CHAPTER TWENTY

        Sam walked up the pathway of Kelly's Aunt Patty's house, where she lived ever 
since moving out of Elk Ridge. The house was a small house located only a few 
blocks from the diner. He had gotten directions from Lizzy, when he went back 
to the diner alone for lunch. He knew Kelly and Lizzy were best friends, and 
figured that Lizzy would know where David's sister's apartment was - and she 
did. He reached the stoop of the house, and noticed a white piece of paper 
attached to the door. It read, "To Aunt Patty, Gone out for a while. Key's 
under the mat. Your sis, Kelly." Sam lifted up the dark green mat, and removed 
the key lying under it. He placed the key in the key hole in the large white 
door, and turned it. The door slowly began to creak open.
        Kelly heard the door opening. "Albert!" she said trying to push her new 
boyfriend off her. "Albert, time out!"
        "Why?" he muttered before he began sucking on her neck.
        Sam was socked and angered tat the surprise he got behind door number one. The 
girl he loved was making out with the guy he considered to be the biggest creep 
in the universe. He did not doubt for one second that if he showed up a few 
minutes later, they would have gotten much farther than they did. He wanted to 
rip the creep straight from Kelly, and beat him into a bloody pulp.
        The rules of knowledge stated that he should not. Sam knew it was his own 
fault the breakup occurred, and it had nothing to do with the guy she was now 
with. It should be fine if she wanted to see other people. His younger-self 
already got a new girlfriend, which according to Kelly, started to breakup. 
Somehow, though, the rule did not satisfy him.
        Sam felt his feelings were partly due to the original history many years into 
the future. He guessed that if he only knew the two of them to be married, he 
would leave them alone. His heart however was telling him to only go by what he 
truly knew about. The young man grew up, - and in the original history - he had 
told his best friends about one to many sexual conquests and leached over women 
one to many times. Now, this young man's reputation preceded him by things 
not done yet. All of the things sam ever went through with Al and his own love 
for Kelly was enough to cause upset, when confronted with the fact of the two 
of them together.
        Right then, on the other hand, the young man only saw what was going on around 
him in his present world. He only saw a beautiful sweet girl he loved very 
much. He loved her more than anything or anyone. He saw her as a girl, who had 
just broken up with her boyfriend she was planning to marry, and the e luck of 
Cupid's arrows had given her to him. Her ex-boyfriend lived many miles away, 
and not within the same area. His and her ex-boyfriend's lives were not crossed 
together, but ran on two separate roads. The two roads may merge into a two 
lane street in the future, but right then, they were traveling down two  
completely different roads in two separate worlds. She was now a part of his 
world. Maybe, due to her, his world could changed completely.
        Sam walked over to the record player sitting on a table across from the couch, 
where Bingo and Kelly were making out. A record was spinning on the turntable 
playing soft do-op music. He grabbed the round volume knob, and turned it. The 
music blasted from the record player startling the two lovers.
        Bingo removed himself from Kelly , and stood up. He looked annoyed as he 
looked directly at her ex-boyfriend's eyes as he walked over to the record 
player to turn it off. His dark uniform was sloppily hanging on his body and 
did not look as neat and pressed as it did that same morning, and his hat was 
not on his head, but on the coffee table in front of the couch. Kelly quickly 
grabbed her pink angora cardigan closed, starting to quickly bring each button 
through each hole, before smoothing and pulling down her light blue poodle 
skirt as she looked at her older brother.
        "David," she said sweetly, but Sam could detect a bit of arrogance in her 
voice. "I didn't think you would really be coming here this early." She took 
the long purple ribbon from her disheveled hair. "I mean I thought you would be 
out with your buddies," she said as she put her hair up in a ponytail again.
        "Why aren't you?" Bingo said hoping he would leave them alone, so he could put 
a lot more moves on his new girlfriend. He thought he and she had the entire 
house to themselves that afternoon, and would not be disturbed by any relatives 
barging in.
