedule and a School Identification card. Pat Anderson was a student at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California. The Braves Mascot in the corner of the ID card had 1968-1969 printed under it. “That would make this Christmas of ‘68” Sam thought. The photo of Pat had a bright smile and he wore a thin green bow tie with a white collared shirt.
Nothing in the wallet told Sam where Pat lived. He put it back in his pocket and looked at the keys. There was a Kwikset door key and two smaller Master Lock keys, and a key chain fob that was just a cast metal letter P with a jump ring loop and a split ring for the keys. No car keys. “The Bus it is then,” Sam thought, “but to where?” Sam pushed on the bar across the door below the window which opened the door. He stepped out in the brisk night air. Still no Al. “Come on, Al.” Sam said to the breeze, “Hurry up and find me, please.” Nothing.
The door closed behind him. There was no knob or handle on this side of the door. “I guess I’m on my own for now.” he thought. Sam looked right and then left. Very few cars were still in the parking lot. The street was a short distance ahead so he started walking through the near-empty parking lot. He missed seeing a parked car flash its headlights. Looking at the night sky he found Polaris and the Little Dipper. He was heading north. Just as he reached the sidewalk, the light green station wagon that had flashed its headlights, pulled up beside him and beeped its horn. The driver, a heavyset white woman in a dark coat, spoke to him through the half open passenger side window.
“Earth to Pat! What were you going to do, walk home?” the woman asked.
“Uh, No... uh, Ma'am.” Sam said through the window opening.
“Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, would you like to get in the car?” the woman asked sarcastically.
“Oh, umm, Yes!” Sam stumbled over his words, “Thanks for the ride.” he said as he opened the passenger side door and climbed in. He closed the door and the driver made a left turn onto the street that Sam had been walking toward, an access road to the mall, and then stopped at a stop sign to make a right turn.
Suddenly, Sam was engulfed in a hug from the back seat! One moment Sam was scanning the dashboard of the car looking for clues, and the next moment, two arms wrapped around him from the back seat. A teenage girl pressed her cheek against his and nearly shouted ‘Hi Pat!’ in his ear.
Startled by the attack, that turned out to just be an enthusiastic hug, Sam managed to squeak out, “Oh, hey, hi! Uh, long time no see,” he improvised.
The driver was nonplussed by the girl’s actions and merely offered, “Oh, and I offered Bear a ride home from Church.”
“Yeah,” said Bear, “Presbyterian Women didn’t finish until almost nine, and Mom had to leave to go get Sis from her tennis thing at eight, but your Mom said I could bum a ride home with her as long as I didn’t mind going by the Mall to pick you up from work. You make a cute Pixie, Pat...”
The driver saw an opening and made a right into light traffic, as Bear continued to talk, and headed north on Laurel Canyon Blvd. They stopped at a red light at Victory Blvd. The woman flipped the signal indicator lever down, activating the left turn blinkers, then turned left when the light turned green and drove west past a SEARS that was on the North side of Victory Blvd at Laurel Canyon.
“… it must be so cool working as one of Santa’s Helpers.” Bear continued, “I wish I could get to do fun stuff like that. But then I guess it is a job, so it can’t be all fun and games, can it Pat?” The girl did not pause for an answer, to her seemingly rhetorical question. “While we were waiting I tried to find the moon, but it’s kinda cloudy and a new moon so I couldn’t find it, but I’m so excited about tomorrow's launch, aren’t you? We’re going to the moon!”
Sam was about to agree, but Bear switched subjects and barreled on.
“It was so nice of your mom to offer me a ride home. I was helping Mom’s group putting the finishing touches on the Fellowship Hall while your mom was at choir practice.” She turned to face the driver, relaxing the hug, but not slowing down on the monologue, “you have such a pretty voice Aunt Janet. I’m sorry you didn’t get the solo on ‘Do You Hear What I Hear.’ I mean, Mrs. Bentley sings it beautifully too, but I like yours better.”
