Registry of the Evolved Database
File #09082400020133
|
 portrayed by |
Not a lot to tell. Samuel Book was born when he was born and grew up as the son of a tailor in Chicago. When he went off to college his parents died in an automobile accident and he used his inheritance to set up a storefront in Milwaukee. When the bomb went off in New York he registered under the Linderman Act. Now he owns Book Custom Tailor in Borough Park.
Book is a private individual who does not appear to have any desire to get involved with his community.
Pseudomagnetic Touch
Sam has the ability to make small items cling to his hands, as if he were projecting a magnetic field, though it isn't limited to ferrous materials. He can make plastic pens, chains of paperclips, sheets or paper or even items as heavy as a stapler stick to his fingers.
The same way you might look at your leg cut off at the knee and not feel anything at first, maybe this is just shock.
But I hope not.
I don't want it to wear off.
I pray not to feel anything ever again.
Because if it wears off, this is all going to hurt so much. This is going to hurt for the rest of my life.
Chuck Palahniuk
Survivor
The Truth, Not in Any Registry Anywhere
File #Even The Company Doesn't Know It All
|
 portrayed by |
This is a story of tragedy. The tale of a man who did what he thought was right, changed his mind about what right really was and paid the highest cost for that decision. But as I write these notes, this story is not yet over. And when it is done, it will have been a bloody one. A lifetime of triumph and pain, honing one man's purpose to a razor's edge, the edge between redemption and revenge. By the time you've read this, you know which I've chosen. Just now, I'm still not certain.
I was born Elijah Buchmann and from a young age it was expected I'd go into the family business and join my father's accounting firm. This was fine enough by me. In addition to being an accountant, my father was an Orthodox rabbi and was as such a spectacularly stern man. I had streaks of rebelliousness before and following my bar mitzvah, but they were beaten out of me quite capably. Still, it was hard for a boy to grow up in Borough Park in Brooklyn and not get into a little bit of trouble, the Jewish kids ganging up together to deal with, fight with or make friends with gangs of black kids from Bed-Stuy. So even thought the bruises on my thighs told me to be an obedient son, it never quite sunk in. Punishment has never been the way to get me to cooperate. I'm certain you realize that now.
I graduated high school in 1988 and signed up to go to City College, where my father and his father had gone. Four easy years on I'd received my degree and started working on my the MAcc I'd need to take the CPA exam and join my father's firm as a partner. I'd also met Ingrid, who, after a chance encounter at the Harlem AMC where the two of us were both in line to see Robin Hood, but it had been sold out so as luck would have it we both ended up going to see Hudson Hawk instead. Terrible movie, but the best night of my life. To be fair, I'd see Robin Hood later and it wouldn't be very good.
Movies would end up having a major effect on my life two years later. Just a few hours away from the 150 required to become a CPA and some friends of mine and I decide to blow off a little steam and head down to the theater. According to the book Donnie Brasco, an entire generation of young mafioso joined up after seeing The Godfather and getting a sudden sense of Italian pride. Me, I saw The Fugitive. You ever see it? It's brilliant. Harrison Ford, the janitor from Scrubs and, yes, Tommy Lee Jones. I came out of The Fugitive with this crazy new idea about what I wanted from my life. I wanted to be a US Marshal. Yeah, really.
My father didn't approve. To say the least. The two of us got into a shouting match which quickly escalated. Though an accountant, my father has never been a weak man, but that night I demonstrated that a degree and nearly five years out of the home meant I did not have to stand around while being beaten. I walked out that night and it was the last time I'd ever see him alive. Three years later my mother would ask me in her timid way not to attend his funeral. Not a request I had a problem with.
Since I'd gone ahead and thrown my life into utter disarray and been exiled from my family, I put the final nail in the coffin before that night was over and I asked Ingrid to be my wife. Blonde hair, blue eyes, beautiful and Nordic, both of my parents had always hated her on sight. But she was perfect for me. She loved numbers, questionable movies and New York City. Once I had her affirmation, I explained to her the crazy left turn my life had taken. She was fine with it. She also really liked The Fugitive. The next day I went to see my local recruiter and less than a week later I was off for my seventeen weeks of training at the US Marshals academy.
I excelled at the training, both the physical and the academic. I was observant and thoughtful. More than once I had a teacher suggest that instead of going the route I was taking, I head over to Quantico and sign up instead for the 'big leagues', but I wanted to be like Sam Gerard. I was that same kid I was before my Bar Mitzvah, doing what I wanted to do even if it wasn't the best idea.
