The Vigilante Life of Scott Mckenzie: A Middle Falls Time Travel Story

by Shawn Inmon

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  Scott shifted the karambit in his hand, prepared to lunge.

  Jenkins saw the shift in his balance.

  He raised the pistol.

  Pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Universal Life Center

  A young woman with long, dark hair and a confused expression sat at a desk in an impossibly long row of identical desks. They sat side by side, each with a space just wide enough to walk in between them.

  In front of the woman was a milky cylinder called a pyxis. Inside the cylinder was an image of a young man, sleeping under a heavy quilt on a couch.

  The woman sighed. “I am never going to get the hang of this job. Just when I think I am figuring something out, I find out that I am not.”

  “Frustrated, Semolina?”

  It was Carrie, the head of the department. She always seemed to pop up when Semolina, or any of the other Watchers, had a problem. There was a rumor that had spread that said there were actually a hundred identical Carries. Like most rumors, it was both fun to think about and completely untrue. There was only one Carrie, but she was efficient at being exactly where she was most needed.

  “Frustrated with myself, I guess,” Semolina answered. “I thought I knew what was going on, but then something like this happens, and I know I still don’t have a clue.”

  Time didn’t exist in the standard sense in the Universal Life Center, so there was no way for Semolina to know how long she had been serving as a Watcher. However, she knew she was among the least experienced. All around her, other Watchers deftly handled their pyxis, using it to scoop emotions and feed The Machine. Semolina watched far fewer people’s lives and still ran into difficulty.

  Carrie touched Semolina’s pyxis, then dragged the image inside it to her own, identical cylinder. She pulled the image up, so that it floated in the air between them. She moved her pyxis counterclockwise. As she did, the image moved backward. She saw a man running toward another man. A brief scuffle ensued, then the other man walked to his vehicle, grabbed a gun, and shot the first man. The scene shifted to the man who had been shot, now sleeping on the couch.

  “Tell me what is confusing you.”

  “He didn’t kill himself.”

  “I agree. He acted rashly, and those actions resulted in his death, but he didn’t kill himself.”

  “Then why did he go back to his starting point? I thought once he lived his life to completion, he got to go on.”

  Carrie nodded and smiled. “I understand your confusion. Would it help if I told you that I once made exactly the same mistake?”

  Semolina met Carrie’s kind eyes. “I suppose. So, why was he forced to start over?”

  “Because he hasn’t solved the dilemma he was restarted to solve yet. He was started over to give himself a chance to work through the things he needed to. He’s making progress on that, but he doesn’t appear to be there yet. That’s why The Machine restarted him. I know it’s frustrating, and hard to understand, but I have come to accept that The Machine and its algorithms are never wrong.”

  “So, the fact that he lived what appeared to be a complete life cycle isn’t enough?”

  “Sometimes it is. My last life, I was stuck in a horrible cycle. I was eligible to move on, but I was so stuck in a well-worn path that I couldn’t find my way out of it. One of my own True Family members had to come and kill me to set me free.”

  “I’m never going to understand all this.”

  “I said the same thing, and look at me now.” Carrie laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. “When I woke up in the white room, I was so confused. I expected to wake up back on my parent’s couch, like I had done thirteen times before. If not that, then I expected to be in line for judgment. Heaven, Hell, all that.”

  “Quite a shock, then.”

  “It was. In a secret part of myself, I held on to those ideas long past the time I knew they couldn’t be true. I found comfort in them.”

  “That’s true, isn’t it,” Semolina said. “There’s comfort in the old beliefs, even when we have every evidence that they are wrong.”

  “It’s another way we work on ourselves, I suppose. The sanding off of our rough edges.”

  Semolina nodded at the image of the sleeping man in her pyxis. “So, everything is fine here, then.”

  “All is as it should be. It will be all right in the end...”

  “If it’s not all right, it’s not the end,” Semolina finished for her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Scott McKenzie woke with a jolt. A wordless scream escaped his lips. He threw the heavy quilt away and winced at the pain in his shoulder. He looked around the living room in a daze.

  Hot tears coursed down his cheeks. Tears of fear, frustration, anger.

  Cheryl rushed in from the kitchen. She saw Scott in distress and rushed to him. She sat on the couch and held him to her. He nestled his head into the comforting nook of her shoulder.

  “Shh, it’s okay, Scotty. It’s better that she’s not suffering anymore.”

  Of course. She thinks I’m upset because Gran just died. For her, that was only a few hours ago. For me, she’s been dead for more than fifty years.

  Down the hall, the toilet flushed and Earl walked back into the living room. He glanced at Cheryl holding Scott, comforting him, but didn’t say anything. He sat in his chair and looked out the window.

  Cheryl held Scott’s face in her hands. There were tears in her eyes. “You okay, Scotty? That’s silly, isn’t it? None of us are okay right now, are we? How could we be?” She hugged him to her. “But, we’ve still got to eat, and dinner is on the stove.”

  She stood, wiped at the corners of her eyes with her apron, and hurried back into the kitchen.

