Date: Sat, 21 May 94 22:34 +0300 From: Yapha Schochet Subject: Katie's Story A few weeks ago I had a chance to see The Leap Home for the first time. After I saw it I started thinking about Sam's sister, Katie. Did she ever look back on that Thanksgiving holiday when her brother, Sam, was behaving so strangely? And why might a girl from such a warm, caring family feel so badly about life at age seventeen that she would want to marry an abusive drinker? I thought about it and wrote this story, my first that I'm posting here. The Leap Home was freshest in mind when I wrote this, but some background information is taken from the pilot episode (Genesis), Camikazi Kid and Promised Land. Comments and constructive criticism are welcome. Yapha Katie's Story When Katie Beckett was seventeen, all she could think about was leaving Elk Ridge, Indiana. Katie wanted to get away from the farm, the farm she had not been able to save, the place that proved her to be a failure. She had tried so hard, after her father's death, to keep up the work on the diary farm so that her mother could pay back the bank loan. But one girl, fifteen years old, and falling behind in her high school studies, simply could not do the work of a dead father and two absent older brothers. In the end, they could not keep up payments on the loan and they lost the Beckett property, a property that had been handed down through generations since the American Civil War. Katie blamed herself. She could hardly blame anyone else; no one else was there. When their father had the heart attack, Tom and Sam had already left home. It was Katie who called the ambulance, Katie who sat with her mother in the grim hospital waiting room, holding her hand and trying to calm her, although her own heart raced with panic. And when the doctors came out with the bad news, she tried to comfort her mother, although she herself ached with grief for the father who always called her his compensation for the flood of '57. For days her mother was so shaken and so grief-stricken as to be nearly useless. Again it was Katie who helped her through the funeral arrangements, Katie who called Tom and Sam to break the news. Tom was a big help when he flew in from his Naval base. He had returned from Vietnam a year before and was now stationed in the U.S., but he was given only a few days leave on the death of his father. He took over the arrangements and offered Katie some of the comfort she needed during the short time he stayed. But then his leave ended and he had to return to his base. Sam came in from M.I.T., white faced and stricken as if he held tremendous pain and guilt bottled inside. Sam could hardly bear to go away again, but he was working on two doctorates simultaneously and during his stay he had decided to apply to medical school after finishing them; he had to return for exams. Katie watched him board the plane for Boston, still white faced, his chin quivering, and his eyes still brimming. Katie knew her brother and worried that he would bury his sorrow in academic studies and research the way another person might in drink or drugs. She wished she could comfort him, but she was confused and full of grief herself, and she did not know how. She felt that Sam would have liked to say more to her, too, but he also did not know how. Brother and sister parted with the comfort they intended for each other unexpressed. Katie returned home with her mother and made her futile attempt to save the farm. When they lost it, they rented a small apartment in town above a store, and Katie tried to compensate for neglecting her studies while taking on so much of the farm work. Her college board exams were adequate, and her marks improved, although her average remained too low to hope for a full scholarship. Without one Katie knew she could not afford to go to college. Tom had studied at Annapolis, with the Navy paying expenses, and Sam had all the top universities in America fighting to offer him scholarships. Katie had always planned to go to college, too. "The fact that your brother is a prodigy doesn't mean you're not plenty smart yourself," her mother always told her, when she complained about how hard it was to follow Sam through school. Not only math and science teachers, but language teachers, history teachers and music teachers all marvelled over Sam's achievements and informed Katie that her brother was the best pupil they had ever had. Although she thought they were aware it was unreasonable, most seemed disappointed when they found that Katie was just ordinarily bright. Still, before her father's death she had assumed she would go to college and it was a big dissapointment now to realize it would not be possible. She did not know what she would do when she finished this last year of high school and graduated, she only knew she wanted to get away. "You know," Katie said to her mother "I think I'd like to go live in Hawaii." "Hawaii of all places, why there?" Her mother asked. Katie did not really know, but it sounded exotic and far away from Elk Ridge. Katie had to admit that Chuck was not what she imagined when she dreamed of a boyfriend. Katie had pictured someone gentler and more intellectual. With Sam in the family, dinner conversation at the Beckett household could turn to any topic from subatomic particles to hieroglyphics. The youngest, Katie mostly sat and listened and absorbed. She thought polite, intelligent conversation was the norm, and she always assumed that if she married, her own family would be similar to the one she grew up in, that her husband would want it that way. Chuck was a farmhand, a high school drop out, who travelled the Midwestern States in his pickup truck looking for odd jobs. He had found work on a farm near Elk Ridge that spring, and met Katie one afternoon on a trip into town. He asked Katie out to the movies the county fair. Katie's mother did not approve of Chuck, but Katie decided to go with him anyway. Katie herself was shocked by his crude language, his drinking