        "I want to spend the day with my little sister," he said. *That probably would 
be the only way to make sure he did not go too far with her.*
        "That's a first!" she commented.
        "I know that's why I want to spend some time the you. I never spend enough 
time with you."
        Bingo instantly saw through his lies, and knew that was not the true reason 
why he wanted to sped time with her. He knew David probably would rather spend 
the remainder of the afternoon doing something that he, himself, wanted to do, 
if only a certain person would leave him alone -- just as long as his baby 
sister was doing anything. "David, just make like a tree and leave," he said 
angered.
        "Why should I?"
        "'Cause, you would probably have more fun doing something else somewhere 
else," he said.
        "You were supposed to be someplace else."
        "Whatcha talkin' about?" Bingo asked.
        "The note on the door."
        "Oh!" she said as Bingo sat back down on the couch next to her, resting his 
arm over her shoulders. Kelly snuggled up next to him, and placed her head and 
hands on his chest. "We went to the amusement park a few towns over," she 
informed. "I guess I forgot to remove the note, when we got back."
        "Right, sweetie."
        "Look at what he won me." She leaned over and picked up a large pink teddy 
bear sitting at the end of the couch. "I named it Albert after you," she 
giggled as she kissed her boyfriend on his cheek.
        Sam remembered hearing about a horror movie made in the eighties or early 
nineties about a doll that went around killing people, and imagined Bingo 
getting killed by a ugly stuffed animal. He gave a devilish smile as he looked 
at the victim and the bear.
        She giggled waving the bear in front of Bingo's face. "You were the one to 
wine it for me. This way I'll always think about you, when you go back to the 
base. Will you always think about me?"
        "Of course, I will, Kelly."
        *Until, another 'chick' comes his way,* Sam added.
        "That's good," she hoped as she looked into his dark velvet eyes. She looked 
down at her prize as she placed it down on the worn wooden floor.
        "So, how long were you at the amusement park?"
        "Basically, all day," Bingo stated. "We just got here a few minutes ago."
        "Yeah," she said. "We had a really great time, except he was so scared when we 
went into the haunted house."
        "I was not scared," he defended.
        "Oh, yes, you were," she giggled sweetly taunting him. "You had a really bad 
case of the heeby jeebies."
        "You were actually scared?" Sam asked. He remembered a few times when the Al 
he knew got really spooked sometimes, like the time they entered the Bermuda 
Triangle. Another time happened when Sam leaped into Sam leaped into a 
parapsychologist, and they entered a crypt together. And another time, when he 
leaped into a mortician, Al wished he never had to show up at all during that 
leap. He got spooked in a amusement park attraction?!
        "Don't listen to her, Dave." He kissed her gently on the lips trying to shut 
her up.
        "Well, I'mm only telling the truth," she giggled as she broke away from him. 
"You're only trying to keep me quiet, just like when we were there, you only 
wanted to kiss me, to keep your mind off being a scaredy cat."
        "Maybe, I just wanted to kiss you."
        She flashed him a wide smile as her eyes twinkled into his. "I think it's 
kind of cute a bag bad boy like you is chicken of a few fake ghosts and 
goblins."
        "Kelly -" he said. She placed her finger up to his lips silencing him. He 
opened his mouth, and closed it over her finger. She quickly pulled it out, her 
cheeks turning a rosy pink as he smiled impish at her.
        Sam looked at the couple sitting next to each other on the couch. Whether or 
not he got scared was not the point anymore, it did not matter. Kelly was 
acting sickening flirtatious towards her new boyfriend, and he was taking all 
of the bait she put out. The guy did not need any bait to begin with, because 
he had plenty of his own. Sam wondered if she ever acted cute towards him, back 
when they were still going out. His memory was very foggy on the subject. 
Still, he was not the one she was flirting with anymore. She had found a new 
man - a man her former boyfriend wanted her to have nothing to do with. "Do you 
mind?" Sam said annoyed.