By 1995 Ingrid was pregnant with our first child and I was a field marshal, having proven myself as being exceptionally adept at tracking down and bringing in escaped criminals. Like my hero Tommy Lee (Jones, not the other one) I could think like the fugitives, use their contacts against them, prey on their desperation and eventually bring them in. With dozens of collars under my belt, I quickly moved up in rank, but I never left the field. It was where I felt at home. Speaking of home, in the first half of 96 Ingrid gave birth to our daughter, Anna. Though I spent a lot of time away, I was there to see it. Did I say seeing Hudson Hawk was the best day in my life? Maybe until then. This was, and still is, the best day in my life. She was beautiful and she made so much of what I was doing matter so much more.
But things never really seem to go the way you expect. In 1999 I was second in command of a taskforce to track down a number of escaped prisoners who had fled the scene of a transport bus crash. We'd brought in all but one, a Charles Oaks, who had seemingly disappeared into the suburbs of Kansas City. Following the leads at my disposal, I tracked him down to a condemned apartment building in Independence he'd lived in as a teen. Foolishly, I chose not to wait for backup and I began doing a grid search of the building alone. The sort of mistake someone makes when they want to end up dead, which is pretty much what happened to me. Except it didn't. As I rounded a corner I came face to face with Oaks. My gun was down, his was not. He fired. I winced. When I looked again, I wasn't dead and he was every bit as astounded as I was. He raised the gun to fire again and I leapt forward, touching the tip of his pistol and forcing it, not with my fingers but with some force of will, to the side, then twisting from his hand and flinging it to the floor. I was berated considerably for my actions and ended up having to rewrite my report twice to get rid of what were apparently 'inconsistancies' in my reporting. Eventually I just wrote up something that was plausible, without any weirdness, and it was accepted. No one believed Oaks when he insisted he'd shot me, but the bullet had bounced off.
Someone had read my first two reports, though, someone who paid attention to these sorts of things. Someone who, I suppose, was paid specifically to pay attention to this sort of thing. At the time no one would believe nonsense like this. Little did most of us realize what we'd all know less than a decade later. My life went back to normal for the most part. Now and again I'd go to set my pen down and it'd be stuck to my hand or I'd have to peel my shirt away from my skin or I'd look down and my tie would be rigid as an iron rod. Like someone with a minor toothache, I ignored it, hoped it'd go away, hoped it didn't mean anything bad.
In early 2000, they made contact. An organization who recognized that I had some kind of a special talent, a talent other than my natural skill in the field as a marshal. Though they liked that, too. They wanted to put me to use. Tracking down and bringing in a different kind of criminal. A different kind of danger to society. I won't bore you overmuch with the details of my recruitment. I was recruited into the Company by Bob Bishop, bought their pitch about dangerous people with dangerous abilities hook, line and sinker. By March I was no longer a marshal, instead working as an agent, partnered with what they called a 'non-evolved' agent, Hillary Cooper. She was a good agent, believed in her cause and in her country. I'm sorry things would turn out the way they did.
For the next four years I had an ideal life. I worked in the field two weeks out of the month, home with my wife on weekends, watching my daughter grow. We still lived in Langley, though I worked where the job took me. For the most part my 'power' seemed somewhat useless and Hillary would occasionally joke that they should pair me up with an evolved agent, since I was maybe only halfway evolved. My power was officially listed as 'tactile telekinesis'. At first I assumed it was a sort of magnetism, but I realized that by focusing I could reach through whatever I was touching and stick it to anything it was touching, so I could make a chain of paperclips or curl up a sheet of paper that was sitting on a sheet of paper that was touching a piece of paper I touched. Though I was initially uncertain about using my ability, something that made me so different, before long I was practicing it as much as I practiced with my pistol. Every bit as intently. Except, I didn't share what I was learning to do with my peers. Something inside told me that it was a good idea to leave them thinking that my ability was useless. They didn't need to know that, while still requiring touch and while still relatively weak in total strength, I could unfurl a scarf into a club, focus on my clothing to give me protection against physical trauma or snake around a length of rope to trip someone up. Or strangle them.
In was in the summer of 04 that I began to have my doubts about what I was doing. As I came to accept and then embrace what it was that I could do, I started to think about others with their own talents in a different way. Some of these people were dangerous, there's no question of that. Some were people who would be dangerous even if they didn't have a power. But some were people who'd woken up one morning in a terrible situation. Who needed help, not to be locked away, or brought in, tagged and let go, disoriented, so we could watch their movements. There were times where I began to wonder if we weren't just making it worse when we did things like this. Wonder just what the purpose was in tracking potentially dangerous people. The bomb was bad, but considering what I've seen, what I know is out there? I'm surprised it wasn't worse.
