Time Out Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5


Jon was awakened by the feeling that he was a vampire and the light was ready to kill him. He went to shield his eyes from the light and found he couldn’t move his arm.
‘Have I been paralyzed? he asked himself.
After what seemed like an eternity, his arm did start a slow migration up to his face. He could hear people start to move towards him. After he was sure that his eyes were sufficiently shielded, he ventured opening them.
It was immediately apparent that he was in a hospital room. The room had an antiseptic feeling to it. The walls were an ugly green color, a TV was mounted on the ceiling, and he was vaguely aware of tubes coming out of his arms. People surrounded Jon. Several of them looked vaguely familiar, but where the hell were his parents? How long had he been here? Why did he feel the need for a Twinkie?
“Neal! We’re so glad you’re alright!” An older man in a gray trenchcoat was the first to his bedside. “How are you, Neal?” He seemed to emphasize the word Neal.
It was almost as if this man was calling Jon by that name. Or is my real name Neal, and I dreamed I was Jon? Jon thought. His mind was cluttered. If certain people’s faces were totally blurred out or if a man carrying cheese came in the door, Jon would almost think this was a dream, but no such thing happened. The people were by his bedside, they were all calling him Neal, they all seemed familiar, and his body felt like Wile E. Coyote’s after having been run over by a steamroller.
A very pretty woman with red hair leaned across his bed and gave him a hug. She whispered in his ear. “You’re not crazy. You are Jon Mills, but you have been admitted under the name Neal Page. Answer to it.” Even though the actual words said seemed harsh, they were said in a very friendly tone. Did he know her? She seemed too young to be his mom. After hugging him, she stood and hobbled over towards the door where she picked up a red leather jacket and leaned against the wall.
Then, all at once, the day came back to him. She was Kate Thompson, the man was Walter Bender, one of the other guys by his bedside was Jerry- Jerry what? Jon realized he never knew the man’s last name. He recognized a few other faces from the office earlier that day- week? Night? Month? - but couldn’t have come up with their names.
Jon looked at Walter. “Dad!”
Walter glared. “Uncle! It’s me! Your Uncle Gary!” Jon noticed a slight bead of sweat on Walter’s brow as Walter turned to a nurse. “We’re identical twins! Impossible to tell us apart! Hell, even our wives-“ The nurse stopped paying attention so Walter just stopped lying. Jon could feel his arm getting pinpricks in it, so he forced his weary body to pull it back to his side.
The nurse leaned over Jon and stared into his eyes. “Your pupils aren’t dilated any more, Mr. Page. The drug must be wearing off. I’ll go get your doctor.” The whole room waited, holding their breath, as she walked out and closed the door.
“Good job, Jon! Well done!” Walter leaned in. ” Here’s the story- I am your uncle who runs a veterinary clinic. You stopped by after school. A Doberman pinscher got loose. He attacked me, the tranquilizer gun went off, and you were accidentally shot-” The door opened and a doctor walked in. "-in the neck.” Walter finished, whispering.
‘Mr. Page.” The doctor addressed him. “You had one heck of a day, didn’t you? Who would’ve thought that the tough part of the day would have been after school?” The doctor, Belnap was his name as Jon discovered by reading his nametag, flipped through Jon’s chart.
Jon smiled. “Who would’ve thought?”
Belnap stared at Jon thoughtfully for a moment, then flashed a grin. Jon’s chart fluttered in the draft from the open doorway. Belnap never blinked. His smile evaporated.
“Here we go,” Jon thought. “Something’s not right and he knows it.”
Belnap’s eyes bored into Jon’s eyes and brain. There was a very long pause. No one in the room moved or uttered a sound.
“Sylvia!” Belnap called.
The nurse came scurrying in from the hall. “Yes, Doctor?”
“Call the Salt Lake City Police Department please.”
“Oh, shit,” Jon thought as his stomach lurched into his throat.
Belnap continued his directions. “I can’t make it to their banquet tonight. I just realized that I have my daughter’s school play to go to.”
Jon felt his breathing return to normal and the room seemed to have its burden lifted, too.
“So,” Belnap turned his gaze Bender, “Uncle Gary. That’s you, correct?”
“Yes it is,” Bender nodded and agreed.
“Problem at the office?”
Jon broke in. “My fault.” He gave a half laugh. “Shouldn’t have walked into the exam room without letting him know.”
Belnap looked at Jon’s chart. “You seem to be okay. Your muscles will probably take a few hours to lose the effects of the drug, and you’ll probably sleep through the rest of the night, but, by the morning, you should be just fine. ” Belnap gave Jon two pats on his shin and walked out of the room. Kate closed the door behind him.
Jon glanced at Bender. “That’s why we choose him, Jon. He’s a great doctor, but has one of the worst bedside manners in the world. When it comes to people and patients, the man is as clueless as they come. I give him a new name every time and he never recognizes me.”
Jon grinned and looked around the room. Everyone seemed to be staring at him. “So, can I go home?”



It was eleven forty five at night as Jon signed the form to release him from the hospital. He signed a large J as normal and stopped. Thinking quickly, he put a period after the J. and continued to sign Neal Page. Many people go by a middle name, he thought. Why shouldn’t I? Or Neal? Why shouldn’t Neal? He nodded to the nurse as he handed the form back to her.
“You better make sure you get some rest tonight,” she cautioned.
“Will do.” Jon didn’t want to really chat much, so he turned and felt his leg muscles start to give way.
Kate grabbed him and steadied him. “I’ve got you,” she told him.
“Thanks,” Jon mumbled as they stumbled out the door together.
They didn’t talk to each other as they walked out to Kate’s car. After Kate unlocked his side door, Jon opened it and lowered himself into the seat using his arms. They gave out a few inches before Jon was seated, so he plopped into the car and felt a new wave of pain rush over him. He sat still and let it course through him for a few seconds before he reached over and closed the door.
Kate started the engine of her Impala, buckled herself in, and checked on Jon. He was staring at her. She turned off the engine. “What?”
“I just forged an official document. I just signed to get this guy named Neal Page released. Who is he? Another patient at the hospital? I’m going to be blamed for letting a mental patient run free, aren’t I?”
Kate smiled. “No, but we could definitely say that your imagination is running free.”
“My imagination?” Jon asked incredulously. “My IMAGINATION? I’m part of a secret government agency and you’re talking to me about my imagination?”
“Get out your wallet.”
The request caught Jon off guard. “Excuse me?”
“Get out your wallet.” Kate demanded again.
Jon saw that she wasn’t kidding so he fished his wallet out of his right front pants pocket.
“Open it.”
Jon did and saw nothing but his driver’s license staring up at him. “Okay. So?”
“Look.” was the simple instruction.
Jon did. It was his license. It had a green stripe across the top notating that he was under 21. It had the picture that he hated so much because he had been vomiting all day worrying about his test. “Okay. So?” he repeated.
“Look at the name.”
Jon looked and couldn’t believe his eyes. It read J. Neal Page. He shot a look at Kate. “How did you-?”
“Jerry’s our document guy.”
“Document guy? You mean forger. When you said document guy, you mean forger.”
“Well, in a way-“
“In a way?” Jon could feel his brain start to pound in his skull. “In a way? There’s only one way, Kate! He is, or he isn’t! Which do you think it is?”
“How do you think that undercover agents get driver’s licenses, credit cards, birth certificates, social security numbers? They all have to be forged or faked since this person doesn’t exist! We’re not going to use real birth dates or anything since they could be tracked! Think about it, Jon! It makes sense!”
“In your weird little world, maybe. Call me crazy, but I like to think that the people who protect me are using the same laws that I have to abide by.”
“Well, welcome to the world as it truly is.” Kate started the car again, and, in a fit of frustration, slammed the car into reverse, then into drive and left skid marks in the parking garage.
Not a word was spoken in the car as Kate drove Jon home. The impala roared up to Jon’s house and braked suddenly in front of it. The jarring motion from the sudden stop caused Jon’s head to pound even harder as he opened the door and got out. “Thanks for the-“ Kate reached across the car, slammed the door shut and sped off down the road. Jon watched as she turned the corner. “-ride.”
Jon searched in his pockets and found his keys. He walked up to the door and paused before he put his key in the lock. He reached out with his left hand and turned the knob. It was open. He walked inside and shut the door, locking and deadbolting it this time.
The TV was still tuned to TSC where the live version of SportsTime was just concluding. “That’s all for us, but don’t shed a tear because we’ll be back in 22 hours 59 minutes and 11 seconds with tomorrow’s edition of SportsTime. Have a good night.”
Jon found the remote and turned off the TV. Leaving all of the lights on, he trudged into his room, fell onto his bed, and was asleep within moments.



In his dazed state, Jon could hear the phone ringing. It would ring 5 times, and then stop, right as the answering machine was ready to pick up. Then it would ring 5 more times and stop for a few moments. Then 5 more rings and pause. Jon didn’t realize that this pattern had been happening for nearly twenty minutes when he finally stretched his arm out to answer it. For a moment, he couldn’t figure out which side of the receiver was which. Finally, after much twisting of the phone cord, he got it right. “Hello?”
“Jon?” a female voiced asked. “ I’m, uh, sorry for calling so late, uh, or so early, or whatever it is. What is it?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Kate.”
“Oh, Kate. What time is it?”
“It’s just after 3. I’ve been trying to get you for a while now. You never picked up.”
“I was sleeping. I had a hell of a day.” Jon wiped his hand over his face to become part of the waking world.
“I knew I shouldn’t have called, I’ll just talk to you later-“
Jon tried sitting up in bed, but his muscles still hurt too much so he flopped back down. “No, no, no! It’s okay. I’m okay! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. As well as I can be with a bullet hole in my leg, anyways.”
“I hope you got treated for that.”
“While you were still toast at the hospital, I got it cleaned up and bandaged. Hurts like hell, but I’ll make it. I always do. Not the first time I got shot.”
“I know you think you’re superwoman, Kate, but you’re not.”
Kate sounded a little tense. “I know that.”
“Then why have you tried to be a hardass every single time I’ve seen you except for up in the stairwell? That was okay to be frightened up there, Kate. I was terrified. Having a gun pointed at my temple didn’t help, either.”
There was a pause when he could tell Kate was fighting the impulse to hang up. “Look, Jon, I just hate Stanley and everything he stands for. I lost it, but now I’m over it. I broke down when I shouldn’t have and I won’t do it again. Is that okay with you, rookie?”
Jon’s blood was boiling, but he could tell something else was bothering her. “What’s going on, Kate? You’re not telling me something.”
“I’m telling you everything you need to know.”
“Okay, fine, Kate. I believe you. Now why did you try so hard to wake me up after I’ve been shot full of elephant tranquilizer!”
“Well, damn you, Jon! I just wanted to apologize! That’s why I called! I called to apologize!”
“Apology accepted!”
“Fine! Good! Great!”
Jon started laughing lightly. “Is that really why you called at 3 AM?”
Jon could visualize Kate’s face go from rage to an embarrassed smile to an almost embarrassed grin as she gave a halfhearted laugh. “Yes. That is why I called,” she said in a much softer and gentler tone. “I called to apologize. Believe it or not, I have the world’s best or worst conscience, depending on your view of it. I will get pissy as all get out and then feel amazingly bad about it ten seconds later.
“Your life was normal 24 hours ago, now it’s all sorts of weird and I got upset at you for being a little stressed out. You see, Jon, I used to be you. I used to be a 17-year-old with everything going for me and I just hadn’t figured it out yet. I had unlimited potential, but I didn’t get that. I saw that you had everything that I was. I’d been missing the old me lately, so I asked Bender if I could be your researcher and trainer and he said sure. I’m sorry if I overstepped my role of trainer and became mother or over bearing older sister to you, today.” She paused. “Or just now. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay, Kate. No problem. I didn’t mean to take it out on you, either. I probably shouldn’t have just charged up.”
“Well, that’s true!” Kate laughed, then there was a pause. “Anyways, I just wanted to say that I am proud of you. You did a great job up on the roof. I wish I could’ve been there.”
“Thank you. I knew that I just wanted to get you, me, and as many hostages as possible safely out of the building.” Jon waited for a response. When there was none, he continued. “Well, Kate, thanks for the apology. It’s okay, but I need to get some sleep. I have school in the morning.”
“That’s right, you do. Sleep well, Jon. You deserve it.”
“Thanks, Kate. You sleep well, too. You had a hell of a day yourself. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Jon listened as the dial tone filled his ears. He hung up the phone, looked at the light switch on the wall which was way too far away, and plopped his head back down on his pillow and zonked out again.
Kate put her cell phone on the dashboard and straightened out her wounded and tightly bandaged leg. She fluffed her coat jacket against the car door and fell into a very light sleep while looking up at Jon’s bedroom window.