“Thank you Bear, but the harmonies are fun too, and I don’t need to stand out” Janet said, then looked and Sam and continued, “And speaking of standing out, where were you after work, we waited almost twenty minutes for you and when you finally did make an appearance you looked right at us as if we didn’t exist and took off walking through the parking lot. It is almost six and a half miles home so I doubt you were going to walk, and you were headed in the wrong direction. Where were you going at 9:30 at night?” the driver asked.
“To the bus stop.” Sam said.
“Like the L.A. buses would be running at this time of night.” the woman scoffed. “and you were not heading toward Laurel Canyon, you were just walking through the parking lot aimlessly.”
A blinding white light erupted in the back seat of the Rambler. Bear and the driver took no notice of it but Sam jerked his head around and turned halfway in his seat to look in the backseat, and was pleased to see Admiral Albert 'Al' Calavicci sitting in the back seat of the car. Al was dressed in a tan and neon orange suit with almost no lapels and an inch wide neon yellow necktie.
Startled by Sam’s sudden move, Bear pushed herself back in the seat and the driver looked in the rear view mirror. Traffic was fairly light this time of night. The nearest car was 300 yards behind them.
“What? What? You scared the day lights out of me, Pattie, with your failing around. There’s nothing behind us. Turn around and sit still.” the woman scolded.
“Sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew back there. Sorry.” Sam apologized.
Janet looked right at Sam and scowled, saying, “Just be still, young lady.”
That comment whipped Sam’s attention back to his present reality. “Young Lady?!?” Sam thought “I know leaps are disorienting, but all the clues told me I was a boy this time. I’m dressed like a boy, well, a boy elf, and Mr. Whitehead called me ‘son’ and we were in the men’s locker room at the time! What is going on here?” Sam glanced in the rear view mirror and saw his friend Al sitting there looking at a blinking handheld device. Al looked up and saw Sam looking at him in the mirror. Sam’s eyes widened, and his eye brows shot up in the middle, and he pressed his lips together tightly. With just his facial features Sam was asking, “What is going on here Al?”
Al picked up on it right away. “Okay, Sam,” he began, “It is December 20, 1968. Your name is Pat Anderson. You just turned seventeen and you are at work…” Al looked around and realized they were not at work, “… eh, that is, you were at work, as one of Santa’s Helpers at the May Company in the brand new Laurel Plaza mall in North Hollywood, California. That’s all you’ve told us, uh, Pat, has told us so far. Ziggy doesn’t have much on her yet.”
“Yeah, I KNOW all of that!” Sam thought, as he rolled his eyes and nodded toward the driver, twice.
“Right! In the car next to you is…” Al paused and smacked the handlink with the palm of his right hand, “... okay Ziggy ran the plates on the car you’re in... that is Janet Anderson, born Janet Murphy in 1930, in Bristol, Virginia, USA; age 38.”
Al stared intently at the handlink as Janet stopped to wait for on-coming traffic, then turned left into a tree-lined residential avenue and wound her way past several large homes, pulling up into the driveway of a large house with a three car garage. The house was decorated with a colorful string of lights around the edges of the eaves. There was a manger scene in the yard lit by flood lights. She stopped the car with just the front tires of the car in the driveway. Sam sat admiring the house and decorations for a moment, until Bear bounced the seat a couple of times. Mimicking Janet earlier, she said, “Earth to Pat! This is where I get out.”
“Sam,” said Al, “This is a two-door, 1963 Rambler Station Wagon. The only way to get into and out of the back seat is for the front seat to be tipped forward.”
Sam opened the passenger side door and stepped out into the apron of the driveway. He looked down to try and figure out the seat’s latching mechanism. Luckily, Bear saved him the trouble by reaching down and pulling the latch handle herself, tipping the seat forward and gracefully climbing out of the back seat to stand facing Sam. He saw this hug coming as Bear wrapped her arms around him again, this time he returned the hug.
“Hope to see you Sunday, Cuz” said Bear.
“Um, yeah, Sunday! R-right” Sam stumbled noncommittally.
Bear put one hand on the door frame and leaned down into the car. “Good Night, and thank you for the ride home.” Bear said, as she dumped Sam’s seat back upright. “There you go Pat. Your chariot awaits.” Another quick hug and Bear added, “I really do miss seeing you at Youth Group.”