        "Huh?" she asked.
        "You leave!" Sam directed pointing to Bingo.
        "Why should I?"
        "Because I said so," Sam said. *Because I want you as far away from Kelly as 
humanly possible.* "Kelly, tell your new 'boyfriend' goodbye."
        "Well, I don't want him to go," she said defiantly.
        "I need to talk to you alone, Kelly," Sam said.
        Bingo stood up. "Fine, I'll leave," he said only wanting to keep the peace 
between him and his best friend, which he knew might otherwise be broken based 
on David's death glances. He walked to the door, and left.
        "Now, what do you want to talk about?" she asked.
        "It's about him, but I don't think I should say anything in front of him," he 
said. "I just don't think you should be seeing him. That's it!"
        "What do you mean 'That's it!'" Kelly said as she sprang up from the 
couch to look her brother more face-to-face. She glared at her brother annoyed 
at what he had just said. "David, you really don't have any right in telling me 
who I can and can't see," she explained. "You really shouldn't tell me what to 
do, period. I've been basically taking care of myself, since you went off to 
Annapolis when I was fourteen. I'm not a little kid."           
        "I know you're not a little kid, Kelly," Sam stated.            
        "Then, why do you always treat me like one? I left Elk Ridge, so I could 
become my own person. How can I grow up, if now I have you telling me what to 
do instead of ma?"      
        "I just want to look out for you," Sam said.
        "I know you want to. That's the problem!" she said. "You were always the man 
of the house, since dad died. But you're as bossy as hell, and a major 
hypocrite!"
        "I just don't want you to get another broken heart or many more broken hearts 
from some guy." *Even though they ended up married, doesn't mean they lived 
happily ever after.*
        "Albert didn't break my heart, yet. I just got to learn on my own, if he's 
ever going to," Kelly defended. "You have to watch out for the shy ones as 
well." Her heart had only been mended together like a patchwork quilt, even 
though she also felt she received a new heart replacing her old one.
        "You can get more broken hearts from a guy like him than you ever could with a 
nice boy."
        "People can change," she said naively.
        "Not in one day, Kelly. I just don't want you seeing a guy with a reputation 
like his."
        "So, he's got a bit of a rep. Big deal!"
        "That must be the understatement of the year!" Sam smiled.
        "Ok. The guy's like McDonald's, over a billion served," Kelly gave in, "but 
that doesn't mean that he's not a really nice guy. He only wants what's best 
for me, just like you do."
        "Kelly -" Sam hoped he could get her to see Bingo the way he saw him. He knew 
Kelly was probably right in the fact he was probably a really nice guy, but as 
far as serious boyfriend potential, Sam was certain Bingo had none.
        "If it makes any difference to you, nothing happened last night. We just 
talked."
        Somehow, Sam did not believe her. Kelly's and Bingo's actions towards each 
other had to be rooted in something other than just talking. He knew that Kelly 
was a person his mother would consider to be "a nice girl," but Bingo's 
reputation was so enormous that it cancelled out anything else. "Until, five 
o'clock in the morning!?"
        "Yeah."
        "I didn't think he knew how to talk for that long with some girl," he said 
sarcastically.
        "I'm not just some girl!"
        "I know that, but does he?"
        Bingo walked back into the house, and into the living room where Sam and Kelly 
were standing. "Forgot my hat," he announced walking over to the table. 
        After a moment's hesititation about how to phrase his thoughts, he told them, 
"I don't want you together anymore."
        "Yeah, that's what he just lectured me on."
        "You can't tell her what to do," he said, "and you certainly can't tell me 
what to do."
        "Yeah," she agreed. "If I want to date him, you have no right in telling me 
otherwise."
        "Maybe, I should tell you," he told her. "What's the point of going out, when 
he probably doesn't even love you?"
        "David, that's not true. I love her!" Bingo stated starting to get angry at 
not being believed, but being believed to be not good enough for the one he 
loves. He looked over to Kelly. "You do too, huh, baby?"
