Disclaimer: I don't own Quantum Leap or The Music Man.
Trouble In River City
by Ben Barrett
Chapter One - Rock Island
The blue light came suddenly, rendering him immediately bodiless. He felt himself soaring, lighter than air, through a black void. He could see nothing in this emptyness, and his cries were always silent, as if sound itself had no place. He thought maybe, during these times, that this was the space between time itself. Perhaps if you could slow time down, and look in the minute space that exists between moment to moment, you would see this place.
Then he was falling. His journey was over, and he was plummeting like a stone toward whatever his next destination was. He could only guess which previous event he would have to fix this time. Perhaps he would have to stop an assassination, like John Kennedy or Martin Luther King; perhaps he would be thrown into some obscure life. Whatever it was, he was diving head first for it with no power to stop himself or slow his descent.
The result of these journeys was always anticlimactic. He would just suddenly be again. He would no longer be weightless, nor would he be in a void. He would simply "pop" into a new situation, as if he had been there all along; as if he had simply been napping and had dreamed the whole thing...
"You're crazy with the heat!" someone was shouting behind him. He looked around and saw that he was either on some movie set, which didn't seem likely due to the lack of cameras, or something had gone horribly wrong. He was in what looked like an old fashioned railway car, and everyone was dressed in clothes right out of the turn of the twentieth century.
Where am I?
He looked down at his hands and, for the first time, noticed that he was holding playing cards. Four aces. A good hand, if the person he'd just leaped into was playing poker. A look at the table in front of him confirmed that this was so. There were three other guys seated around it, and there were stacks of chips in front of each of them, as well as what looked like a rather large amount of money in the center.
"Where are you headed?" one of them asked him.
"Wherever the people are as green as the money," he said, shocked by his own words. No matter how often he went through this, he never got used to someone else's personality speaking through him at times. The only explanation Al could give him for this phenomenon was that it was most likely a side effect of the magnafluxing. The theory was that if he couldn't remember his own life, he would be more likely to occasionally behave like the person he had leaped into. Regardless of the reason, however, the guy who had posed the question looked at him with an expression that gave a clear message: you're scum.
Great. I've been here thirty seconds, and people already hate me.
Behind them, a group of people who looked like traveling salesmen were having a serious debate over giving merchandise on credit, and Sam tried his best to filter them out. He had more important things on his mind at the moment, such as where Al was. It normally didn't take long for his old friend to show up, unless things went wrong and Ziggy couldn't pinpoint his brainwaves. If that proved to be the case, he could be on his own in this situation for a long time.
"Are you gonna play your hand or sit there staring at it?" one of the men at the table asked.
"Come on!" another urged. "We're not gonna be on this train forever."
"Oh..." Sam said, coming out of his thoughts, "okay. I...um...raise, I guess."
"This ain't a betting round," the first man said impatiently. "Show your hand or fold."
Sam put his aces down on the table face-up. The other groaned in anger and frustration, and someone pushed the pot toward him. He scooped it up without much enthusiasm and began to absentmindedly organize it. One of the men asked if he wanted in for the next game, and he declined with a shake of his head. What he wanted was to find out where he was, and what he was supposed to be doing.
Where is Al?
The debate behind him reached a crescendo, and then gradually tapered off into other subjects. Sam decided it would be best to listen to their jib-jab, if only because he might be able to pick up a few clues and get started on his objective. They talked on a wide range of dry and uninteresting subjects, such as cracker barrels, automobiles, and flypaper, of all things. He was about to tune them out again and let them drone on when someone finally changed the subject to something that could be potentially useful.
"Any of you gentlemen heard of a fella named Hill?" someone asked.
"No, I've never heard of any salesman by that name," another said. "What's his line?"
"He's a fake!" someone nearby bellowed. "He's a swindler!"
"Oh, believe me," another said, rising to his feet like some head of state and causing all eyes to focus on him, "I can tell you all about Harold Hill."
"You know this guy, Charlie?" one of them asked.