“Um, yeah, well work and school… you know…” Sam said, “Good Night, Bear!”
Sam got back in the car. Janet backed out of the driveway completing a Y turn and went back the way she came.
Sam hung his left arm over the back of the car’s front bench-seat and, behind Janet’s back, rotated his left wrist, with his index finger extended. “Okay,” said Al, picking up on the non-verbal cue to keep going, “Ziggy has no idea why you’re here yet. But there is a 50/50 chance it has something to do with you going to Church with your Mom, Janet, on Christmas. Which means there’s also a 50/50 chance you should not go to church on Christmas. Also, since today is Friday, that would put Christmas on next Wednesday. So there is an 87.3% chance that you should, or should not, go to Church this Sunday, which would effectively be ‘Christmas Sunday.’ And…” Janet Anderson spoke to Sam and Al paused his ramblings.
“Pattie, now that Bear is out of the car, you said if I picked you up this evening we could talk about it.” said Janet.
Sam thought,“I have no clue as to what ‘it’ is.” He said, “You told me to be still,” Sam paused, then hastily added “...mom.”
Janet said, “Alright, if you’re going to be like that, I’ll go first.” She checked her mirrors, signaled right, and switched lanes from left to right. She and Sam moved into the right lane with the car, Al stayed in the left lane, still pacing the car, but no longer “in” it. Sam’s eyes widened at the shock of seeing Al sweeping along at 40 miles an hour outside the vehicle. Janet, assumed the shocked face was for her, and continued, “What? I can be the bigger person! This is serious Pattie.”
“Um, I know, Mom, sorry,” Sam apologized, “please go on.”
“I want you to stop with all of this pagan Satan worship mumbo jumbo and come back to Church.”
Al walked back into the car, except now he was standing on the road, his legs disappearing through the seat and floor of the back seat and his head sticking through the ceiling, but Sam could still hear him. “Sam, we have very little on Pat, or Pattie, Anderson, so we don’t have anything on her Satan worship. When they mentioned it to you, that is, to Pat, in the waiting room, you said it’s not Satan worship, but then clammed up. Also, the hologram projectors are working over time to keep up with the car driving forty miles an hour through the city. When it was you piloting the X-2, Ziggy said they just faked the clouds. The last car I was in was being driven in the Alabama countryside at 18 miles an hour, in first gear, by a little old lady, but this is a real city and it is a holo-mapping nightmare at this speed.”
Sam fudged to buy time. “I hear you, mom. I hear what you are saying, and I respect your opinion, and your religion.”
“Good, Sam!” said Al.
“Thank you, Pattie” said Janet, at the same time.
“I am just asking that you respect my opinions too,” said Sam. “and it’s not Satan worship, mom.”
“But Yule isn’t Christmas,” Janet said, “so it isn’t Christian, and it certainly isn’t Presbyterian… Pat.”
Sam smiled at Pat’s mom as he realized she had intentionally acknowledged the use of his preferred name. Then smiled again “Okay, I’ve heard of Yule,” thought Sam, “I can work with this.”
“Yule is older than Christmas, mom. It is a celebration of the winter Solstice, which is December 21st, the shortest day of the year.” Sam explained. “Christmas traditions and Christmas carols mention Yuletide all the time.”
Al began singing, off key, “Yuletide carols being sung by a choir…” Sam sang it for Janet, “Yuletide carols being sung by a choir…”
Janet smiled and harmonized with Sam, “...and folks dressed up as Eskimos.”
“But that doesn’t change the way I feel, Sweetheart,” Janet said, switching back to the conversation.
“Okay, tell me how you feel.” said Sam, still trying to figure out Pat’s plans.
“I feel like you don’t need any of this Yule stuff that these Druid friends of yours are doing tomorrow. It’s not like being a Druid is a real religion. It’s all make believe,” Janet said.
“A Hindu, or a Muslim, might say the same thing about Presbyterianism,” Sam replied, and saw Janet frown, “and people used to worship the Greek gods, and the Roman gods. The Norse pantheon included Odin, Thor, Loki, and other Asgardians…”
“Sam,” Al interrupted, “today is Friday.”
