Alfred Gontarski had the misfortune to have been born into the wrong body. That’s all been fixed now; however if you are not familiar with how things were corrected, you should go back and read “An Incremental Journey” and “Cynthia and the Reluctant Girlfriend” before you read this little adventure. Now we continue with the adventures of Cindy Lewis, her best friend Bobbie Schmedlap, and Maddy, Cindy’s precocious kitten and familiar.

Randal Mantooth, Randy, has a secret he has never shared with anyone. Don’t we all? Randy, being the good and honorable citizen that he is, joins the US Air Force and is sent to Afghanistan to help support what he feels is an honorable cause. What he experiences there affects him deeply and when he returns to the US, he is suffering from PTSD. Unknown to anyone is the fact he is also seriously ill, and this is contributing greatly to his mental problems. Randy is lost. He suddenly finds that he is in a world similar to, but not the world he grew up in. Then he sees his ‘angels’. Maybe they can help him figure out what’s wrong. Then there is Kinky Friedman. He beat whom to become a US Senator!

I have researched the Spell’s—R-Us Universe diligently and cannot find anything that violates it, other than that The Wizard is a bit kinder and gentler than sometimes reported. Don’t get me wrong. Given an opening and The Wizard could resort to some of his more ironic and nasty transformations. I’m sure that could happen at any time.

My thanks must go to Holly H. Hart for taking time once again from her harried life to correct the multitude of errors made while creating this story. She is a dear.

This work is copyrighted by the author and any publication or distribution without the written consent of the author is strictly prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.

I saw her again today and she smiled at me. No one smiles at me, but she did. I think she is an angel. She has to be. She wasn’t alone like she has been before. I think she was alone before. Sometimes I can’t be too sure about things. Her friend has to be an angel, too, because she smiled. Almost no one else ever smiles at me. They just look the other way.

I have to walk. It’s the only way to keep them from getting to me. I know they are out there. They tried to kill me before. They killed Andrioli. They blew most of his head off. I got hurt a little bit, but most of the blood was his. The Captain and the Chief saved us. They drove through the mortar blasts and got to us just in time. The Warthogs got the Taliban, but it was too late for Andrioli. They came back and got him later.

They have to be angels. I think they are looking out for me. That’s nice. They don’t follow me ‘cause I know the others are out there and they might go after them, too. I hope that there’s some good food at the Outback. Sometimes they leave stuff for me. I think I’ll stay under the bridge tonight. It won’t get too cold. They told me that earlier; or was that last night?

Damn! They almost killed the Chief. If it hadn’t been for the Captain he’d’a died. They’re coming after me. I know it. I’m sure glad those angels are looking out for me. The little brown-haired one smiled at me and waved. Her friend did too. She’s a pretty little redhead. I’ve got to keep walking. If I stop too long they’re goin’ ta find me. They killed Andrioli.

I guess I don’t understand what’s going on. A cop talked to me the other day. He wasn’t mean or anything. He just wanted to know what I was doing. I told him that the Taliban were out to kill me. That was real funny. He didn’t know what I was talking about. I told him I had been in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He looked at me real funny-like and said what war? I told him “The war we been fighting over there since 9-11.”

That’s when it got real strange. He said, “9-11, what’s that?”

I said, “You know; when those Arabs flew the planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon.”

I think that’s when he was going to run me in. He started talking on his radio. I think he was going to cuff me but that car ran the light and hit that other car and he got real busy. I just walked down the alley. There’s a restaurant a few blocks over and they leave me some food sometimes.

I’ve seen him a couple of times since then, but I just steer clear of him. He looks at me like I might be crazy. Maybe I am. I know things haven’t been right since before I got out. I guess I’m lucky in a way. My enlistment was up and they just let me go, not like those poor bastards in the Guard that gotta keep going back. I don’t understand it. That cop acted like he never heard of the war.

Then there is this other thing. Maybe it is me. I mean everything is the same, but it isn’t. When I got back, nothing was right. It’s been the nightmares when I can sleep, which isn’t very often. Then my folks were always yelling at me, “Get a job.” “Cut your hair.” “Go to school.”

I never really wanted to cut my hair, but I felt the military was a way I could do something worthwhile, and I was right. The Air Force was the right place for me. Basic Training was tough. It had to be. But they were decent about it. My TI, that’s for Technical Instructor, was one big guy. He’d been a cop before he went to Lackland as an instructor. I think that’s why I ended up where I did. Anyway, Staff Sergeant Sanders, always ‘Sir’, was a guy that got the message across very quickly. No one gave him trouble about anything. Well, there was this one kid who mouthed off during the first week of training. SSgt Sanders grabbed him by the front of his shirt and picked him up with one hand so that his face was directly in front of his. “Now, Robinson, I don’t think you really want me to get mad at you, do you? I’m going to hold you up here and let you think about it for a minute.”

SSgt Sanders proceeded to continue to talk about what he was saying, the whole time holding Robinson up in the air using only his right arm. Finally, he put him down. “OK, Robinson, you get back in formation and behave yourself. When you get back to the dorm, change your pants. They seem to have gotten a bit wet.”