Time Out Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4


The door closed behind Jon and he was left in what reminded him of a dark submarine deep in the watery depths. Or, that’s how the movies always portrayed submarines with engine problems. Red lights, shadowing the faces of the crew. Sounds from somewhere else that may or may not be as close as they seemed.
It took Jon’s eyes several moments to get used to the dark red hues that would guide his way. As he had run by Kate’s car, he had noticed another radio and had grabbed it and shoved it in his pocket. The weight of it made him feel better since it was all he really had with him as far as any sort of weapon went. He had a set of house keys, so he could poke the sniper’s eyes out, but chances were they would finish him off by the time he got that close. He also had his wallet that had just enough money for lunch, which, it seemed, was such a different world, away. Had he ever eaten? It seemed like the answer was no. Jon promised himself then and there that he would take the money from his dad’s dresser drawer and treat himself to a great meal tonight. Not great, maybe, but at least a lot of food. A Wendy’s triple cheeseburger biggie sized and at least a spicy chicken could be a good start.
Jon was proud of himself. By thinking about what he would do if he got out of this mess, he had made it up to the third floor already. This isn’t too bad, Jon thought. Of course, the shit will really hit the fan twelve floors from now, but at this moment, not too shabby. Jon wasn’t trembling anywhere near as much as he had thought he might.
Where was Kate? Was she still up on the thirteenth? Was she even still alive? Had they taken her? Would she be in the stairwell or had she ducked back into the building? The smell of gunpowder pricked Jon’s nose. It seemed like the fourth of July. Just a few months ago, he had gone with his parents to the local fireworks show at the University of Utah. They had been in the football stadium, seen several musical acts, watched several of the local schools perform dances, and then there had been the fireworks. The sounds of the fireworks whizzing out of the stadium to explode high in the night sky and the, at that time, sweet smell of lingering gunpowder in the air. But this gunpowder smell had none of that kind of fun attached to it.
Here was the 7th and still counting. Jon felt a small trickle of cold sweat descend down his back as he realized that he had been thinking about unimportant things too much and hadn’t been paying attention to what he was here to do. Had he been making too much noise? Had he whispered or stumbled or anything? He didn’t know. What he did know was he was now at the eighth floor. He decided to duck inside and take a small breather.
Very cautiously, he opened the heavy metal door and slipped through the crack. As he closed the door, he made sure that the door didn’t click into place. One less noise that he would have to worry about. He took a deep breath and slid down into a corner and let it out.
There was no going back at this point. That much was sure. What training and skills did he have once he got up to the top? None. What weapons did he have? Keys, wallet, and a radio. The men were probably older than his seventeen years, so he had that going against him, too. Walter had said that Kate was one of his best agents, yet she was in a tremendous amount of hurt. What possibility did he have? He closed his eyes and let his body relax for a moment.
As he opened his eyes, he had three thoughts simultaneously. The first was that he saw a cigarette butt fall past one of the office windows from outside. So, he had one more piece of information. He was dealing with smokers.
Second thought was that his hand was in a warm liquid. His mind had time to process what it was most certainly going to be so he didn’t need to be too overcome by fear or anything by the time his eyes actually rested on the small pool of blood. He decided not to even look down.
The third thought was a slight burning sensation in his left temple. A heavy, hot metal feeling. Even though he had never felt it before, he had seen enough movies to assume it was the muzzle of a gun. As luck would have it, all three of his reactions were correct. He slowly raised his hands.
“Jon?”
He had expected to maybe hear the shot of the gun or maybe even an instant of pain, but not hear his name. It could only have been one person.
“Kate?”
The hot gun muzzle was lowered and he watched as Kate fell to her knees and hugged him lightly. Since he had never had much close contact with women, he couldn’t tell if it was because they barely knew each other or if she was protecting injuries. “I’m so sorry. I’m so very, very sorry. It was never meant to be like this.”
Jon grabbed her daintily by the shoulders and slowly pushed her away from him so that he could see her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“This. It was a training test. Bender wanted you to see action to help make up your mind. Chad Peterson was supposed to fake a hostage taking and we would see how you would react. There would be blanks, we would set up a situation, and we could see if you actually had what it took. It just so happened the real thing took place, Chad was two blocks away, so he came over, and now he’s missing, too, probably part of the hostages, and Stanley’s squad is coming, and-“ she stopped speaking but a tear rolled down her cheek turning from clear to gray to black as it streaked away all of the dirt in its path.
Jon felt a hot surge of anger boil up inside of him. A test? They had planned a test, and they weren’t going to tell him, and see what he did? He thought about Bender picking up the phone near the end of the office discussion, and Jerry running down the hall just a few moments later. That had probably all been planned. Agnes was the only person who had been hurt when they had arrived, so the stats and information that Jerry had given Walter were wrong. They had walked into a real situation. That explained Bender’s anger and anxiety. That explained why they hadn’t wanted Sgt. Stanley at first, and now, because the squad, it really added a new twist. And here he was with nothing to protect himself with.
“Kate! What is real? Tell me!”
“Ever since we got here, it’s been real. We think there are only two of them, but there had to be at least four guns shooting blindly at me! There may be up to four, maybe more. We don’t know.”
“Is Stanley’s squad really that bad, Kate? What are we looking at if they make it up to the roof?”
“They’ll take out everybody and everything. They don’t care. They kill indiscriminately.”
“Okay. Have you spoken to Walter lately?”
“My radio was hit.”
“How much ammo do you have left?”
“I don’t know. A few shots, maybe. Four or five?”
“Hand me your gun.” She did. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You get back down to the ground. Take the elevator if it’s still working otherwise go down the opposite stairwell. Just get back and tell Walter that I am going to at least try and get the hostages away from the roof or something. Stall Stanley’s men, if you can. But, I can’t overtake them by force, so I’m going to try to find another way.”
“What other way?”
Jon didn’t answer the question. He was too busy looking at the leg wound on Kate. She had been hit and she was doing a good job of bleeding. He reached in his back pocket and took out a handkerchief and tied it just above her wound. “Get down to safety, Kate. I’ll make sure I’m not in the way when the squad comes up. I’ll try to get Peterson to safety, too, along with as many hostages as I can.” As he finished tying the knot, Jon stopped and a smile slowly crept across his face. Jon removed his shoe and took off one sock then put his shoe back on. The sock was shoved into his right front pocket. “Go,” he told her as he stood up
Kate sat there looking at him with a quizzical expression, almost like their exchange wasn’t completed yet. There was, for Jon at least, a very uncomfortable pause. What did all the movie heroes do in a time like this? He leaned down and quickly kissed her on the forehead. ”Go,” he repeated as he snuck through the door and back into the stairwell.
The smell of gunpowder was still strong. Jon was hurrying a little more. He knew there couldn’t be much time left before Stanley sent in his goons. “Hello?” Jon whispered to the pinkish darkness. No response. Still being cautious and listening for any movement from above him, he started to take two steps at a time.
By now, on the ground, there had to be a pretty good group. Hopefully, the gunmen were paying more attention to that than to the stairwell. In no time at all, Jon found himself on the roof access floor. He pulled out his sock, replaced it with Kate’s gun, and slowly opened the door to the roof.
The sock was in his hand and was the first thing out in the open air. “Hello?” Jon ventured again.
The door was ripped out of his hands and he was staring down the barrel of a machine gun.
“What do you want, mate?” asked the gruff man with a fake Australian accent as he grabbed Jon’s arm and threw him onto the rooftop.
“Doesn’t white mean anything to you?” Jon asked as he rolled onto his back and put his arm over his eyes to shield them from the glaring sun, a distinct change from the dark stairwell.
“It means you took off your bloody sock. Now what the hell do you want?”