Sam saw where his friend was headed with that idea, “And today is Friday, which is named after the Norwegian goddess, Frigga.” Sam continued, “I’m just saying that Presbyterian isn’t the only religion. Maybe Druids will be the next Baptists, or Methodists.”
“Oh, Pattie, I knew you read a lot, but you seem to know a lot about this. I still don’t know if I like it.” Janet complained.
Sam and Janet fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Janet signaled with her turn indicator again and turned left off of Victory at a 76 gas station. Sam missed the name of the street, because he watched Al whiz out of the car again; that and also because the sign on the gas station said that gas was selling for 34.9 cents a gallon. Then Janet made a quick left and a quick right and she was on a new street, Gerald Ave. heading north again.
Pat’s mom pulled into the drive way of a small home in the 6500 block of Gerald avenue. She stopped in the drive way near the front door. A detached one car garage was at the end of the driveway at the back of the property. There was a small porch with a front door at the near corner of the home. The front of the house had a large picture window in it, then two small, high windows and another picture window at the far end of the front of the house. Curtains inside covered all of the dark windows. “Nobody home,” Sam thought. Pat’s mom was getting out of the car, so Sam followed suit. He picked up his crumpled lunch sack off of the front seat and followed her into the house.
As Janet was unlocking the front door, she looked up at Pat and said, “It’s late, I’m cold and I’m tired,” she pushed open the door and flipped a light-switch in the entryway turning on a lamp, and lighting a lovely Christmas tree, decorated with strings of bright lights and ornaments, in the middle of the front room near the window facing the street, “I want to talk about this Yule thing with you some more but right now I just want a shower, maybe a little television, and then a warm bed.”
Sam made some quick assumptions, and closed the front door behind them. The house was small but warm. Cozy. Sam locked the twist lock in the middle of the doorknob and threw the lever locking the deadbolt. Pat’s mother was hanging her coat in a coat closet just off the entryway, and Sam saw that under the coat Janet was dressed in a Nurse’s uniform. A name badge pinned to her left shoulder said, “Sepulveda V.A.” and “J. Anderson, R.N.” Sam made a metal note to ask Al to look into Veterans Administration records.
Janet crossed the living room and turned down the hallway off of it. Sam took a couple of quick steps and saw her turn left into what he assumed was the bathroom. He walked into the kitchen and opened the lunch sack on the Formica covered kitchen table which was surrounded by four Naugahyde covered chairs. There was a spoon and a round yellow Tupperware container in the bag. He washed them in the sink. There were a couple of bowls and spoons and a coffee cup sitting in the bottom of the sink. Sam washed those too and left them in the dish drainer that sat on the Formica countertop next to the sink. There was no dishwasher. Sam heard and felt the shower start, as the water pressure dropped in the kitchen sink of the small home. Sam smoothed the bag and re-folded it as best he could. Not knowing what to do with it, he stuck it in his pocket. Just to get his bearings, and since the only other person apparently in the house was busy, Sam peeked in the Kenmore one door refrigerator. “There’s food in the house.” Sam thought, silently taking inventory. He poked through a couple of kitchen cabinets, and found dishes and cans and boxes of food. Then he went to find his room. He walked back into the living room and found Al Calavicci standing in the Christmas tree, with twinkling branches sticking through his holographic body.
“Gooshie found you once the car stopped,” Al explained, “and he had Ziggy center me on you.”
“Al, Oh boy am I glad to see you.” said Sam, “I’ve been here for an hour and I don’t have a clue what I am supposed to be doing. Oh, and Janet is a Registered Nurse at the Sepulveda V. A. hospital. Have Ziggy check their records.”
Al typed on the handlink with his right hand, or that is, his right middle finger, which was still impressive since he was holding a lit cigar between his index and middle finger on that hand. The two of them heard the squeaking of a shower being turned off and a shower curtain could be heard sliding sideways.
“Maybe we should continue in Pat’s room,” suggested Al.
“Great,” agreed Sam, “Which door is it?”
The hallway off the living room had five doors, and a built in wall furnace. Two doors on the left, two on the right, and one at the end. Sounds coming out of the bathroom clearly identified it. Al stuck his head through the door anyway.