  Holy God, I don’t think I can do this again. I’ve lived this life too many times. I’m tired.

  Many people, at one time or another, think I can’t do this anymore. Typically, for those people, they have a choice. If it’s about a job, or a relationship, they can make a change in those things. For someone in Scott’s unusual position, it’s a different matter. If he couldn’t do it any more, what option did he have? If he killed himself, he knew he would simply start over in the same place.

  Scott spent the first month after he woke up in 1972 sad, depressed, and moping. He had spent an entire lifetime planning, studying, memorizing, and preparing for a life when he could fix many of the world’s wrongs. On his very first assignment, he had failed.

  He had failed to take care of a killer. He had failed that killer’s victims. He had failed himself.

  Again.

  Cheryl and Earl watched Scott lay and limp around the house. They had never had to deal with someone in his position before—someone just returned from the service so obviously broken in mind and body. The truth of the situation was, they didn’t have any real idea what his situation was. They saw him as a wounded warrior, broken by a war and returned home to find his own path.

  The truth was, he was all of that, and more.

  It’s possible Scott would have followed the path of misery and self-pity for a long time—perhaps a lifetime.

  Earl Bell was not the kind of man to stand by and watch that.

  Mid-January days in Evansville, Indiana tend to melt together. Overcast skies and rain were the order of the day, unless a stray snowstorm blew through.

  One of those gray days, sitting in the living room with Scott, Earl blew on his coffee. The television was on in the corner and Scott was half-heartedly watching it. Earl had noticed that Scott did everything in low gear these days.

  “Scott, I need to talk to you.”

  Scott stood up and hobbled to the television and switched it off. He may have been depressed, but he still gave his grandfather the attention and respect he deserved.

  “Yes, sir. What is it?”

  “I know this life has dealt you a lousy blow.”

  Change that to lives, and I
agree with you, Gramps.

  “So, you can dig yourself a hole and pull it in after you, if you want, but that leads to nothing good. Hiding from the world only feels good for so long.”

  In a way, I guess, that’s what I’ve been doing since I woke up here the second time around. First, it was booze and drugs that helped me hide away. I got rid of those, but then I went and hid in my little cabin. In a way, that was digging my hole and disappearing into it, too. In my own way, I was hiding from the world. As always, you’re right, Gramps.

  “Will Rogers said, ‘When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.’ I always found that he knew what he was talking about. It seems to me, you might still be digging your hole.”

  If anyone else had said that to Scott, even Cheryl, he would have shot back with an angry comment. Not to his grandfather, though.

  “I know you’re right, Gramps.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about what’s got us in this predicament. Our government sent you off to war and used you up, then sent you home with a little money in your pocket so they could forget about you with a clear conscience. That’s done. But, we need to make the best of the situation. I love you, Scotty, and I know what potential you have. I don’t want to see you waste it sitting around here with this broken down old man. I couldn’t stand that.”

  Scott absorbed that.

  “This isn’t something we can fix in a day, or a week, or a month. But we need to both get back in the swing of life. Sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves only means we have more to feel sorry about. So, I got us both a membership at the YMCA here in town. I figure maybe you can drive us there. If nothing else, it’s warm in there, and they’ve got a pool and an indoor walking track. That’ll get us moving.”

  “When?”

  “What do you mean, ‘When?’ There is only one best time to start on a project.”

  Scott smiled, which felt odd on his face. “Right. Now. I’ll get the keys.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  In the movies, someone who is depressed gets a real talking to, or listens to a happy song, and the shackles of their depression fall away in an instant—or during a song montage. In real life, of course, it isn’t like that. Crawling out of the darkness happens one small step at a time.

  Scott McKenzie took many of those small steps with his grandfather.

  Going to the “Y” every day was too much for Earl, so he only went twice a week. Scott found that the increased exercise—swimming, walking miles on the indoor track, joining callisthenic classes—helped him more than anything.

  His head slowly cleared and he got some perspective on his previous life.

  He found that he thought best while he was swimming laps. At first, swimming was painful, as his war injuries were still fresh. Over a few months, though, and with the assistance of a swim instructor, he figured out the strokes that helped him build up his stamina without hurting himself. He worked his way up from swimming a single, agonizing lap from one end to the other, to eventually swimming fifty laps per day.

  While he swam, he considered where he had gone wrong.

  I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. Not even close. First time I got into a hand-to-hand situation with someone, I found out how unprepared I was. Make a mistake like that with the people I’m facing off with, and there’s only one outcome. Exactly what I got.

  He wasn’t able to do a fancy swimmer’s underwater kick, but he tagged the deep end of the pool and pushed off.

  I still want to do this. There are too many people out there, alive and depending on me, whether they know it or not. I can’t let them down.

  He finished his laps, climbed out of the pool and toweled off. His body was scarred by the bullets and the surgeries. Adults usually noticed and looked away, but the kids often stared. Scott didn’t mind, and did his best to set their minds at ease.