Jon took a quick moment to survey the scene. The roof was blindingly white due to the small white rocks covering the surface. A small gathering of about 25 people were huddled in a tight group almost dead center between the stairway access and the edge of the roof. The man who had attacked Jon was obviously the slightly bigger one of the two menacing guys on the rooftop. The other was holding a machine gun in each hand and kept glancing down at the street and over at Jon and his partner.
Fake Aussie was holding a machine gun and had another placed near his feet. In Aussie’s waistband was another gun. It almost looked like a 9 millimeter, but something didn’t seem quite right about it. There was a large stack of empty gun belts thrown to one side of the roof and all of the magazines in the firearms now had a blue piece of tape around the bottom except for the one that was still pointed at Jon’s face.
A tall, gangly-looking guy who short permed brown hair had made his way to the front of the hostage group. He was missing a shoe and had blood matted in his hair. He must have been coldcocked upside the head. Jon guessed this was Chad Peterson.
“Hey! You! What are ya? Deaf? What the hell do you want and who are you?” Aussie asked again.
“I’m Jon mills. I, uh, work down on 7.”
“For the law firm? You look all of what, 15?”
“17, actually. My dad runs the place and I make good money making copies, taking books to lawyers, and being a gopher. You should try it sometime.” While he was talking, Jon calculated the amount of time before he could grab the machine gun on the rooftop. He probably wasn’t faster than a bullet. “Anyways, I heard the commotion and wanted to come up, in peace, and let you know that I’m sure I could talk my dad into representing you for free because, damn, you’re gonna be in a serious pile of hurt when this finally comes down. There are cops down there ready to blow you to bits, and I’d like to try to help if I could.”
“It ain’t going to come to that. Kent & I will never even see the inside of a police car.”
Jon couldn’t believe the James Bond method seemed to actually be working. Keep the crook talking and he will tell you his plan. “Why not?”
“Our wives left us, we have both been out of work for over a year, we’re broke and have declared bankruptcy, we just want to end our lives.”
“So why the whole hostage mess? Just kill yourselves and be done with it.”
The man by the edge of the building, Kent Jon assumed, strode over to his partner. “Roger & I, we both have kids for Christ’s sake! We don’t want them thinking that their dads killed themselves because of them! That can scar a kid for life! But, if your fathers are killed by cops…” he trailed off.
Jon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “There’s something to be proud of.”
“Shut up!” Roger yelled as he leveled the gun at Jon again.
“Okay, okay. You’re the one with the gun, you can go ahead and have any fantasy life you want, but that still doesn’t change the fact that cops don’t like it when their perps try to do suicide by cop.”
“They may not like it, but what other choice will they have if I am threatening my hostages?” Kent asked as he leveled his guns at the huddled mass.
“Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” Jon said quickly. “Look, I know we can work it out.”
“What do you know about it, mate? You’re only seventeen years old!”
“I know about life taking some pretty weird ass turns when you aren’t expecting it. I know that sometimes things may happen for a reason, but that’s no reason why you can’t just wait until tomorrow. I mean, the sun will rise and things will be better!”
“Bet your bottom dollar, huh, man?” Kent spit. “It ain’t like that. Life is a big steaming pile of shit sometimes, and it isn’t worth another sleepless night worrying about the bills to believe in some Broadway musical number.”
“So, what’s your plan then, huh? Wait for the news helicopters to arrive? When they’re broadcasting fire into the group of hostages, then wait for the police to come up and kill you?”
Kent & roger exchanged looks. “Damn! You’re good, kid!”
“What a pair of dumbasses,” Jon muttered under his breath. “But what do these nice people have to do with your deaths? Why should they die? You think you’re in a world of hurt? Think about their families! You kill them and then all of their families are left motherless, fatherless, and brotherless. How does that affect them and their loved ones? Maybe in your sick mind you will be heroes to your families, but what about their families? Will they be heroes? Or will they just be the victims of some self-centered, egotistical whack jobs who decided that their lives sucked so-“ Jon turned his voice whiny, “ they had to take the next train out of Dodge? Whining maggots!”
Kent and Roger had both let down their guard a bit watching Jon make sense. He knew this was the chance. Jon bent and put his shoulder out as a human ram and went toward the pair with all his might. As they all went falling toward the rooftop, Jon angled his body and rolled next to the gun on the ground. As he rolled, he picked it up off the roof and, hoping it was firing ready aimed it at the two men on the ground.
“Now, stand up, and let’s all go down to the street peacefully!” Jon said forcefully.
Kent and Roger looked at each other again and did the last thing Jon expected. They laughed.
“You stupid git! We already used our ammunition! To shoot at you down the stairwell!” Roger laughed. Even in his astonishment, Jon mentally breathed a sigh of relief. They had no clue about Kate. “ I have the only live ammo left. The rest of it is just blanks so that hopefully we won’t have to hurt anyone. We wanted to make an impression with live ammo. Trust me, we’re both dead eyes on target practice. If we wanted to hit anything, it would be dead or exploded by now. We missed on purpose!”
Jon was taken aback. “You’re just as sane as could be, other than the fact that you’re both mental!” Jon looked at Roger’s waistband. “What about that?”
Roger looked down. This? Why this-“ In the blink of an eye it was drawn and had been fired at Jon. Jon felt a stinging in his neck. “This is a tranquilizer gun. This is so if we had any heroes, they could be put down quite easily.” Kent and Roger shared a laugh.
Almost immediately, Jon could feel his world dim. He knew there wasn’t much time if he was going to get himself or anyone else off this rooftop alive, he couldn’t drop. Not yet.
Keeping the machine gun in his left hand, Jon pulled Kate’s gun out of his pocket. “Now, it’s time for group therapy where the sickos listen to the sane one for a minute! This is a real goddamn gun! I can get at least one of you before the other can kill me!”
Roger and Kent laughed again. “So?” Kent asked. “That’s what we want anyway!”
Jon started to feel woozy almost like his legs weren’t working. His brain was slipping quickly. If these guys wanted to die, what could be his bargaining chip?
He stuck his left arm straight out and started firing the blanks into the air and held the trigger down. He could almost hear the doors being opened down on the street and Stanley’s squad come roaring into the building. The plan had been set into motion.
With his right hand, Jon lowered Kate’s gun and fired two shots into Kent’s knee. Kent screamed in pain and leveled the real bullet loaded machine gun at Jon. Roger dropped one of his guns and put both of his hands on the butt of the remaining gun. Using all of his strength, he smacked Jon under the chin. Jon flew backwards and dropped the machine gun, but fired the remaining two shots of Kate’s gun in the air. Both rounds caught Chad Peterson, who was tackling Kent and separating him from his gun, in the stomach. Chad hit Kent with full force and sent him sprawling on the rooftop, both screaming in pain.
Roger was now on Jon and pummeling Jon’s stomach. Jon could feel his world almost turning black. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he could hear the squad thundering through the stairwell. If he didn’t stay conscious another few seconds, Jon feared he’d never wake up again. He reached in his left pocket and brought out the radio he had taken from Kate’s car. With all the force he could muster, Jon slammed the chunk of metal into the side of Roger’s face. He crumpled onto the rooftop as if hit by a bulldozer.
Jon struggled to his feet and picked up the machine gun that still had bullets. He aimed and fired directly into the roof access doorway. Jon imagined he looked like Rambo with one hand firing a machine gun and the other holding a radio. In actuality, though, he told himself, he probably looked more like Weird Al Yankovic.
As round after round shredded the door to bits, Jon could see SWAT team members hugging the ground reaching for their weapons. The door’s hinges dropped off and the door fell away from its frame. Jon stopped firing and flung his arms straight out from his sides and flung down both objects that he was holding as he yelled. “Hold your fire!”
“I am Jon Mills! I am a good guy! I am with Walter Bender! The injured man with the Michael Landon ‘do is Chad Peterson. He is also a good guy with Bender who needs immediate medical attention! I accidentally shot him. The other two slimeballs sprawled on the roof are the bad guys! The group behind me is the hostages! Make sure they are taken care of. I am going to need actual medical attention very soon. And as for the door-“ John paused and took a deep breath as he lost his grip with the real world, “bill me.” His legs crumpled and Jon fell asleep on the rooftop.