“Yep,” he said, back in the hallway with a big grin on his face, having peeped in at the woman inside drying off after her shower, “definitely the bathroom.” Sam just shook his head.
Then Al stuck his head through the first door on the opposite side of the hallway.
“Master bedroom, I think, Sam.” Al stuck his head into the next room. “Guest Room? Maybe. This looks like a three-bedroom, one bath, suburban sleeper. Contractors filled the San Fernando Valley with these things in the forties and the fifties.” Al informed.
The next door was at the end of the hall. “Linen closet.” was all Al said, as he then walked through the last door, the one just past the bathroom. His head poked back out into the hallway and looked at Sam, “Bingo!”
Sam walked into the small bedroom, turned on the light, then closed the door behind him.
Unlike the living room and kitchen which had been neat and tidy, this room was cluttered and crowded. Not messy, but well lived in. The bed took up most of the room. A desk under the picture window that faced the street was flanked by a small dresser on either side and took up most of the rest of the room. There was just enough room to walk around the bed and between the furniture to get to the built in closet. A bed spread had been thrown over the bed, the teenage equivalent of ‘making’ the bed. The dressers and desks were covered in rows and stacks of books. There was a poster of Billie Jean King on the wall over the bed. A tennis racket hung on the back of the bedroom door. By the window there was a brand new white enameled telescope with a royal blue bow on it, on a wooden tripod.
You could tell a lot about a person by their personal space. You could be told a lot about a person by a holographic representation of a Navy pilot named Al. Sam wandered about the room multitasking as he took note of his surroundings while simultaneously being updated on everything Ziggy had found out about Pat Anderson.
“Sam,” Al began, “The VA records gave us a lot. You are Pattie Anderson. Born to Chief Petty Officer Michael Anderson, who is currently serving aboard the USS Markab, a Destroyer Tender out of Alameda Naval Air Station, Alameda, California, somewhere between here and Vietnam, and Janet, who has had a rough life, Sam. Her daughter was her second successful pregnancy, but she was pregnant five times in seven years. You were born December 9, 1951 at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. Your brother, Paul, just after he turned eighteen last August enlisted, against your mother’s wishes, to follow in his father’s footsteps and is currently completing training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center north of Chicago, Illinois. Oh, Sam…” Al’s demeanor changed, “Ziggy says that Pattie is sexually assaulted this weekend by a man whom she never identifies to authorities. She escapes, but the trauma of the attack haunts her for years. She starts doing drugs, drops out of college, gets arrested – several times – and she attempts suicide in San Francisco in 1974...” Al held two fingers up in the air over his head in an upside-down V and pantomimed a person falling from a great height. “...off the Golden Gate bridge. Ziggy says you have to find and stop her attacker.”
Sam related to Al the embrace he found himself in as he leapt into Pat’s body and asked him what he could find about a Department Store Santa named Dave. Al pressed a button on the handlink and a bright rectangle of white light opened behind Al.
“I’ll be right back, Sam.” said Al, stepping through the doorway exiting the QL Imaging Chamber.
Sam read the titles of the books in Pat’s collection, mostly paperback, but a few hardcovers. Fahrenheit 451; Starship Troopers; I, Robot; Sentinels From Space; Starman Jones; Time for the Stars. “A science fiction fan,” Sam thought. The next stack had, Stonehenge by R.J.C. Atkinson; Aradia: Gospel of the Witches; The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth; and a Diary. A third stack had a mix of titles; A Dipper full of Stars; The Hobbit; To Kill A Mockingbird; and Catch-22. An over-sized hardbound book on Astronomy took up most of one dresser top. The glossy paper dust jacket folded over the edges of the cover was well worn and tattered around the edges. “More than just a sci fi fan,” Sam thought.