        Kelly thought about it for a long moment. She remembered reading in a 
Shakespearean play in Miss Gray's British literature class the year before, 
that love in a thing meant to change people into fools by its unreal and 
irrational powers, and also learned that when love is forced to happen only bad 
results can happen. These were the same lessons she learned hands-on. She 
learned much about love in only twenty-four hours, more than she wished ever to 
learn. She learned not to trust love, except when it can be trusted. Love is a 
silly emotion of people's hearts which can go and come as fast as a flash of 
lighting. It can change as quickly as the wind which Cupid's arrows fly 
through. Certainly, her newly removed wound from the arrow of her 
ex-sweetheart's and her love was fresh, and bled like soft drizzling rain; 
however, the arrow which hit her and Bingo covered almost all of her with an 
umbrella of the protection of newly formed love. "Of course, I love you, 
Albert," she told him.
        Although Kelly knew what Bingo's real emotions were, Sam did not. "No, you 
don't!" Sam told him. "You're only using her, and I want you to keep your hands 
to yourself from now on."
        "I'm not using her!" Bingo said. "How can I use someone I love?"
        "Then, why don't I believe you?"
        "I don't know."
        "Do you want to know why? A guy like you doesn't know what the meaning of love 
is."
        "I know exactly what love is, just ask your sister. She's the only other 
person here who really knows. Apparently, your not taking my word for it."
        "Kelly, what do you think?"
        "Kelly, you believe me?" Bingo asked. He waited for a reply. "Don't you?" he 
asked again.
        "Yes, Albert, I believe you."
        "See!" he told Sam.
        Kelly lifted her necklace from inside her collar. She coyly held out the 
silver chain with the golden ring dangling from it. "He even asked me to go 
steady. That should mean he loves only me. Right?" she prayed meekly. She knew 
a token of affections sometimes became meaningless over time, such the 
engagement ring Sam gave her. The look from Bingo's eyes and his expression 
whenever he looked at her showed he was looking straight from his heart towards 
hers, not towards her mere exterior beauty but the beauty of her soul. His 
loving gaze also showed he took her love as a true expression of Venus's 
blessing, and not something to be taken for granted along with air and water as 
Sam did until it was long gone; to Bingo, Kelly's love became his air and water 
at the moment of their first official embrace of passion and devotion the night 
before.
        "Let's just see how long you could stay faithful to only one person," Sam said 
to Bingo Calavicci.
        "Probably longer than you could."
        "I doubt that!" Sam stated fiercely. "When it comes to women, you can be a 
real snake as well as the snake charmer."
        "Oh, really!" he said pushing up his sleeves matching his opponents 
savageness. "You should leap off a building!"
        "Why don't you slither out of Kelly's life?"
        "You know you're a-crusin' for a-bruisin', pal."
        Sam could not take it anymore. All of his feelings of passion - the passion of 
love and the passion of anger - were overwhelming his entire body. The arrow 
of his love for Kelly turned into the arrow of disgust for Bingo, which right 
then was heading straight at him with a deadly speed. "You are a complete -" 
Sam stopped himself. He wanted to call him names he never thought about saying 
before, but his friendship with Al prevented him. Even though, Bingo was not 
yet the Al Sam knew, he felt like he was still his best friend through Destiny.
        The ferocious tiger eyed his prey with his dark eyes. "I think a knuckle 
sandwich is the only way you'll realize anything," the tiger said pounding his 
fist into the palm of his hand.