Robinson never did give him or anyone else any trouble again. I never had any trouble with him either. SSgt Sanders had made me Flight Leader. I had two years of college and was almost as big as he was. I didn’t want to be flight leader, but you didn’t refuse SSgt Sanders anything. I was athletic enough and didn’t have any trouble with leading the flight to where they were supposed to go. The marching was easy enough and unlike some of the guys in the flight, I knew the difference between my left and right feet.

I knew about other differences, too, and I kept my mouth shut. We had all the lectures both in class and from SSgt Sanders about being gay, not that we had to say anything about it. It was just that if someone was gay and decided that being in close confines with a bunch of other young guys was more than he could take, it was alright to say so in private and they would get you back into civilian life. I’m pretty sure one of the guys was gay, but he never let on. Me? I’m not gay: if it were only so simple.

I gotta keep thinking about this stuff. It keeps me from getting nightmares. I just go over everything that happened in Basic and Tech School. I got most of it figured out. I can just about account for every minute. Now I’m working on college. If I keep thinking about the good stuff, then I won’t think about that other stuff: like when they blew off the Chief’s leg. There I go thinking about it again. I gotta stop doing that. I think I will try to determine prime numbers in my head. Sometimes that helps. I gotta be careful, though. Sometimes I forget to pay attention to where I am going. I think that’s how I got here. Either that or it was getting hit by lightning that time. At least, that’s what I think it was.

That was really strange. I think it was lightning. I mean there was this flash of light and I was almost knocked out. I think I lay there for a long time and the rain was coming down real hard. When I could finally get up, nothing was right. I mean the big picture was about the same, but the details were different. I knew where I was but it wasn’t the same. I think the lightning fucked up my memory. I know I went to Afghanistan and Iraq, but everyone I talk to around here doesn’t know anything about the wars. I can’t be making this stuff up. I mean it’s so real. I remember getting a Purple Heart. I remember Andrioli getting killed. I remember the Captain saving the Chief. I remember when he got the Air Force Cross and I remember that he got The Medal of Honor after he got out. He shoulda got it the first time but he got screwed. The trouble is nobody around here knows anything about the war. I know it happened. I was there. I know the Captain and the Chief got the Silver Star. I know that the Captain got the Air Force Cross and the Medal of Honor. He should have, but nobody here knows anything about it. I mean the war and everything. It had to happen. I was there, dammit. I was there.

There’s a grocery store and they have free coffee. I go there some mornings; especially in the winter. The coffee warms me up. I set on a park bench up near the bus stop. It’s not really a park, just a few trees. They’re Bradford Pears. They’re real pretty in the spring and fall. Some people talk to me. There’s this real nice lady who talks to me some times. I think her name is Tracy.

I think she lives close to the store as I see her jogging. It was a couple of months ago that she sat down on the bench. Not many people do that. I don’t get to bathe very often and the only clothes I have are the ones that I wear and a few that I have hidden under a bridge down by the river. She’s real pretty. She’s tall and has red hair. Anyway, she sat next to me. It couldn’t have been pleasant for her but she didn’t let on.

“Why do you do this, what you are doing?”

“What?”

“I mean you are always walking. I see you all over this town and sometimes you are over in the next county.”

“I guess I’m trying not to think about it. When I walk I can see ahead and I think about how many steps it will take me to get to a certain spot. Sometimes try to find prime numbers. I have to try dividing in my head. I think I’ve figured out almost a thousand of them.”

She looked at me with a sad smile. “What is it that you are trying not to think about?”

“The war: I lost a lot of friends over there and sometimes I have dreams about it. Sometimes I think they are still after me. I can hear them at night looking for me.”

“What war was that? We haven’t had any war since we rescued Kuwait and went in and deposed Saddam Hussein. Thank God they have him locked away.”

“Locked away? We captured him in 2003 and his people hung him. It wasn’t pretty.

“I went to Afghanistan after 9-11. We’re still fighting that war and the one in Iraq.”

She looked at me with a look that told me she was trying to figure out what I was talking about. “What is 9-11? I’ve never heard of it.”

“You know: when those Arabs hijacked those airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon killing all those people. We went after Osama Bin Laden, but we have never been able to find him.”

“What are you talking about? Osama Bin Laden was killed in 1990 by the Pakistan army. The Taliban leadership was essentially wiped out. There have been several attempts to hijack airliners, but they were always stopped. The World Trade Center is fine and no one has ever attacked the Pentagon.

“President Clinton did some outstanding diplomatic work and Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have been pretty friendly and quiet. President Gore picked up where Clinton left off. Now Hillary is in the White House and Vice President Obama is really going to strengthen things with our world relationships when he gets elected.”

That’s when I realized that I wasn’t in my world any more. Where was I?”

So that’s Randy Mantooth. He is modeled after a homeless man who I see frequently in the area where I live. The problem is going to be what Cindy and Bobby can do for him, if anything. The Wizard is lurking out there, but it will be a little while before we meet him. Thank you for reading and thank you for your comments. Constructive comments are always fuel for future stories.

Portia