Next Sam swung open the closet door. It bumped against the bed. He was surprised by two things. The first was Pat’s wardrobe. The closet was split down the middle. Flannel shirts and tee shirts on one side, dresses and tennis outfits on the other. The second surprise was the full length mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door. It reminded Sam that he was still dressed as an elf. Sam found that the pixie hat, on the head of the young woman staring back at him in the mirror, was kept on with bobby pins. He worked those out and placed the hat in an empty spot on the closet shelf. He took off the black sweater and hung it up in the closet. He pulled the green tunic off over his head and realized he was wearing a white, men’s v-neck tee shirt under it that someone had sewn on red and white stripped long sleeves. Around his neck he found a string with a single small key that had the brand name YALE embossed in it. Sam’s photographic memory kicked in and he recalled that the brass padlock on the locker at work had YALE printed on it also. “That’s how she locked her keys inside,” Sam thought, “That’s one mystery down.” He pulled off the shirt and found he was also wearing a bra under the tee shirt. Pat had a well muscled athletic build with a small bust and almost no waist. “I wonder what mystery I’m going to find under these shorts.” Sam wondered, as he started to take off the shorts.
There was a brief knock at the door followed immediately by Janet Anderson opening it and sticking her head and bathrobe-covered shoulder into the room. Sam, half naked, hid behind the open closet door.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Janet said, “You don’t have to come out and sit with me, but the announcer said they were going to have the latest on the space mission on the news at 11.”
The telescope and astronomy book suggested that Pat may be interested in space news, so Sam said, “Thanks, mom. That sounds interesting. I’ll be out in a second.”
Janet gave Sam a quizzical look, but smiled and withdrew, closing the door as she left.
Sam found a pair of flannel pajamas in one of the dressers and was just getting into them when the holographic door to the Imaging Chamber opened` and Al Calavicci stepped through.
“Hi Al, what did you find out?” Sam asked, barely glancing up.
Al took one look at Sam, standing by the closet in just Pat’s high-waisted cotton panties and bra and covered his eyes and turned his back.
“Wow, that is not like you at all,” Sam observed, “The last time I was a woman you did nothing but leer at me, when all I was wearing then was bubble-bath bubbles.”
“Sam!” Al protested, “you were a grown woman then, you’re just a girl now! Even I have some standards.”
“Alright, I’ll put on Pat’s PJ’s.” said Sam, and did so. As he got into the pajama set, Sam noticed the buttons were on the right and the button holes were on the left. “Boys pajamas” Sam noted to himself.
“Thank you, that’s better,” Al began, “Department store H.R. records were not computerized in the 1960’s. Without a last name, Ziggy says there’s not enough to go on. Pat is not talking about the Santa, other than to say “all men are creeps” and for a seventeen year old girl in the 60’s it could easily seem that way.”
“Okay, Al,” Sam said, sitting on the bed, pulling off his black and white Keds and the striped elf socks. “I was just going out to watch the news with Janet, maybe we can find out more.”
“Oh, hey, Sam,” said Al, “There’s a diary on the desk. Maybe Pat wrote something about the Druids that we can use to learn more.”
Sam didn’t feel right about invading a young girl’s privacy, even if he was that young girl, but they still needed information so he opened the diary on the desk. Luck was with them because a post card was being used as a book mark and it was from the Druids.
On the front it said...
Come Celebrate the Winter Solstice at the Onion
Saturday December 21, 1968
7:00 PM
Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
9550 Haskell Avenue, Sepulveda, CA
(Pot Luck Dinner at 6:00 – All Welcome)
...with HAPPY YULE printed over a photograph of an onion shaped building.
Flipping it over they saw printed on the back, a small blurb about the Druids, a 5¢ postage stamp, and Pat’s name and address, hand written in the Send To area.
Sam stuck the post card in the shirt pocket of his pajamas and headed for the door. He stopped with one hand on the doorknob. “Al,” he whispered, “I don’t remember seeing a television. Where am I going?”
Al replied, “Front room, north wall. Janet will probably be on the couch. WAIT! Sam, Ziggy says there is a 65% chance that you SHOULD go to Christmas Sunday, but a 79% chance that you should get Janet to go to YULE tomorrow.”
“Do we know if Santa attacks Pat? What if it is a Druid, or a Church member? What am I working with here, Al?”