No Chapter 4 today

I will be back with Chapter 4 tomorrow. Since I am using this as a "final editing ground", I just dont have enough in me to do the final edit of Chapter 4 tonight.
By date, this is the 1 year mark of when we found out my dad was terminal, so today has been packed so I havent had to think much about it today. Because of that, I am too tired to give you my best.

Back tomorrow with Chapter 4!

Time Out Chapter 3

Chapter 3 is just below- enjoy! Tomorrow is a packed day, so Chapter 4 will be up either very late tonight or very late tomorrow.

CHAPTER 3


The Zion Towers was a fifteen-story office complex located just north of downtown Salt Lake. As they approached the building, Jon could see the crowd of people and the lights from the police cars from several blocks away. No one was just standing on the street or sidewalks; they were all huddled, crouching, hiding, or shielding themselves.
Kate was driving and she pulled right up to the front of the line of police cars and got out, not worried at all about being a possible target. She strode up to a small wiry man in a gray trenchcoat that was flapping from the slightly chilly south wind. “Stanley!” she greeted him. “What in hell are you doing here? Had to take our glory?” One bullet hit the street about half a block away.
Sergeant Earl Stanley turned towards Kate. He had a face like he had just sucked an entire lemon dry. His gray eyebrows were furrowed deeply, his lips were tightly pursed, and his eyes seemed to be twitching nervously. “Miss Thompson. Pleasure to see you here.” Jon could tell the words had no meaning behind them. “I just figured that I didn’t want this situation to spiral out of control the way that Colorado did. I stood back and watched as your team fucked up so entirely, they’re still pulling their heads out of their asses.”
Jon had only seen this man for less than fifteen seconds and he already had a severe dislike of him. He wiped away a smile when he thought about how severely the Sergeant would have had his grammar corrected by Mrs. Perry.
“What have we got?” Kate asked, purely business.
“About twenty minutes ago, two gunmen entered the M & T mortgage offices on the eighth floor and took everyone up to the roof. One employee was coming out of the restroom and saw the men with guns leading her officemates to the door to the stairs to the roof. The gunmen didn’t see her and she managed to escape. As the gunmen and the hostages got to the roof, one hostage looked over the side, saw the employee who had escaped and yelled down to them. One of the gunmen fired at shot at the escapee and missed, but the bullets sent the bystanders into a frenzy and now we think we have one guy holding the hostages and the other taking potshots at the street.” As if to emphasize his point, a hail of bullets rained down and put several sizeable holes in the flock of police cars and one straight down the middle of Kate’s car. Jon flinched and dove for cover. Kate and Bender were still standing straight up, not bending or hiding at all.
“What the hell-?” Bender muttered to thin air.
“Building evacuated?”
“Not by the police, but workers heard the shots and we couldn’t keep them off the streets or in the building. They came flooding out.”
“Who was the escapee?” Kate asked.
Stanley pointed to a small cowering sixty-year-old woman in the back of his patrol car. “Agnes Landingham. That’s her.”
Kate didn’t even acknowledge him. She opened the door and crouched down beside the woman who was in a fetal position in the back seat. “Hi, Agnes,” She started gently, “I’m Kate. I’m part of the hostage negotiation team and I need to ask you a few questions, okay?”
The woman didn’t make a move. Jon didn’t hear her say anything, but she must’ve given her approval because Kate kept on with the questions.
“We are going to do everything we can to get your friends out of there safely. We also want to bring these assholes to justice who are doing this to them, okay? So, I need you to tell me everything you can about the gunmen. What they were wearing, what they were carrying, holding, looked like, smelled like, anything. Can you do that?”
Agnes uncovered her head and looked at Kate with teary blue eyes. “Okay.”
“All right. Thank you. I heard there were two. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe them for me?”
“They were both about, I don’t know, five ten to six feet tall. They were both wearing tan windbreakers and jeans. One had darker hair, and the other lighter.”
“Okay. What else?”
“I don’t remember any more of their looks because I only saw their backs. I heard the commotion and peeked my head out of the bathroom door since I had just finished washing my hands. They were already in the office and firing a few bullets. Their backs were towards me so I just made a run for the flight of stairs. I didn’t really get a good look at them.”
“That’s okay, Agnes. That’ll help. You saw two of them, though?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. What kinds of guns did they have? Do you know gun types at all?”
“No.”
“That’s okay. Just do the best you can to describe them to me. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
Jon smiled to himself again as he crouched down and inched closer to the police car. Kate had seemed like such a hard ass, but here she was with a gentle and sweet side, too.
Another batch of bullet spray rained down from the rooftop. Bullets and ricochets were all over the street and it sounded to Jon as if a box full of ball bearings had gotten loose in the dryer. Bender was on his cell phone yelling at Jerry to stop the media from interfering, Kate had jumped into the patrol car to protect Mrs. Landingham, and Stanley was yelling at his officers to return fire. Jon slammed himself against the back tire of the police car and stayed still.
The volley lasted about fifteen seconds even though it felt like years to Jon. When the ringing in his ears subsided, Jon heard Agnes sobbing and Kate trying to console her.
“Tell me about the guns, please. What do you remember?”
“One was a machine gun, I could tell.”
“Tell us something we couldn’t figure out, you stupid bitch.” Sgt. Stanley muttered as he pulled out a cigarette.
Kate shot Stanley a death gaze for a split second and then turned her attention back to the hysterically sobbing woman. “I know this is hard, Agnes. I really do, but we’re going to send someone up there to help them and we have to know what they will be facing. I need to know what you can tell me. “
Agnes continued to cry. Kate glanced at Walter and threw up her eyebrows in a “What do I do now?” look. Walter’s hand patted the air like a construction worker telling you to slow down. “Be patient” was his silent reply.
“Agnes?” Kate ventured. The woman had retreated back into her fear. Kate looked around to be sure she could stand up safely. “Okay, Agnes. I’m going to be right against the building over there. If you think of anything else that might help us, let me know by coming over to me, knocking on the window, something, okay?” All Kate got back was sobs in reply.
Kate looked down at Jon, grabbed his shirt by the collar, and physically drug him back toward Bender. “We lost her, Bender. That last volley scared her back into her cocoon. She’s not coming back for a while. All we basically know is two hostage takers, one machine gun-“
Jon cut her off. “Maybe two.”
Kate glowered at him. “Doubtful, Jon. She doesn’t know guns, but she singled out one as a machine gun which means that she saw the second gun and it wasn’t a machine gun.”
“Maybe they have a backup machine gun,” Jon muttered.
“Quit it, you two!” Walter took command. “Jon, I appreciate the help, but you’re here as an observer. What the hell were you doing out there in the line of fire?”
“I-“
“Don’t care. Now, word has it that Chad, one of our other agents,” Walter added for Jon’s sake, “ was in the area. He entered the building, but we have no idea where he is, we can’t get a hold of him. Kate, I want you to go up the stairs on the east side. Landingham came out the west side, so it’s possible the shooters don’t know about the east staircase. Be careful and don’t get anyone hurt. Take them out if you can, if not, get the hostages to safety.”
Kate pulled a gun from the back waistband of her pants. “Got it.” She pulled out an extra clip also and checked that it was full before retiring both items back into her pants. Kate also took off her trenchcoat and handed it to Bender.
Stanley was watching the exchange as he lit up. As he saw Kate check her gun, he walked over to the group. “You’ve got forty minutes young lady. Forty minutes. I know you have jurisdiction because you are federal, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you get more people killed! My guys go up in forty minutes. If you know what’s best for you, You’d better be clear when they arrive.” Stanley threw his cigarette at Kate’s feet, turned on his heel and walked quickly to his patrol car to get on the radio.
“Asshole.” Kate stomped on the butt and started walking casually towards the Zion Towers.
Jon and Bender stood where they were. “Walter?” Jon asked.
“Yeah?”
“His guys?”
“Pardon me?”
“Sgt. Stanley said his guys go up in forty minutes. What does that mean?”
“Stanley has a tactical SWAT team. He calls them his guys. We call them his suicide squad. They’re trained to not take any prisoners. All they do is make sure that the public doesn’t have to keep the bad guys alive in prison and they don’t care if they take out members of the community while they do it. They’re good, but a little overkill.”
“Why don’t they get brought up on charges?”
“They’re cops. They tell the story they want to tell since there are no survivors to contradict them. Stanley usually puts their casualties along with the bad guys numbers to make the good guys squeaky clean and the bad guys even worse.” Bender spit on the sidewalk.
They stood and watched in silence as Kate slipped into the shadows and sidled up against the building. She pulled her gun as she pulled the stairway door open. She looked back at Bender and gave him thumbs up. Walter pulled a radio out of his coat pocket and turned it on. Kate’s voice came out.
“I’m in, Bender. I don’t know what’s up, but it looks like the main power is gone.” Kate disappeared through the door and out of sight. Her voice lowered to a whisper on the radio. “All I have are the annoying red emergency lights in here. I’m getting a goddamn headache already.”
“Be careful, Kate. Take your time especially with impaired vision.”
“Roger, Walter.” Kate’s voice opened to a smile for the slight joke.
Jon cleared his throat. “Is she going to be okay?”
“She’s the best we’ve got, Jon. She always comes through. That’s why we put her on you.”
There was radio silence for a long two minutes. Then, the radio crackled to life. “I’m on the fourth floor stairwell. Nothing yet. It’s deadly quiet. Too quiet almost.” Another minute or so of radio silence.
Jon watched Stanley radioing for his team. Stanley was yelling into his dispatch radio and making exaggerated motions with his arms.
“I’m on seven,” came Kate’s voice. “Almost up to the floor where it all happened.”
“Take your time. Be safe. Don’t worry about Stanley’s squad.”
“I’m okay.” Again radio silence.
Even the street had gone strangely quiet. It was almost as if the crowd of bystanders knew something important was happening. Jon could feel his hands start to shake ever so slightly.
“Bender?”
“She’s okay, kid.”
A long silence. Jon caught himself not breathing a time or two. He tried to force himself to breathe which made him too concentrated on it so he ended up almost feeling light headed.
“Bender?”
It seemed as if Walter could read his mind. “I don’t talk to her. I don’t want to break her concentration. I let her talk to me whenever she needs to.”
Another long silence. Jon could hear cars pulling up on a few side streets. He noticed men dressed in black walking behind him and going over to Stanley. The first few members of the squad must have just shown up, Jon thought.
With no warning, a loud round of gunfire was heard from inside the building. It came in stereo when Bender’s came to life. “Shit!” Kate swore as a loud clanging of metal interfered with the radio reception slightly.
Bender’s knuckles were going white as he gripped the radio. “Come on, Kate. What’s going on?”
Jon had stopped breathing again.
“Bender! You there?”
“I’m here, Kate!”
“I’m on the twelfth. It seems like they just shot blindly down the stairwell. I’ve been quiet. I think they each had a machine gun based on the amount of bullets and just fired them both blindly and shot. I heard the door open and then some footsteps onto the metal entryway and then the shots. I never heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but maybe I missed them because my ears are ringing so much but I didn’t hear them. They shot blindly went back outside on the roof I think but got me.”
Jon’s eyes widened along with Bender’s. “Got you?” Bender repeated. “Please confirm!”
“That’s affirmative, Sarge. Not bad, but I’m still hit.”
Jon put his hand over Bender’s and pressed the Talk button. “You’re on the twelfth?”
“Jon? Is that you?”
Bender took control of the radio again. “Yes, Kate, that was Jon, but,” he glared at Jon, “he’s just an observer. He’s not to get involved! Where are you hit, Kate?”
“In the side of the leg just above the ankle. I think it’s a through and through. It hurts like hell, but I’m okay.”
“Are you safe to talk this much, Katie?”
“I dove through the door into the main part of the building. I’m up against the door so I can hear anyone coming down. I’ve already used up one magazine. I have two backups so I’ll be okay as far as ammo goes.” She took several deep labored breaths. “I’m going to continue up.”
“Have you seen anything?”
“I stopped on the eighth for a quick look, but didn’t see much. A few holes in family pictures and walls, but they didn’t do much damage to that floor. I think they just fired to get everyone good and scared and took them up to the roof. I did find a size 12 Reebok. It looked like Chad’s but I can’t be sure.”
Walter closed his eyes. “Be careful, Kate. Chad is probably up there with the rest of them. They may try to use him as a bargaining chip. Just be prepared for anything. Hell, if you want to, you can even wait for backup. I’ll get some more of our agents down here, and-“
“They’ll never make it before Stanley sends his guys up here. I’m going.”
“Be careful,” Bender repeated.
The sound of the door to the stairwell could be heard opening as the radio went silent again.
“Dammit, Chad! What the hell happened?” Bender made a motion as if he was going to throw the radio against the wall in anger but kept a tight hold on it.
“Bender?”
Walter spun and put a warning finger in Jon’s face. “Not now, Jon. Not now.”
“I’m on thirteen,” came Kate’s voice, “and something seems wrong.”
Walter pushed the talk button, but released his thumb without saying a word.
“It’s too quiet. I don’t like it. I can’t hear anything.”
Just then, another loud round of gunfire came through the radio and through the air. The crowd flinched visibly and several people started crying. Agnes scrambled to get out of the police car but fell out instead, hitting her head on the pavement
Jon grabbed the radio out of Bender’s hands. “Kate! Kate! Are you okay? What’s up?
“Jon, I think we’re in serious shit up here!” More gunfire. “There’s more than two, there has to be. They’re firing and there are ricochets and bullets all around! Get Bender!”
Walter grabbed the radio out of Jon’s hands. “Kate! Get to safety! Abort! I repeat, abort! Go into the building, take the other stairs, take the elevators, just get your ass back down here and we will regroup! If we have to, we can let Stanley’s guys take them, just get out now!”
More gunfire was the reply from the radio.
“No, Bender, Chad’s up there! I’m going! Shit!”
Jon grabbed the radio. “Kate! Are you still on thirteen?”
“Yes, Jon! I am!”
“I’m coming!” Jon went to put the radio in his pocket. He was grabbed roughly by the collar for the third time that day.
“You are staying right here!” Bender yelled.
Kate’s muffled voice came from underneath Jon’s palm. “Bender! Send backup! Send the squad, send more agents, just get me backup up here now!” Single shots could be heard as Kate was trying to kill something, anything. Bender ripped the radio out of Jon’s hand again and let go of Mills.
“We already have two agents up there, Kate! You and Chad! I can’t risk any other agents right now!”
“Send Jon!”
“No way! No how! No backup! Especially not Jon!”
“Then kiss my ass goodbye!” Several more single shots could be heard through the torrents of machine gun fire and then the radio went dead.
“Dammit!” This time Bender did throw the radio against the wall where it shattered in minute pieces.
“Jon, you have to understand-“ As Walter turned around, Jon was nowhere to be found. Bender saw the east side door on the Zion Towers thrown open and watched as Jon disappeared into the red-tinted darkness.
“Good luck,” Walter sighed as he looked at his watch. “You’ve got just under twenty minutes.”