and his coarse behavior. Once or twice he struck her on the face for some minor offense, like showing up ten minutes late or forgetting to wear the color he requested. But when he was not angry or drunk, Chuck was kind to her in his own rough way. He brought her cheap jewelry and candy and complimented her eyes and hair. A girl like her who had failed to save the family farm, a girl who disappointed her teachers and could not go to college, was lucky to have any boyfriend at all, Katie thought. Chuck sensed this and played on Katie's insecurites. "No one else would put up with you," he would say, "You're lucky I don't just throw you away for good." And Katie, in her low state of mind, tended to agree with him. After they went out a few times, Chuck indicated that he expected more from her than just her company and a few kisses. But the Beckett children had been raised to have old fashioned values on questions of intimate relations, and Katie felt she wanted to wait until she married. Katie expected Chuck to be angry with her, but to her surprise, he respected her wishes in this. His solution, however, was for them to run off and get married at once. "I'll give you till tonight to decide," he told her, "If you want to get married sneak out of your apartment and meet me at midnight. I'll be waiting in my truck across the street. And remember if you don't show we're through. And don't think anyone else is ever going to want you or put up with you the way I do." That night, Katie tried to decide what to do. Mostly she thought Chuck was right. If she did not run off with him no one would ever want her again and she might not have another chance to get a away. It seemed she should agree to elope with him. But somewhere in the back of her memory, she thought that someone had predicted, a long time ago, that she would elope with a man named Chuck and that no good would come of it. She found herself remembering Thanksgiving week of 1969, when she was twelve years old. It was the last Thanksgiving that the whole family had been together, before Tom shipped to Vietnam and Sam went off to M.I.T.... Sam had been behaving very strangely for a few days, claiming he had returned from the future and that he knew what would become of the family, including herself. Fortunately his worst prediction did not come true. Tom did not die in Vietnam, but returned safely when his tour of duty there ended. Sam had also implied that their father was in danger. But given their father's smoking, his eating habits, and that fact that Grandfather Beckett had died young, a visit to the future was not necessary to predict that he might suffer a heart attack. Still there was something different about Sam that Thanksgiving. And the following week Sam had behaved strangely in a different way. It was as if he had only hazy memories of the time from a day or two before Thanksgiving until he won the basketball game against Bentleyville that Friday. First he claimed not to remember saying that Katie could have Tom's bedroom after Tom left for Vietnam. With two older brothers, Katie was used to a broken promise now and then. But why would Sam go back on a promise he had made in front of their father? Someone as bright as Sam must know that would never work. Then there was the time he took out his guitar and asked Katie if she had any requests for him to play. "Play that song you sang for me out on the porch last week." "What song is that, Katie?" "You know, the one about "Imagine all the people living for today" and "Perhaps you'll say I'm a dreamer."" "Well, Katie, those sound like the beginnings of some great lyrics, but I never heard of any song like that." "Quit teasing me, Sam. You sang it for me last week. You said John Lennon was going to write it." But Sam did not seem to be teasing. It was as though he honestly had no memory of the song. None of this might have been so strange in itself, except that Sam never forgot _anything._ Their mother described Sam's mind as a steel trap because nothing that entered it ever escaped again. Sam had only to see, hear or read a thing and it was his forever. How could he have forgotten a song that he had sung for her just a few days before? By the time John Lennon released "Imagine" in 1971, Sam was already away at M.I.T. and Katie hesitated to bring up the subject on a long distance call. But something was definitely strange. Could Sam have actually visited the future? Katie knew that Sam had always had an interest in time travel. One of her earliest memories was watching her brother tie the ends of a string together and then wad it into a ball. She had watched with the wide-eyed fascination of a small child long before she could understand the concepts that accompanied the demonstration. "Now, Katie, one end of the string..." But taking an interest in time travel and theorizing about it was one thing, actually visiting the future was something else. If Sam had really been to the future, why was he wrong about Tom? Tom's death was the most definite and frightening prediction that Sam had made. He even had a date for it: the 8th of April, 1970. Her parents had not really believed Sam, and yet Katie remembered how they all breathed a sigh of relief when the 8th and 9th of April passed with no dreaded telegram. Then, too, Sam had apologized and told them he made up the whole story because he did not want his beloved and idolized older brother to go to Vietnam. It seemed the most reasonable explanation, certainly more reasonable than some fanatastic trip to the future. And if Sam had not been to the future he could not possibly know how things would turn out between herself and Chuck. Katie thought she should agree to the marriage. What better options did she have? What better options could she ever hope to have? She took out a travel bag and started to pack a few changes of clothing. But then a song came on her radio. It was John Lennon singing "Imagine." And Katie made her decision. Yapha Schochet Yapha@har2.huji.ac.il