“Sorry, Sam. The kid, that is Pat, hasn’t been attacked yet so she’s no help, and records show she never told any of the counselors, that she saw over the years, who it was that attacked her.”
Sam took a deep breath and blew it out, then left the bedroom and walked through the small hallway into the living room. Janet was on the sofa, as Al had predicted, watching a console black and white television. A commercial for Virginia Slims cigarettes told them ‘You’ve come a long, long way.’ Janet looked up, surprised to see her daughter. Sam sat down on the opposite end of the couch.
“Alright,” she said, “who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”
Sam’s eyes got wide. Al’s eyes got wide. “W-what, uh, what do you mean, mom?” Sam stuttered.
“There! That!” Janet said sharply, spreading her hands shoulder width, palms up. “You have called me by my first name ever since your brother left home. Terse little sarcastic ‘Yes, Janet’ and ‘No, Janet’ is all I ever get from you, if I get an answer at all. Then tonight when I picked you up from work, it’s like I got my old daughter back. You were polite to me. You were polite to Bear. You were even kind. Don’t get me wrong, it was refreshing. But then…” Janet rolled her eyes, “...then I went in the kitchen after my shower to get a glass of milk and a cookie and what did I find? There are dishes in the dish drainer! Pattie. Pat! Please tell me you haven’t been abducted by aliens or invaded by a body snatcher. I mean, dishes?!? Without me having to beg? Who are you? What are you up to?”
Sam smiled and sheepishly bowed his head. “I have not done a stellar job of being a teenage girl in the 60’s it seems.” Sam thought, then said, “Oh well, I have to be polite for all of the customers at work waiting to see Santa. So I guess it carried over and I forgot, uh, to…
Al, looking at his handlink, prompted him, “to be mad at you about Paul.”
“...to be mad at you about Paul.” Sam finished.
“Oh, Sweetie, yes, I did not agree with your brother’s decision to enlist.” Sara explained, “But it’s because I see sailors and soldiers every day at work who come back from that war broken and beaten. Your father was in the Navy when I met him. He survived deployments in the Korean conflict and is now back out there again. Yes, he’s defending his country, our country, but that leaves me home alone to defend you and Paul. And now Paul has chosen to be a sailor. My god, I took both of you to work that one time hoping that Paul would see for himself that not everyone is as lucky as your father has been. I was hoping it would make him change his mind. And that backfired royally now didn’t it? And I love that you supported Paul’s decision. But I am not the enemy. I love you both, and your father, too. I just want to see my family safe and in one piece when this thing in Vietnam is all over with, God willing.”
“Sam! Sam! Look!” Al shouted pointing at the television, “It’s me!”
The chyron at the bottom of the screen said, ‘Coming Up Next on KABC News.’ The screen showed three astronauts in front of an Apollo 8 emblem enlarged as a backdrop, the 8 wrapped around the Earth on the lower end and around the moon on the upper loop of the 8, with the names Borman, Lovell, and Calavicci. Then the scene switched to show the three astronauts walking down a hallway in their space suits, carrying some kind of suitcases with hoses coming out of them, and waving to the camera.
“Hey look, the Apollo 8 story is next.” Sam told Janet, awkwardly changing the subject.
But of course it wasn’t next, because after watching a Playtex Cross-Your-Heart bra commercial, and a COOL cigarette ad (to which Janet muttered ‘those things will kill you’) the news anchor, Baxter Ward, still did a story about the Grateful Dead concert at the Shrine Exposition Hall before reading an intro switching to ABC News Science Editor, Jules Bergman, reporting from Cape Kennedy, Florida.
Bergman told his viewers that Apollo 8 would launch tomorrow, December 21, 1968, at 7:51 in the morning, eastern time. It would be the second crewed spaceflight mission flown in the United States Apollo space program, after Apollo 7 which only stayed in Earth orbit. Apollo 8 was the third flight and the first crewed launch of the Saturn Five rocket, and was the first human spaceflight from the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Kennedy, Florida. The Apollo 8 crew would orbit the moon as many as ten times to test the Command Module and moon landing procedures before returning to earth.