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Jon sat quietly in the backseat of the Lumina. He was not handcuffed or restrained in any way, but the two men had made it perfectly clear that they were in no mood for games. The car had taken two entire trips around the Salt Lake City belt route highways. Tall guy was driving and kept checking his side and rear view mirrors every other second. Jon could tell he wanted to make sure that they had not been followed. Problem was, Jon was curious how much time Tall actually spent in watching the road.
“If this is about Mrs. Perry, I can apologize,” Jon said softly.
Shorter guy smiled a bit. “It has nothing to do with Mrs. Perry, Jon.”
Jon stared at Shorter for a while. “How do you know my name?” Jon finally asked.
“We know a lot about you, actually.” Shorter started to turn in his seat as if to talk to Jon. Tall cleared his throat and Shorter turned around again.
Feeling that he had at least one semi-friendly guy in the car, Jon felt bolstered in his confidence. “Where are you guys taking me?”
“If you’ll be patient, you’ll see,” Taller replied.
“Why am I under arrest?”
“You’re not actually under arrest,” Taller told him with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
“If I’m not under arrest, then you can’t detain me and I can go whenever I please.”
“Actually, no, you can’t. This is something bigger.”
“But not in a bad way!” Shorter hastened to add.
“I know my rights around here, pal! If you know so much about me, then you know that last year I was third highest in the 7 classes of Law & the Courts! I know that you have to have Ips Post Facto!” Taller glared at Jon through the rearview mirror. “Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc?” Jon ventured. “Habeas corpus?” There was silence from the front seat. Even Shorter had seemed to shut down. “I’ll just be back here if either of you need me.” Jon slouched back down in the seat.
Another few minutes passed before Taller felt it was safe enough to get off of the freeway. They were back on the West Side of town. Not too far from where Jon’s high school was. So, if that was true, was it really that important that no one had followed them? Jon wondered. Taller knew right where he was going as he dove into neighborhood with lots of winding roads, dead ends, and cul de sacs.
After another few minutes of winding through the neighborhood, and Jon was sure that they had passed the same houses 4 or 5 times, the car finally stopped in the driveway of an old, dilapidated home.
“Whatever it was that I did and you guys don’t like, just tell me what it is, and I’ll stop,” Jon whispered.
“It’s not us,” Taller told him. “We’re just the delivery boys. Now, get out.”
Jon jumped a little as his door opened. Shorter had already gotten out and was waiting for Jon to do the same. Slowly, Jon got out and let Shorter close the car door behind him. Jon surveyed the scene. He had gone in so many circles over the last hour that he was sure he couldn’t find his way out of this neighborhood. Even if he could, Taller could find him first. There was nothing left to do but follow the cops, if that’s what they were.
Faded lime green siding was flapping free in the breeze all along the house. Bushes and trees that hadn’t been trimmed or pruned in years were scraping, reaching, and embracing the house. The old wooden stairs had been painted white long ago, but what was left of the paint seemed like an afterthought to the peeling of the wood.
Jon reached the rusty and creaky screen door. He could sense that Taller and Shorter were mere inches behind him. If Jon had turned, he probably would have been staring at Taller eye to eye. Slowly, he reached for the door handle.
The screen door dropped off of its hinge at Jon’s touch. Jon jumped and then felt the cold sweat start down his forehead. He feebly tried to repair the clearly busted screen as Taller and Shorter didn’t lift a finger to help. Finally, Jon gave up and tried the actual door handle. He was surprised as Taller’s arm shot from behind him and gave 3 resonating, loud raps on the door.
A stocky man in a dark blue double-breasted suit opened the door. As Stocky leaned away from the entranceway, Jon caught the silvery glint of a gun handle tucked neatly away under the man’s armpits. Stocky just stood there like one of the Queen’s Royal Guards.
Jon smiled a weak half-smile. “Hi,” Jon croaked. “How can I help you?” was his lame attempt at humor.
Stocky stared right past him at Shorter. Shorter replied with an answer that seemed to appease Stocky. “This is the ticket. Which theater?”
Stocky reached up to his shoulder and pressed down the communicate button on the walkie-talkie that was velcroed there. “Previews ready?” A staticky reply came. “Roger.” Stocky moved aside. “This way, Mr. Mills.” Taller and Shorter stayed their ground as Jon walked into the dimly lit house past Stocky. There was one rickety folding chair placed on the hardwood floor with a mound of magazines next to it in the otherwise empty room. The top copy was a tabloid with some headline about a baby who was struggling to survive as its mother lay in a coma. Jon smirked at Stocky’s reading material choices. To each his own, Jon thought. Better than Shakespeare.
Mills was startled back into the reality of the situation as he heard steel bars lock down on the door behind him. He turned as Stocky motioned to the door just across the room. Jon weakly tried another joke. “Nice crack house,” he said but instantly regretted it. What if it really was a crack house? Jon walked to the door.
“Hands raised, please.” Jon quickly did as he was told. Stocky gave him a good frisking, giving him a quizzical look as he felt the wad of Jon’s house keys. “House keys,” was all Jon had to say to appease him. Stocky walked Jon even closer to the door and Jon noticed something quite peculiar. The door handle was abnormally large. There was no keyhole just a slit in the perfect center of the knob. Stocky leaned over and slipped in a “credit card key”. A loud click immediately followed and Stocky opened the door. “Wait in there,” he told Jon. Jon moved forward into the next room and heard the same loud click as the door shut behind him, leaving him in an identically empty room as the previous one. This time, though, there was not even a chair or magazines.
“Cozy place for a crack house,” Jon mumbled. “Nothing a little napalm and a new screen door couldn’t take care of.”
The room had no windows and only two doors. The one door he had just come through and on the adjacent wall another door identical to the first door. Jon leaned against the door that had just shut. Then, after a few moments, he walked forward to the next door. But, then, he thought, what if something comes out of that door that I don’t like? I don’t want to be that close to it. So, Jon backed into the center of the room. And stood there.
A long 30 seconds dragged by as he shuffled his weight from foot to foot. He wasn’t sure if he should speak or not to the empty room. Then, another loud click emanated from the second door. Then, nothing.
Another few moments of silence followed as Jon waited for something. For ANYTHING. But, nothing happened, so he slowly made his way to the second door. He braced himself as he touched the handle feeling like he was in his own horror movie and a vampire would come screeching out at him as his fingers touched the knob. But, that of course, didn’t happen. In fact, again, nothing happened. Jon could hear a small whir on the other side of the door and, with great trepidation, opened it.
The whir was a small fan in the ceiling of a 1 person sized elevator. Jon stepped in and waited. Again, nothing. Then, seeing that the door hadn’t closed all the way, he reached out and pulled the door tight. The elevator immediately zipped downward.
As far as elevators go, it was a normal elevator. Just very small and with a selection of floor number buttons on the side. The -3 was lit, so Jon assumed he was going wherever he needed to go, like it or not.
The elevator slowed down and stopped. There was a momentary pause before the door opened. In that split second, Jon prepared for a hail of gunfire, for a dingy basement filled with lowlife scum….
Instead, as the doors opened, Jon saw a bright white office! And not the boring, uptight office with dark impersonal cubicles and carpet everywhere to deaden the noise. No, this actually looked like a fun office, well, as much fun as an office could be, Jon thought.
The walls had been freshly painted a bright white, which was brought out even more by the hundreds of 100-watt track lighting systems installed in the room. Instead of tall, dark cubicles, these had small partitions, rising only about 3 feet from the floor. The computers were large, but there was plenty of workspace. Enough room to have several reports spread out and also hold a plant, several personal photos and a lunch. The floor was the white linoleum usually only found in supermarkets, but this stuff was clean and new! All the employees were dressed well, but not in necessarily normal office attire. There were loads of jeans, t-shirts, sneakers, leather jackets, and the like, but it didn’t look bad or scruffy at all.
After standing there and taking it all in, Jon realized he was supposed to get out there, so he took a tentative step into the office. He was almost run over by a woman wearing a jogging suit holding a large block cell phone. “Sorry!” he called as she kept going down the aisle waving her acceptance.
Jon wandered up to a cubicle and hung around until its occupant turned around and looked at him. “How can I help you?” the man asked while he covered the mouthpiece of the phone he was talking on.
“Hi. I was sent down here. Is there someone I need to talk to?”
The man put up his finger and went back to talking on the phone. “Yes. Yes. I know, Harold. No, you can’t-. Yes. Okay. Okay. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone. “Yes, sorry. Um, the boss is in the corner office.” He picked up the phone again. “Want me to call him for you?”
Jon hesitated with his answer as the man scratched his red beard. “Me? To call him? For you?” the man asked again.
“Am I in trouble?” Jon asked.
The man’s blue eyes squinted as if he had just been told a joke he didn’t quite get. “Not that I know of,” he said slowly. “Why would you be?”
“I don’t know. I mouthed off at the teacher this morning. Could that be it?”
The man’s eyes narrowed a bit more. “Doubtful,” he started dialing the phone. “Hi. I have someone out here to see you,” he paused, “I think. His name is-“ the phone dropped to the man’s Adam’s apple, “What is your name?”
“Mills. Jonathan Mills.”
“Yes, sir. That’s him.” The man said to the phone. “Right away.” He hung up the phone. “Mr. Mills, Walter Bender is waiting for you just down the hall there.” The man smiled and held up his hand. “I’m Jerry. Pleasure to meet you.”
Jon shook his hand. “Thanks.” He leaned down. “What is this place?”
Jerry grinned even larger. “Walter’s waiting.”
“Thanks.” Jon turned and headed down the hallway where he saw a door open up. Behind him, the room had gone slightly still with a buzz of whispering. Jon slowed as he neared the office, took a deep breath and entered.
The office resembled a cross between a lawyer’s office and a classroom. There was a large mahogany desk in the front with bookshelves lined with large, expensive looking books and 4 leather chairs facing it. But the rest of the furniture seemed very out of place: an old overstuffed 1970’s lime green couch, a very roughly used chalkboard and a nerf basketball hoop over the overflowing garbage can. Right by the door was a man about 50 years old, a full head of white hair, and a beer gut. He was dressed in a gray sweat suit, which read NYPD across the shirt, and down the left pantleg.
“Jon, glad to meet you again, officially.”
“Excuse me?” Jon entered the office and the man shut the door.
“We met this morning at the school.”
“Was I awake?”
“You bumped into me as I entered your principal’s office.”
“That was you?” The man nodded. “Is that why I was arrested? I didn’t know who you were, and, I, still don’t, but if I knew it was an offense, I mean, I have only been driving for, like, a few years, so I couldn’t possibly know all the laws, so, if there are walking laws that I have never heard of that apply to driving the same way-“
“It’s okay, Jon.” The man smiled and motioned for Jon to sit in one of the leather chairs and then sat himself. “It has nothing to do with that. I did talk to your principal about you and he told me that you were a fine student with a good head on your shoulders, but also, a bit of attitude. He also told me that the attitude was nowhere near as strong as your friends, though.” The man took a breath. “My name is Walter Bender.”
“I know. Jerry told me.”
“Good. Glad to see that you’re making friends already.”
“Friends? At what?”
“Your country needs you, Jon.”