        Kelly looked at the two men before her about to fight for her love. She looked 
at David, but noticed his eyes were not his own, but the eyes who have her shy 
private loving glances throughout high school, but the eyes she loved to look 
into back when she loved their owner were now not the smokey green emeralds of 
precious love but were mad green with envy. After another moment, she saw all 
of him, although his body seemed to be slightly hazed by a cloud of blue, not 
allowing her to see his body changed by age, but how she knew he looked as a 
teen. She was surprised at the sight, and extremely puzzled at how he could be 
there instead of her brother. Ever since the night before, she sensed he was 
there instead, but now she knew for sure. "Sam!" she yelled out, only trying to 
protect him, ignoring her feelings of surprise. She knew by his look that he 
was still madly in love with her, but she knew their breakup was due to a lack 
of love between them. Still, she wanted to protect him from someone she guessed 
was stronger, since he was a Golden Gloves campion only about seven years 
before as well as all of the navel training and being raised in a tough ghetto 
of the city, where people were forced to g=fight for survival, while she knew 
her Sam, her sweet farm boy, got beat eight-out-of-ten-times when he got into 
fights with his older brother. She knew her Sam could beat him on the 
basketball court or at the Brain Bowl (a teen Jerparody the high schools had), 
but not when it came to an all out fight. She also guessed his opponent had 
tiny minor advantage which still might make a difference -- age, since she 
believed Sam was only seventeen, therefore making Bingo six years his senior.
        Her yell of protection was lost as they both did not hear her in the intense 
passion of hatred. The tiger pounced on Sam extending his paw with a direct hit 
straight on his prey's right eye. 
        "Bingo! Stop!" she pleaded screaming at him. She loved Bingo, but felt there 
was no need to become violent. She wanted to make up her own mind about who she 
wanted to date. In old tales of yore, knights often seemed to fight for the 
fair princess's hand by a battle or a joust; but these were now modern times, 
the princess should be the one to chose, and not let choice be dictated by an 
act of the knights' barbaric chivalry.
        Again, her plea when unheard.
        Sam did not what to hurt him, but Bingo's punch stung like a lemon into a fresh 
cut. He wanted to avoid retaliating with any physical violence, but felt like 
he had no more control of his body. He boxed three strong punches into his 
enemies stomach, deciding not to use any kicks, which might teach him quicker 
but harm him more. Bingo came back with lefts and rights and jabs and zillions 
of other punches and moves used like destructive missiles. The entire room 
became the battle of Troy with fair Helen yelling at the two sides to stop. Sam 
tried to block as many punches he could, each punch felt like a ton of bricks 
was being hurled at him. He knew he got into plenty of worse fights with men 
bigger and stronger, sometimes several at a time, without him getting hurt at 
all, but he could not find that strength he once had. His body which 
occasionally threw punches back did not feel like the out-of-shape and 
over-weight body which might be associated with some men Sam's real age, but 
fit and agile, just not used to getting into the serious fights Sam often got 
into on leaps. Sam summoned all of the strength he could find throughout his 
body, raised his knee and made an atomic bomb hit him enemy directly below the 
belt. 
        During that moment, Kelly looked at the warriors. Reasoning Bingo would think 
he was not fighting with her ex-boyfriend but David, she yelled, "Best friend's 
shouldn't be fighting!"
        *We're not best friends yet!* Sam defended to himself. Taking advantage of his opponent's extremely painful moment, he pushed 
him straight down to the carpet. 
        Kelly rushed to Bingo's side trying to keep him down and both of them calm. 
"Are you ok, sweetie?" 
        Sam looked down at the man he was fighting with. This time he could see what 
she meant, even more than she meant. He could not remember ever fighting with 
Jordan in high school, and would not even think about fighting with Al in the 
present. Bingo was best friends with the guy he had leaped into, and Al stated 
no fights ever occured between him and his buddies. Even though Sam had often 
gotten into fights with his older brother growing up, best friends were always 
different than siblings. No matter who the best friends were, they were always 
special.
        Bingo looked up at Sam fiercely. "In a minute," he said starting to push 
himself off the hard floor. *In a minute, I'll kill this guy. I don't care if 
he's my best friend.*
        "Cutie, calm down." She placed a loving hand on his shoulder.
        Bingo turned towards her as Sam walked away knowing that some rage still 
flowed through his blood, but knew fighting over Kelly was not the answer to 
what was going on.

Monica