The reporter went on but Al started a narrative of his own. “Oh, Sam, back then James Webb was the NASA Administrator. He got us a visit earlier today, your time, from Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Lindbergh talked about how, before his 1927 flight, he had used a piece of string to measure the distance from New York City to Paris on a globe and from that calculated the fuel needed for the flight. The total he had carried was a tenth of the amount that the Saturn Five rocket would burn every second.”
Then the anchorman was back, saying ...in a moment today’s Vietnam action and a report from John Sculley.”
“Pat, please turn that off now. Switch it over to 4 for Carson’s monologue” Janet asked.
“Uh, sure.” Sam stopped himself from calling her ‘mom’ but didn’t call her ‘Janet’ either.
The local NBC news was doing weather, it was going to be clear but cold tomorrow. “Cold for Los Angeles,” Sam thought.
“I have some errands to run in the morning.” said Janet, “You’ll have to take the bus to work again.”
Tomorrow reminded Sam why he was here. “Okay. That is not a problem. I was thinking about tomorrow and the Yule Celebration…”
Janet rolled her eyes and huffed a little bit, but Sam pushed on. “...I thought, why don’t you come to the Druid’s Yule celebration with me and see for yourself. You could meet the people there. Meet my friends. See for yourself that we aren’t worshiping the devil.”
“Good, Sam,” Al said, checking his handlink.
“Oh, I don’t know Pat…” Janet trailed off. Sam took that as not-a-no. Sam’s swiss cheese brain realized he had gone to church with his family as a kid. He could not recall what denomination they were other than one of the Protestant ones. He pulled the postcard out of his pocket and said, “look mom, I don’t know a lot about Presbyterian polity but I know they love a good pot luck supper. Look. The Druids are having one tomorrow.” and taking a leap of faith, he said, “You could bring your favorite dish…”
It worked! Janet finished the sentence, “...my Ham and Noodle Casserole?”
“Your ham and noodle casserole, right. The druids will love it.” Sam said.
Janet did not look convinced but she was at least smiling. “Okay,” Sam thought, “go all in, now.”
“If you celebrate Yule with me on Saturday, I will celebrate Christmas with you on Sunday.”
Janet’s face lit up. “Alright, Pat. You have a deal.” Al’s face lit up. “Brilliant Sam!”
Sam asked, “Hand shake? Hug?” Janet grinned and leaned over to hug her daughter. Sam hugged back. “It had been a long night, but things were at least moving forward finally.” Sam thought.
The NBC news anchor signed off and the television announcer was inviting them to stay tuned as Johnny welcomed Vanessa Redgrave, David Frye, Hines, Hines & Dad, and painter Jan De Ruth.
Standing up, Sam said, “I think I need to go to bed, mom. It’s late.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Sweetie, I’m just going to watch a little Johnny Carson, then call it a night too. Good night.”
“Good night.” Sam said, exiting toward the hallway.
Sam and Al walked back to Pat’s room. “Sam, Ziggy says the odds have gone way up and agrees that your plan is excellent.”
Sam flopped down across the width of the bed. Al walked through the foot of it.
Sam remembered the work schedule in his wallet. He rolled over and picked up the shorts and found Pat’s wallet. He pulled out the folded up schedule and sat up on the bed, unfolding it. “Okay, Al, it says here that Pixie Pat works a 2:00 P.M. to 8:30 P.M. shift today, then from 10 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Then 10 A.M. to 7:30 on Christmas Eve. That’s a long day on Tuesday!” Sam looked at the electric alarm clock on the corner of the desk. It was after 11:30 P.M. “But it is just the Helpers on this schedule, it doesn’t say what shifts Santa is working.”
“One thing at a time, Sam. Right now you need to get some sleep, and I need to get some lunch.”
Sam cocked his head to look at Al. Al said, “It’s only midnight where you are. Get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Sam took off, and hung up, the bathrobe and then climbed into bed. Al opened the Imaging Chamber door and stepped through it. “Nighty-night.” he said, closing the door.
Sam was just able to stretch his arm enough to flick off the light switch without getting out of bed. Lying back down in the dark he realized he did not remember the last time he had had a full night’s sleep. He smiled and closed his eyes. “One thing at a time.” he thought.