“My country?” Jon hesitated. “My country? How is it MY country? I can’t vote yet.”
Walter smiled. “That is true, but it will be your country soon enough. You’re-“ he picked up a folder from the mahogany desk, “-17 years old. You’ll be able to vote for local government in two years and national next time it comes around, 4 years from now. Trust me, Jon, those years will go by fast.”
Jon sensed that he was treating him like a long lost nephew or something. “Do I know you at all?”
Again, Walter smiled. “No, but I know you. Two years ago, this office was established here in Salt Lake. Offices like this have been popping up in cities since the mid ‘80’s. Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco- all the big cities. About 5 years ago, we started going to the other not so big cities, and Salt Lake came online about 2 years ago. We started combing through local records to find the ones who would suit our needs. Not too smart, not too dumb, not too flashy, not too boring. We wanted to pull from the top tier, but not the very top person. The very top people are too well known. They make themselves known. We need people who can skirt in under the radar. We need people who can fit in, but don’t watch too much Jerry Springer, if you know what I mean. We need-“
Jon broke him off. “Who the hell is we?”
He smiled at Jon yet again. “I thought you would have figured it out by now. We are called the Small Agency. We are the CIA.”
“Excuse me?”
“We’re the CIA. An offshoot, actually. Back in the 1970’s, after Watergate and all of that mess, President Carter decided that we needed a version of homeland security. In his budget analysis in 1977, he included one line that gave us the one hundred million dollars we needed to start up. We are included in the CIA’s budget, but no one ever even questions the money. Some of our guys are part of the budget panel for the CIA, the Congress, and the House. That’s how we get the funding.
We wouldn’t need to worry about any international incidents or the like. We would just kind of be like a local police force, undercover. We would stop some of the things that could have harmed many people. We were here to save Americans from themselves. We have stopped many terrible things that no one has ever even heard a peep about.”
“Like what?”
“You wouldn’t know about them if I told you because we stopped them. An example of the kinds of things that we stop are things like President Reagan being shot.”
“You didn’t stop that.”
“That’s why you’ve heard of it. One of our agents was covering a suspected problem. We had heard about this guy who was a loner, who had certain marks of what we call trouble centers. We were probably only about a day behind him. If he would have postponed his attack a day or two, it never would have happened.”
“Agents? At a high school? Don’t you stick out a bit?”
“You didn’t pay any attention to me this morning. I could have been a contractor, a parent, a grandparent, a teacher not ready for work yet, any number of things. Teenagers don’t care about anyone but themselves as a general rule. They’re too worried about other things in their lives to notice what’s really happening. That’s why we started the search. The more young people that we can train to blend in, the easier it will be to get the real low down on what is really happening. We have already recruited and started training kids from the age of 6 up to 19 and 20.”
“Train? From the age of 6? What can a six-year-old do? Shoot out a guy’s ankles?”
For the first time, Walter Bender seemed slightly annoyed. “No guns are given to six year olds, Jon. That would be ridiculous! You ask what a six-year-old can do? Think about it! In just six short years, this small child has, for the most part, become fluent in a language! They can be taught to listen for things and repeat them back. The older students can write relatively well informed reports about situations. The punctuation may be lacking, but it’s quite easy for them. The older kids can start to go undercover as, say, pizza delivery drivers, or other roles in which a fifty year old man looks, shall we say, not quite convincing? I have done those jobs, but it makes people remember you. Who really remembers what the sixteen year old who delivered their pizza looks like?”
“Fair point.”
“So that’s what we do. We find the talented ones who we think can fit in and blend and help us in the best ways. As I was saying, two years ago, we went through all the school records in the state to find the kids who had done well at their studies, but not too well. For those who were social, but not involved in too many activities. It took about a year to get the list down to the top two hundred. We then sent out agents to watch, survey, and take notes. You, Jonathan Mills, have been under surveillance for-“ he consulted his file again, “-the last 10 months. Looks like we started watching over you just after the New Year. And one thing has come into strong focus. You are the best in the state to take care of your age range in this area. We want to start training you to be part of what we just refer to as The Agency.”
There was a long silence as Bender looked at Jon.
Jon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Jon looked Walter in the face as he took his next breath. “You overdosed on your medication this morning, didn’t you?” Jon stood up. “Are you insane? Listen to yourself! Basically, you’re telling me that you want me to become a 17 year old agent in a super secret spy organization that is so secret the government barely knows it exists? You’re also telling me that you have tracked me and looked at all of my grades and files and you think you know me better than I know me?" Jon stopped his rampage and looked at Walter. "How do I get back to the elevator?”
The door opened and Jon recognized the motorcycle woman from this morning as she walked in with another stack of files. She was still wearing tight blue jeans, a long pair of black leather boots and a black T-shirt with an unzipped maroon leather jacket over it. The motorcycle woman’s red hair was given a flip as she turned to talk to Jon. “Just straight down the hall and to the left is the easiest way, but I suggest you sit back down for at least a few more minutes.”
Jon did as he was told.
The woman entered the room and pulled a chair around so that she was facing Jon at a slight angle from in front of the desk. “I am Kate Thompson. I have been the one following you. I was the one put on you from the beginning.”
Jon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His face was growing redder by the second.
Kate continued. “This is no joke, Jon. You fit every attribute we’re looking for. You’re smart. You have a 3.6659 GPA. You are in the drama and debate clubs. You have many acquaintances at school, but only two very close friends. You are loyal to a fault. You have a good home life with loving parents. You are an only child. You have your parent’s trust, which gives you no curfew. They know that you are safe and don’t worry if you come home extremely late because you often go to midnight movies and eat at 24-hour restaurants afterwards. You aren’t a jock per se, but you have a relatively well rounded knowledge of sports. You aren’t the fastest or smartest, but I think, and I’m sure Walter will back me up on this, this is only because you don’t want to kill yourself off. You know you’re smarter than most of the students in the school, hell, even some of the staff. High school is easy and you just want to coast on by and have fun while maintaining good grades.
You don’t date. For some incomprehensible reason, you tend to just spend time with your friends and you are oblivious to the fact that there are at least 2 dozen girls waiting for you to ask them out. You are what most girls want in a guy. A funny, understanding, and sensitive guy with a decent body. Aleisha is just waiting for you to make the first move.”
Jon raised his finger, pointing at Kate, but she didn’t even take a breath.
“Your two friends are a good match for you. One is more of the athletics driven guy, but who also cares more about people than status, and the other is a class clown who, for some unknown reason, also seems to care more about people than he lets on. They keep you grounded and, dating aside, you have all three helped each other in the other’s weak areas.
You have a strong work ethic. When you’re preparing for a play, you are the first to arrive and the last to leave. You donate time to the local old folks home-”
Jon found his voice. “Don’t you think that’s a little odd for a 17 year old?”
“Definitely,” Kate replied. “Do you realize that all it would take is a small push and you could be king of the school? Jock, Drama Guy, dating guy, valedictorian, the world could be yours? But that doesn’t matter to you. You have your own likes and dislikes, and certain boundaries that you won’t cross. You are perfect for us.”
The room was silent. Jon was thankful for the break of continuous information that he had been given for the last half an hour. His head was spinning.
“So?” Walter leaned forward. “Will you join us?”
Jon leaned back in his chair and bent his head back as far as his neck would allow. He closed his eyes tightly and brought his palms up to rub them vigorously. As he straightened up in his seat again, his fingers went behind his head and laced themselves into a supporting position for the back of his head. “You want an answer now?”
Kate kept a fixed stare on him. “We need one now. If you don’t want to join, I need to get tracking another guy to train.”
Jon perked up ever so slightly. ”You would train me?”
“That’s my job. I’m the trainer of the people I decide to focus on. Walter and I have talked at great length about you. We both feel you could be instrumental in our caseloads. But, since this is a free country, you can always say no, and then we’d have to kill you right on the spot.” Jon froze. He even stopped breathing. “I’m kidding about the death thing.” She gave Jon a smile that looked like it didn’t happen too often. Her face’s creases didn’t seem to look quite right. “Jesus, we’re not going to kill your parent’s only child, let alone son.”
“But you are willing to let me go on missions where I will presumably be faced with death at every turn?”
“No one lives forever, Jon. Unless you’re James Bond.” Kate gave the same not quite right smile.
“Kate is right, Jon. We will need to know soon. Not immediately of course, but within the next few days. She will need to get going on another potential candidate as soon as possible if we can’t bring you in.” Walter leaned closer.
Jon looked at his watch. “7 hours ago, I was in my principal’s office worried that I may get another week of detention, I had forgotten my math assignment and my lecture posterboards at home, I was petrified of giving a presentation in front of-“ Jon glared at Kate, “-Aleisha Madsen, and the world was basically fire bad, tree pretty. Now, as I said before, I am being asked to be part of a secret government agency? It’s going to take some time, man.”
Walter looked at Kate and she gave a large sigh as she stood up. Walter picked the phone up from its cradle and started punching in numbers. “Understand that this is very top secret,” she said. “You don’t share it with anyone. I will contact you at some point tomorrow between 5 and 9 PM. At that point, you give us your answer.” She extended her hand.
Jon stood up and shook her hand. “Sounds fine to me. I think I just need to let all of this settle in. It seems a little strange.”
Walter stood also and walked to the door. “Very understandable, Jon. I just want to let you know that no matter what you decide, we’re proud of you. We know that you will make a good citizen down the road.” Walter opened the door.
Jon gave him a sideways glance as he shook his hand. “Thanks. I think.” Jon turned to his right and bumped into Jerry, who was running down the corridor. “Excuse me, I’m sorry.” Jon apologized.
He didn’t even acknowledge Jon. “Walter!” Jerry shouted. Jon kept walking. “We’ve got a problem!”
All of a sudden Jon noticed his shoe seemed to need re-tying. As he bent down, he tilted his head towards the group of Walter, Kate, and Jerry.
“What’s going on?” Kate asked
“Shots fired downtown. One man and one woman injured. One woman possibly killed. Hostage situation unknown amount of hostages. SLCPD has been called already. Sgt. Stanley is on his way.”
“Stanley? Dammit!” Bender shut the door to his office. “Get a car and meet Kate and I at the parking lot gate. We need to be there ten minutes ago!” Jerry hurried off.
Kate started walking down the hall and noticed Jon still tying his shoe. “Not too subtle, Mills, but if you want to see what we do, you have about 2 seconds to follow me!” Kate rushed down the hall.
Jon’s face went red again. He stood up quickly and fell in place behind Walter as they headed through a door next to the elevator that led to the car garage, wondering what kind of Ludlamesque organization he had stumbled into.

