Chapter Five

    A man walked into the store, brandishing a pistol. "Give me all your 
money, pops!" 
    "Santa Regina, please help us," Luigi prayed.
    "I said now, pops!" The gunman open fired on a shampoo display, 
puncturing several of the bottles.
    The gunshot scared Joey. He broke away from Mara, and turned to his 
father.
    "Go get the police son," Al said. "There's a robbery in progress in 
there."
    Joey ran several blocks frantically trying to find a policeman. 
    Inside Sam struggled with the gunman to get him to surrender. Sam high 
kicked the gun away from the assailant. The gun landed on the floor. Sam 
jumped on the guys back and pointed the gun at him. Sam wasn't going to shot 
anybody, but just wanted the thief to surrender.
    Within minutes, an elderly policeman was there putting the guy in 
handcuffs and leading him to the police car to be brought to jail.
    Sam looked around. He wanted to thank the two Calavicci men for helping 
him on this leap. But, they were nowhere in sight.
    Another policeman brought Sam back to Maria's apartment. 
    "Albert, you were brought home by a policeman?" Maria said, shaking her 
head. "What the heck did you do now?"
    "He didn't do anything wrong, ma'am," the officer said. "He just foiled a 
store robbery, and caught the criminal for us."
    "Oh, my boy!" Maria gave Sam a large bear hug.
    Al showed up in front of Sam. "Way to go pal, you did it! You caught the 
criminal, who spends a few years in jail for a string of robberies throughout 
the Bronx." He smiled. "And the best thing you did was find me a family."
    Sam looked at Mrs. Viaggio and her daughter standing next to Sam. When he 
looked up, Al was no longer there.
    A gray haired British man stood in Al's place. "Apparently, the young 
chap you leaped into, an Albert Calavicci, was adopted on the first of 
January, 1951. The worst news is that shortly after his adoption was 
finalized he and the family disappeared forever."

                                                  * * * * * * * * ** 

Epilogue
    Sam was dressed in a cheap brown suit as he stood in the middle of a 
college's lecture hall classroom. It was either the beginning of the class or 
the end of it because the class was unruly. Most of the kids were talking, 
except four. Two teenage boys, an Italian with bleached blond hair and 
another Italian with shaggy hair which fell over his eyes were kissing two 
girl's Sam guessed were in a sorority based on the fact that both college 
girls' T-shirts had Greek letters on them.
    Sam went down the attendance sheet. It said Physics Class - Spring, 2011. 
He was shocked as to who the professor was. The name read Dr. Samuel Becket, 
PhD., Md. 
"Oh, boy! I'm me!"


diana beckett
(formally Monica Briggs)

(C) June, 2002