"I never saw him in my life," Charlie answered, "but I'll tell you this much: he's giving every one of us a black eye. After he's worked a town over, the next salesman to arrive gets automatically tarred and feathered and run out to the city limits on a rail."
The other men laughed, which caused Charlie to scowl.
"Think that's funny, do you?" he barked, pulling off his hat. "Well, wait till it happens to you! Your hair never grows back!"
The man's scalp was scarred and hairless, and Charlie apparently had had little luck getting the tar off, for there was still black residue in a lot of places. The men stopped laughing immediately and their expressions were suddenly dead serious. Sam felt bile rise up in his throat and turned from the sight. He had a bad feeling about this whole situation. One thing was for sure: Harold Hill was the mortal enemy of every man on the train, especially Charlie.
Oh God. Please don't let me be him.
The train suddenly came to a halt. Out the window, Sam could see what looked like a small rural community.
"River City!" the porter cried. "We're across the state line into Iowa. River City; population: twenty two hundred and twelve. Cigarettes illegal in this state. Board!"
Sam suddenly had the idea to grab the suitcase sitting at his feet and flee. He wasn't sure who he was, but if he was this Harold Hill guy, he certainly didn't want to press his luck and stick around. On the other hand, he had no idea what his purpose for being there actually was. If he got off in the wrong town and ended up messing up some important historic event that would have happened somewhere else, the consequences would be disastrous.
"He's a music man," Charlie continued behind him. "He goes from town to town, selling instruction books, band instruments, and uniforms for boys."
"That actually doesn't sound too bad," someone said.
"The only way he can do that," Charlie said, as if he hadn't been interrupted, "is to promise to teach them how to play."
"So?" the same interrupting voice piped up.
"And form the kids into bands," Charlie snarled, losing his patience, "with himself as their leader."
"What's wrong with that?" came the voice yet again. Sam was beginning to wonder how long this guy had actually been on the train. He doubted very much that anyone who had seen what was under Charlie's hat could defend Harold Hill in good conscience. He had definitely pushed Charlie to the breaking point, whoever he was. The salesman's face got as red a strawberry and he turned on him, absolutely livid.
"HE DON'T KNOW ONE NOTE FROM ANOTHER!" he screamed. "That's what's wrong with that! He can't tell a bass drum from a pipe organ."
Sam braced himself and grabbed the suitcase sitting at his feet by the handle. The front was facing the table, concealing the front from view, but he knew by looking at the luggage of the other men that there would most likely be a name on the front. He tilted it back slightly, just enough so that only he could actually see what was written there. Sure enough, he saw PROF. HAROLD HILL painted in big white letters and felt his heart sink to his knees.
"Oh, boy," he said.
Al was in a rage. Sam had disappeared after the last leap and had fallen completely off the radar. Ziggy had checked every day of Sam's life, from the day he was born to the day he stepped into the accelerator, and had found no trace of him. Gooshie kept telling him to calm down, that everything would be okay, but Al knew that it wouldn't. If he couldn't get to Sam and give him some direction, he would fail. It was that cut and dry. You can't fix a problem if you don't know what you're looking for.
The man sitting in the Waiting Room was no help, either. Al went to see him almost immediately, thinking that he could shed some light on where Sam was and what was going on, but the man did nothing but try to fast talk him the entire time they were together, and Al ended up walking out. Whoever the strange man was, it was obvious that he was used to being under pressure and wouldn't give away anything he didn't want them to know. Al had seen enough of that sort during his time, and he didn't have time to play any games. He could leave the slimeball in the empty Waiting Room until the solitude ultimately made the guy crack or go insane
(little trick i picked up in the navy)
but they didn't have time for that nonsense. Sam needed help ASAP.
He paced back in forth restlessly in his office. He didn't like this; not at all
A Note From Ben: The chapters that follow will NOT rely so heavily on the original dialogue as this one did. This was only done because, following the original play, this chapter centered mostly around secondary characters. Please remember this, and thanks for reading:)