Chapter 1

You may be wondering why this blog is called Movie Man Mills. The Movie Man, if you know me, should be evident. But, the Mills part doesn't seem to make sense. So, now I will let you all know!
Jon Mills is the main character in a book that I am writing. It is the first book in a planned series of eleven books. In the first book, he is a senior in high school and, in the planned last story, he is around 50.
I am almost done with the first book, but, after the events of the last year, I am finding it hard to write and get my thoughts and ideas out, so, I came up with this plan.....
I am going to post a chapter every day, Monday-Friday of my book. I am quite a ways ahead at this time, but, as I post more and more chapters, I will need to keep writing to finish, so, I figured a bit of peer pressure may work.
I just ask 2 things of you, my readers: 1- If you llike it, pass it on, let someone else know. 2- Please give me valid constructive criticism. Let me know what is good, what is bad, and everything in between.
Thank you, and, without fuurther ado- Chapter one of Time Out!

TIME OUT!


Monday October 25th, 1989

CHAPTER 1


As always, morning came too early. Jon Mills slammed his fist down onto his alarm clock, which read 4:45.
“Every day,” he muttered in his gravelly morning voice.
Slowly, he swung his feet onto the floor and put a little weight on them. Not too bad this morning, he half-thought. Jon put his hands on the edge of his bed and pushed himself into standing position. Unfortunately, he was too tired to resist the forward motion, so he continued with Newton’s Law and slammed face first into the floor.
“Perfect. Just perfect.”


Jon drug himself into the hallway and turned on the light in the bathroom. He winced as the light struck his green eyes. His hand shot out and turned off the switch. No need for that this morning, he thought. I can shower in the dark. He did, however, need music. He turned on the radio in the corner and listened as the Doobies rocked out to China Grove. He played the air guitar with gusto as the soap dripped down his 6 foot 2 inch frame. He massaged the shampoo into his thatch of thick brown hair. He sang along
as China Grove gave way to Bowie’s Golden Years.
Toweling off, Jon heard the KLZX morning team of Carter & Bammes open up the contest lines. The question this morning was: Which Oscar Winning writer is celebrating his 44th birthday today?
“David S. Ward,” Jon muttered as he tossed the wet white towel into the empty green clothes hamper and went into his room.
The Han Solo poster on his bedroom door fluttered as he sped past it to get into his usual school attire: a slightly faded pair of jeans, some very worn-in and comfortable white tennis shoes, and a white T-shirt. Today’s shirt read: So many films, so little time. He flipped off the radio in the bathroom and headed into the kitchen.
By now, his eyes were ready to face the day. Lights were blazing all over the house. He turned on the TV to a station he only watched in the morning. It gave him a sense of rhythm for the rest of his day. It woke him up, put a smile on his face, and gave him just enough information about a subject he didn’t care to know, but felt he needed to encounter his best friend Stan. He turned on TSC- the Trager Sports Channel. There was a rebroadcast of the previous evening’s SportsTime, which gave him the highlights and lowlights of the sports world.
“I’m Casey Rydell alongside Dan McCall. Tonight on SportsTime, soccer, hockey, and cricket,” read the sports announcer.
And his partner continued. “ And I’m Dan McCall alongside Casey Rydell. Those stories plus we’ve got Kelly Patrick reporting from Riverside, Bobbi Bernson in Seattle, and 7 days until Salt Lake.”
“All that and Dana Hurley, our associate producer herself, reporting live with our preparations for this week’s big game. You’re watching SportsNight on TSC, so stick around.”
Jon strode into the kitchen and opened the bread up with gusto and tossed 4 slices into the toaster. There were several pieces of paper stapled together on the kitchen counter with a yellow post-it note on the top sheet. He read the note.

Good Morning Sunshine!

We hope we didn’t wake you up when we left this morning at 2. If we did, you can come home and take a nap today after school. I wish your Uncle Gary could tell us he was getting married more than 3 days before the big event, but… that’s your Uncle Gary. We will be back home next Tuesday morning bright and early. Please take care of the plants. Make sure the lawn is mowed. Get your homework done on time. Go to bed at some point before 1 every night. Yes, Greg and Stan can come over, but no huge parties! Good luck on your presentation today and good luck at the talent show tryouts tomorrow. You’ll do great! There are 3 twenties and a ten in your dad’s top drawer if you want to go and get pizza or treats. Have a great week without us!


It was signed by his mom, in her perfect school teacher penmanship, and by his dad, with no penmanship. He picked up the stapled sheets. There were 8 of them. Each represented a day and had the chores that needed to be done for that day. He saw that lawn mowing was today’s major chore, with watering the large jade plant in the entryway a close second. He folded the list in half and tossed it across the kitchen into the garbage can.
SportsTime was back on the air after a commercial timeout. Dan started things off.
“ This Saturday night, the entire SportsTime staff will be reporting live from Salt Lake City for the barn burning spectacle of the first pre-season game between the high school teams of the Cottonwood Colts and the Taylorsville Warriors. Why do we care about these two high school teams who have never registered on a national level before? For that, let’s go to Dana Hurley in Salt Lake with a very familiar face.”
“Thanks, Dan. Chris Grissom was known as the Wilt Chamberlain of the NFL with different girls every night. But, 3 years ago, with a paternity suit brought against him here in Salt Lake; he was proven as the father of a gifted 13-year-old basketball player. On Saturday, Grissom’s son, Junior, as he’s affectionately known, will be making his high school basketball debut and the sports world is bracing itself for another genius player.”
The toast popped up and startled Jon. He brushed his straight brown hair out of his eyes and grabbed a paper plate. Dana Hurley kept on talking about the big game in just a few days. Tossing the toast onto the plate, along with a slab of butter, he grabbed a single serving milk carton out of the fridge, his backpack from the top of the stairs, and headed out into the chilly morning air.
It was still dark outside and the sprinklers were on. He dodged the spray and headed out to the curb. The big black garbage can was already by his cold cement seat. His dad probably put it out before he left even though the garbage didn’t come until Tuesday. That was one of his dad’s pet peeves. The garbage. If there was a speck of garbage left in the can after the garbage truck came, Robert Mills would take it to the neighbor’s can across the street and place it on top, guaranteeing that it would leave his realm of existence. Jon sat on the curb next to the can, taking in a quick breath as the coldness of the cement leaked through his jeans. He ate his toast and drank his milk in the predawn silence.
Just as he finished his toast, Jon saw headlights flooding onto his neighbor’s lawn across the street. He stood up, guzzled the rest of his milk, and threw the greasy plate and the milk carton into the garbage can. An old, fake-wooden-sided station wagon pulled up, and Jon hopped into the middle seat. Greg Taylor was driving and Stan Ingle was in the passenger seat.
“Glad to see you this morning, Greg!” Jon said, unusually loud for this early morning meeting. “I thought that maybe you had forgotten about me!”
“Oh, come on!” Greg retorted. “I’ve only forgotten you once!”
“Twice!” Stan corrected. “Once on an early morning school drive, and once when we were in St. George.”
“Hey!” Greg turned to Stan. “He shouldn’t have gone to the bathroom! He could’ve held it until Vegas!”
Stan tilted his head back towards Jon and changed the subject. “Did you know that you left the TV on?”
“Probably,” Jon replied. “I think I also forgot to lock the door.”
“What were you watching?” Greg asked.
“SportsTime. They were talking about you guys, Stan. How are you feeling about the game on Saturday?” Jon asked as they pulled up to a red light.
“A little nervous. The whole country will be watching us because of Grissom’s son. Not fair, but true. If we lose, everyone will expect it. If we win, they’ll blame it on Junior’s subpar performance. Lose-lose either way. But, “ a grin crept onto Stan’s face, “if Dana Hurley will be there, it will help a lot.”
A motorcycle pulled up alongside the car. Jon didn’t know motorcycles, but he could tell the girl was definitely a hot one. Jon started his look at the long leather boots. That split to her tight blue jeans with the slight ridge just under her knees where Jon assumed the boots stopped. She was wearing a maroon leather jacket that was tight and showed off her thin, yet muscley and well filled out, frame. She was wearing a big black motorcycle helmet, but the cascading red hair out of the back of the helmet proved it was a woman. The rider glanced over at the car as the light turned green and she sped off.
Jon sat back in his seat, stretched, and shook his head. “Good freakin’ Monday morning to you, too.”


The trio walked into detention at 5:33 according to the room clock. Mrs. Perry, the detention supervisor, was sitting at her desk, already monitoring for any talking. She stood up briskly as they entered the room.
“3 minutes late today, gentlemen! 2 more and that would’ve meant another week of this! Now, Greg, you already know the rules, so find a seat and sit down while I fill in your two friends!” She glared down at Greg with her steely gray eyes that matched her peppered hair, until, without a word, he found a seat. “Now, as for you two, there will be no talking. There will be no sleeping. There will be no reading,” she emphasized this last word for Jon, “and, basically nothing of any kind! You will sit with your eyes up front, both hands clasped in front of you on the desk, legs bent at the knees and facing forward. You will do that until 7:45, when the first bell will ring. Then, you will quietly leave and go to your first class of the day. Any questions?”
Stan headed back to a seat near Greg. Even though he wouldn’t talk to him, it made it tolerable just being by your buddies. He heard Greg mutter, “Oh, shit,” and turned around. Jon had raised his hand.
Mrs. Perry raised her eyebrow. “Yes, Jon?”
Jon slowly brought his hand down with a smirk on his face. “Could you remind me why I’m here again?”
Stan stopped in his tracks. The whole class of forward facing students pivoted ever so slightly to get a look at the kid who dared to defy Mrs. Perry.
Mrs. Perry smiled icily. “You know why you’re here, Mr. Mills. Now, please, “ she gestured to the desks, “take a seat.”
Jon smiled back. “No. I really don’t. I don’t get your reasoning.”
“What don’t you get? You were reading inappropriate material in my classroom!”
“I was reading Stephen King!”
“You were reading inappropri-“
“It was Stephen King! You make it sound like I had a damn Playboy laid full out on my desk!”
“That will be more than enough, Mr. Mills!”
“What do you want me to do when I’m done with an assignment? Would you rather I CHATTED with my classmates? Would you rather I-“ Jon paused ever so slightly to find Mrs. Perry-esque word, “-ROUGHHOUSED? Should I bring in a CD player and crank up Metallica? What do you want?”
“I want you to sit quietly and read appropriate-“
“What is appropriate to you?” Jon asked exasperatedly.
“You could start with Twain-“
“Read him.”
“I know you read Tom sawyer. We read it last term.”
“No.” Jon paused. “I’ve read Twain. ALL of Twain. Mark Twain, not some other Twain. I started reading Twain at the age of 5 in my grandfather’s lap. If you try to tell me to read Poe, I would have no problem with that especially since he was his generation’s Stephen King, but you wouldn’t want to accept that. Started reading Poe at SIX on my grandfather’s lap. I’ve read ALL of Poe. My grandfather was an English teacher with 40 years experience before he died. Next.”
“Then, continue with Dickens…”
“Tried. Boring as hell. Next.”
“I don’t like your attitude, Mr. Mills. “
“Nor I yours, Mrs. Perry. Next.”
“There’s Nathaniel Hawthorne…”
“Only writes really long stories with morals that no one would argue with. Next.”
“Since you’re a drama enthusiast, try William Shakespeare-“
“Shakespeare’s a hack writer who felt that he could take story lines that not even General Hospital would use, make them 9 billion pages long, so that they must seem important, and fooled a lot of people into believing it! A lot like Kevin Costner, actually-“
“Jon! Mr. Cannon’s office! Now!”
Jon could almost hear the whistles of the wartime flutes as he imagined himself grabbing his baseball mitt and ball and heading off to the cooler- the principal’s office.