  Today, the “Y” was nearly empty. He changed back into his street clothes and was heading toward the exit when he saw a new notice up on the bulletin board.

  It was printed on bright orange paper. At the top was a hand-drawn graphic of a man in a karate gi throwing another man to the ground. In bold letters beneath that, it read, “Self Defense Classes, right here at the YMCA, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10:00 a.m.”

  Below that, in smaller print: “Isshin-Ryu Karate taught by sensei Jerry Werbeloff.”

  Scott stood in front of the notice, contemplating.

  This will help. I have no idea what Isshin-Ryu is, but I’ll bet it will help with my balance. It will help me defend myself. It won’t stop me from getting shot like I did by Brock Jenkins, but maybe it would have helped me from getting my ass kicked by him in the first place.

  There was a signup sheet on a clipboard that hung on a nail. Scott signed up.

  THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, Scott showed up early enough to get a swim in before the self-defense class. After his laps, he changed into a sweat suit and reported to the room where classes were held.

  “Looks like I’m early,” Scott said, to the man laying mats out. He was wearing a loose-fitting karate gi and had a friendly smile on his face.

  “Five minutes early is right on time.”

  Scott tried to hide his surprise. He had expected someone older to be teaching the class, but this was a good-looking kid who appeared to be no more than eighteen.

  “Jerry. Good to meet you.” He offered his hand, and Scott shook it.

  Jerry cast an appraising eye over Scott. “Leaning a little. Slight limp. What’re your injuries?”

  Scott was off-balance. No one had ever spoken to him so frankly about his wounds.

  “Vietnam. Shot here, here, and here,” Scott said, pointing to his right collarbone, right thigh, and left ankle.

  Werbeloff nodded. “Good to know. We’ll make some special exercises for you that will help offset those injuries. I’ll draw up a list of stretches for you, too.”

  “I don’t want to hold the class back.”

  The door opened and two middle-aged ladies walked in, holding gym bags. Right behind them, a teenage girl followed.

  “You’re not going to hold us back, I promise. We all move forward at our own pace. Last year, I taught a guy who walked with two canes. He’s pretty lethal, now, if he needs to defend himself.”

  He wandered off to greet the newcomers.

  I think I’m going to like this guy.

  An hour later, Scott was tired and hurting, but happy.

  After dismissing the class with a bow, Werbeloff said, “I’ll be here again on Wednesday. I hope I’ll see you here again.” He laid a hand against Scott’s shoulder. “Have you got a minute? I’ll show you a couple of stretches you can start on at home.”

  Scott had all the time in the world.

  While Werbeloff led him through the stretches, they talked.

  “I expected you to be a lot older,” Scott said.

  “I think everyone did.”

  “It’s cool that you know enough to lead a class when you’re so young.”

  “I’m not quite as young as you think I am, I’ll bet. I’m twenty-one.”

  Scott laughed. “No, you’re right, but that’s still not very old.”

  “I started studying when I was only nine. I was lucky to have found a good sensei. He gave me a lot of training.”

  “And now you are taking the time to pass it on to me. Thank you.”

  “I’ll pass it on to anyone who is ready. The rest of the class is here just to check things out, which is fine. It felt like you have more of a purpose to coming, though. So, I’ll help you.”

  “Do you get paid for doing these classes?”

  “A little. That’s not why I do them, though. To learn something you must do it. To master something, you must teach it.”

  “I think I heard Kwai Chang Caine say the same thing in this week’s episode of Kung Fu.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Scott figured out that even though he had gone to war and fought for his country,
he hadn’t learned much about hand-to-hand combat. There had been a few lessons with a tough instructor in basic training, but with so many soldiers and so little time, no one got more than a cursory lesson.

  At the YMCA, Scott received much more individualized attention.

  Isshin-Ryu consisted of learning a number of katas, or stylized movements, used to teach and reinforce specific techniques of punching and kicking. Because of the damage to Scott’s lower body, he was never going to be as fully balanced as he had been, but Jerry taught him secrets and methods to overcome those limitations.

  Many self-defense disciplines focused on outward achievements, like leveling up and claiming a new belt color. In Jerry Werbeloff’s class, the aim was more on learning and self-improvement. That suited Scott just fine. When he inevitably found himself face-to-face with someone who wanted to do him serious harm, showing them his blue or brown belt wouldn’t help. The ability to stay on his feet and fight definitely would.

  In October, Earl Bell passed away again. Scott never got used to the pain of losing his grandfather. Each time it happened, it was a blow. It might have sent him spiraling into another dark hole of depression, but working out at the YMCA helped him maintain his equilibrium.

  After Scott had been attending the self-defense classes three times a week for six months, Sensei Werbeloff brought a wooden stick to class with him. While the other students were working on their katas, he approached Scott.

  “I think this is going to make a difference for you.”

  “A walking stick?”

  “It’s a jo. It looks like a walking stick, but it can be a lethal weapon when you need it.” He handed it to Scott.

  It was round, a little thicker in the middle and tapered on the ends. It was made of a lighter wood, so it felt almost alive in his hands.