“I’m sorry, Mr. Cannon, “ Jon was explaining, “I was wrong for being so rude and ignorant to Mrs. Perry, but I don’t get it! I was reading a 700-page book! At a time when high schools are being sued by students who graduate and can’t even read, I would think that an English teacher would appreciate that!”
“Stephen King writes about devilish violence and sex! That type of writing can lead to-“
Jon broke in. “Nothing. No one has proven a thing. It’s reading. It’s not animal sacrificing! It’s not even virgin sacrificing for that matter! If you would prefer to read Chaucer or Dickens for fun, great! More power to ya! As for me, I’ll read King.”
It was Mr. Cannon’s turn to break in. “Jon, Mrs. Perry just wants what’s best for you. She has a good point. She wants you to have a good background on the classics.”
“I have one!” Jon argued. “I just don’t want to read books given to me by somebody else when I have finished my assignments, and I’ve already finished the book to be read for this quarter and next quarter!”
The principal turned to the teacher. “Mrs. Perry, Jon also has a point. He is reading, and comprehending, a 700-page book. That fact alone should assuage any problems with the content of the book for you, as long as it’s not pornographic or obscene. Now, here’s a plan. Jon, go upstairs and finish this detention period. You did speak rudely and curtly to your teacher. There’s only 40 minutes left. Mrs. Perry, I want you to write up a slightly altered book report form that he will answer in no less than ten pages about the literary value of the book, any book, he chooses to read in your class. You will grade it. If he passes it, nothing happens. If he fails it, he fails his next test. Sound fair?”
Mrs. Perry harrumphed in her corner. Jon nodded. “Sounds good to me. I can do ten pages in my sleep. Thank you, Mr. Cannon.” Jon stood up and shook his hand. “I’ll see you back there, Mrs. Perry,” Jon called as he opened the door. The door slammed into a smaller, more compact, older gentleman who stumbled backwards.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Jon apologized as he tipped his red and green brimmed baseball cap to the man, “I wasn’t expecting anyone else near here this early in the morning.”
“No problem, no problem.” The 50-ish year old guy in the gray trenchcoat muttered and patted him on the shoulder.
Jon watched him enter the office and ran up the stairs.


“I’ll catch you guys later!” Stan called as they left detention. “I was in there this morning for not being on time to practice. I don’t need detention again!” His friends waved him off as they returned to their lockers.
“You didn’t get any more detention?” Greg asked incredulously
“Nope. Just a ten page report. But, a ten-page report on King will be easy. I just have to write down how he describes the gray of a gate, and that’s fifteen pages right there!” They reached their lockers and started their combinations.
“How the hell are you going to type up a ten page paper with everything that’s going on?” Greg asked as he started stacking the books in his arms for history.
“I’ll make it,” Jon grunted as his lock stuck, again. “It’s ten pages. My parents are gone. I’ll type until three in the morning if I have to.” Jon used his fist to pound just above the lock and, after three tries, the lock opened up. The same history books started filling Jon’s arms.
Greg slammed his locker shut. “You’re supposed to be in bed by one, aren’t you, pumpkin?” Greg teased.
Jon looked over Greg’s shoulder and noticed Aleisha Madsen grinning at the exchange. Then, in a muted tone, Jon muttered to Greg, “Do that again, and I will have to kill you.”
Greg gave a slight head tilt behind him. “Aleisha?” he asked Jon quietly
“Yup.”
“How are you going to handle next class?”
Jon watched as Aleisha and her friends walked down the hall. “What do you mean?”
Greg gave him a funny look. “Family Life? Period 2? Like, in an hour and a half? “
Jon started putting his books back in his locker. “I left my picture boards at home, Greg. May I-?” He was cut off by the keys to the Oldsmo-buick sailing through the air at him. “Thanks. See you in bit!” Jon ran out of the building towards the parking lot.
“Don’t worry about it!” Greg called after him. “ I’ll take notes in history for you! No big deal!”



“Jon?” Mrs. Katsilas read from her roll book. “Would you like to go first?”
Stan patted him on the shoulder. “Blow ‘em away,” he whispered.
Mills stood up and headed to the front of the classroom with his posterboards filled with pictures and maps. On his way up the small aisle, one of the posterboards bent and brushed Aleisha Madsen’s long blonde hair as he walked by. A tiny red blush broke out on his cheeks.
Jon set the posterboards up in chronological order on the rim of the chalkboard and turned to face the class. It wasn’t that he had a hard time getting in front of people, he had been the lead in the school play, and had gone to state Drama Championships for the past 3 years. He had a hard time getting up in front of her. Aleisha Madsen. He’d had a crush on her since second grade when she had moved into his neighborhood. They had been in the same class up until sixth grade, and had had at least two classes together each year since then. Now, here they were, seniors in high school, and he still felt foolish around her. He didn’t speak to her much, just a hi as they passed each other in the halls, a “tough test today in Mr. Shewell’s class” as they waited for their class to start, but it never went further than small talk.
Aleisha was the epitome of every boy’s fantasy in high school. She was a slender 5’8” with long, flowing blonde hair that reached her waist. Her ice blue eyes reminded Jon of the female Mel Gibson. Her voice was always soft and gentle, but never with the annoying twittery high pitch of some high school girls. There was an ever so slight touch of bass in her voice that seemed to give it a sexy growl during her pronunciation of large 15 letter words that she used often.
“Are you ready, Jon?” Mrs. Katsilas asked.
Jon blushed again and realized he had probably been staring at Aleisha for a good 15 seconds in silence. “Yes, Ma’am. Well, where to begin? I am an only child.”
Greg began a group “awwww”. Jon flashed him a look of reproach and continued.
“Many of you knew my parents before you knew me.” He caught Aleisha’s grin from the front row. “And some knew me first. My mom was the infamous Mrs. Mills at Plymouth Elementary, which is one of the feeder schools into this high school. Just last year, in fact, she was voted Teacher of the Year for the state of Utah. My dad has been a policeman with a long and distinguished career. He was one of the youngest ever graduates of Harvard, and, yet, for some reason, he wanted to join the Utah Highway Patrol. He was one of the youngest ever troopers to make Sergeant, and then was promoted to a Lieutenant a short six months later.
“Where I came from, I really couldn’t tell you.” This garnered a laugh, as it always did when Jon told about his background. “I was born in Ogden, Utah in 1972. I was a sickly, premature baby born 9 weeks premature. I was a sickly kid and the doctors always said that I would be behind my peer group in nearly everything. My parents put me into school a year early since I was already reading books and the movie section in the newspaper by myself.” Those who knew Jon gave an appreciative laugh. “I was the runt of my class until fifth grade when I started to grow. Now, I am a tall, gangly kid who looks like I should be able to play basketball, but couldn’t even if my life depended on it. The one place I am behind from my peers is my athletic ability. I, uh, don’t do well in gym, to say the least. I run a twelve minute mile and can do three pull ups
“I’ve done relatively well in school with a 3.6 GPA thus far. I’m not the genius my father and mother were, but I’m not too shabby either. My parents and I finished first in a Trivial Pursuit tournament for the past three years.
Jon took a deep breath. “How am I a product of my environment? Most people say that I have the personality and decision making skills of my dad, but the emotions of my mom. I would say that I have the brains of my parents crossed with my own personal relaxedness, if that’s a word,” Jon grinned, “and even though I’m no Harrison Ford, I’m not Dustin Dimond, either.” Another grin from Jon and another laugh from the class. Jon noticed a slightly different reaction from Aleisha, but couldn’t quite read it. “I enjoy the arts a lot because my parents said that I always calmed down when I was sick if they took me to a movie. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as it was inside a theater, I would be calm.
“I’ve got pictures up here on the boards of me in the hospital, Alien Baby as many relatives refer to me at that point, and the wonderful childhood photos taken by a doting mother. Any questions?”
For a moment, nothing. And then, to Jon’s horror, he saw Aleisha raise her hand. He felt he had done well until now, but, this-
Mrs. Katsilas pointed to Aleisha. “Yes, Aleisha? A question for Jon?”
A sweetly devilish smile appeared on Aleisha’s lips. “I was just wondering if you had-“
A flashing light and a loud whooping sound that came over the intercom obliterated the rest of her question.
Mrs. Katsilas stood up. “Very good, Jon. Looks like you’re saved by the fire alarm. Would everyone please leave their books and personal belongings on their desks and make your way out to the track in a calm and orderly manner?”
The rest of the class had already started jumping out of their seats, whooping and hollering as they ran out the door. Jon waited for the mad rush of students to end before he started to head toward the door. Mrs. Katsilas was next to last out and motioned for Jon to hurry. He started up the center aisle and picked up his baseball cap from the floor. He caught a quick glimpse of Aleisha in the hall looking at him with a grin on her face before she was swept away with the crowd. The door shut behind Mrs. Katsilas.
Jon was only a step or two behind. He wanted to make sure that he could find Aleisha and find out what her question was. Funny thing, his heart seemed to be racing in his chest just at the thought of having an actual conversation with her. He opened the door to the hallway.
Immediately, a hand closed over his wrist.
“Hey! What the-?” Jon exclaimed.
A low voice grumbled near his ear. “Shhh! Be quiet and follow us. Please don’t give us any problems.” Jon saw the flash of a police badge before it disappeared into the man’s pocket.
They spun him into the hall, one on each side of him, and they started into the school, swimming upstream from the pack.


Greg and Stan were waiting by the track in the straight line that the school always made them get into for a quick count during a fire drill. Aleisha was just ahead of Stan in line. She turned and the wind kicked a strand of blond hair into her face.
“Have you guys seen Jon anywhere?” she asked.
Greg shook his head. “Not yet. He must’ve gotten turned around in the school. He’s a little goofy after he performs.” Greg smiled a crooked half-smile that didn’t seem quite right to Aleisha as she turned back around.
Greg felt a tap on his shoulder. Now, he turned around to face Stan. Stan said nothing but just pointed to a white Chevy Lumina driving out of the parking lot. In the backseat, was the unmistakable black and green brim of Jon’s baseball cap.