It was late July that Hillary and I tracked him down. Edward Wright, an Oklahoma-based white supremacist who had some sort of charismatic ability. He'd risen through the ranks of the Brotherhood of Fourteen and was now leading the group. What we didn't realize was that he was not only aware of his ability, but that others had abilities like it. He'd put his effort toward finding others and had had them brought in against their will. When we finally found his compound, Wright had already kidnapped three people, all with some form of telepathic ability, one a projecting empath we'd tagged previously, another with some still-unexplained memetic talent and the last a telepath capable of joining minds. From what we could discern, Wright planned on using their abilities in conjunction with his own to create a memetic virus, literally spread by word, which would be tuned to what Wright thought of as the lesser races. I don't know what it was meant to do, to kill them mentally, to fill them with some emotion such as anger or self-loathing. All I know was that it was tremendous power in the worst hands, and it was our job to put an end to it.
Hillary and I infiltrated the compound and made it to Wright's room, but Hillary's taser misfired and with a word she was under Wright's spell. I used my ability to cram as much of my hair, a little longer and curlier than regulation, into my ears, hoping that Wright's power was based on his voice. My hope was validated, as I didn't seem to be under any kind of control, but he talked and talked. I'm pretty sure he called me names, taunted us both. I just nodded occasionally while I focused on the length of fishing wire I'd started to carry with me everywhere. One end slid out of my pocket, nearly invisible given the light, then down my leg and out across the room and finally up and around Wright's body in a number of circles. All while I was focusing on this, my partner began to raise her gun toward me and Wright began to shout. I could see sweat on her forehead, I could certainly feel it on mind. Just as she seemed to be tensing to pull the trigger, I tensed as well, forcing the fishing wire as straight and rigid as I could make it. Parts of Wright slid off in every direction and Hillary snapped out of it immediately.
I thought that the problem would be with her realizing I'd come to hone my power to a sharp edge. She didn't think anything of it. At least, not right then. Instead, she tracked down Wright's three kidnap victims. We had to take them in, she said. They were obviously too dangerous. And right there we had an argument about the right thing to do. They weren't dangerous, they were just being used. No different from what would happen if we took them in. It's just that we would be using them. We would be following them. It wasn't better than what Wright was doing. Not at all. In the end I had to let her take them in, I had no real option, but the next day I resigned my position with the Company. I could not, in any good conscience, carry on with what we were doing.
It was rough there for a while. Ingrid taught at Georgetown, so the two of us had plenty of money, but I felt listless and frustrated. After a few months unemployed, I slowly snapped out of it and began to take up a trade I'd learned at my mother's feet years ago. Tailoring. I wasn't too terribly good to start with, but it was one of those things that complimented my ability well. I didn't need a needle, since I could stiffen the tip of a thread and just push it through most materials. Still, I worked at it the old fashioned way, as my wife still didn't know about my abilities. I became an apprentice to the man who had actually been my favorite tailor while I still worked for the Company and whose son wasn't interested in the family business, but had instead gone off to be an accountant. Ironic, that. Eventually life settled into its rhythms. Anna started to school, Ingrid made tenure and I became better at my new job.
Then on November 8th, 2006, the bomb went off in New York City. I guessed that it wasn't what they said it was, but it wasn't until I contacted some old friends that I knew I was right. Something had finally gone wrong with one of the evolved and it had taken lives on a mass scale. I can't say now what it was I was thinking then, but using some contacts, not all legal, from my days with the Marshals, I crafted a second identity. One for myself, my wife and my daughter. Just in case the worst happened. Just in case we had to disappear. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. That was when Samuel Book and his family came into being. Months later, when the senator came forth with his bold announcement and the registration plan was put into effect, I quietly registered Samuel Book as a tier-0 evolved with 'pseudomagnetic touch' as his evolved ability. It seemed close enough. Still, I did not reveal the truth of my talents to my wife nor what it was that I'd done for work for four years. To her, I was as surprised by Senator Petrelli's revelations as anyone.
For me June 4th of 2008 was the most important day of my life. For everyone else it was just another Thursday, but for me it was judgment day. It was the real beginning of my tachlit, the purpose that God had set for me. It was a terrible day, the worst in all of creation, but it was defining.
I came home from an excellent day at work. My boss had received a new shipment of fine Venetian silk and we had been working to make a suit for one of his many key customers. I liked working with silk. It was strong and fine. When I worked through it with my ability, I found that it was thin enough that I could use one length of silk to slice through another. It was a little fascinating, a little disturbing. But to continue, as I came through my door I found my wife sitting on the living room with our daughter sitting beside her, looking terrified. A man with a gun was standing beside her. Instinct overcame reason and I stepped inside to confront the man, but quickly felt cold steel pressed against the back of my head. Hillary quietly said to me that if I made a single wrong move, there would be a problem.
They had been sent to bring me in, just as I had gone to bring others in. In the world that Peter Petrelli and the bomb had made, there was no room for loose ends. Someone like me wasn't going to be allowed to walk free after seeing what I had seen and doing what I had done. I begged Hillary and her men (three in total) to put down their guns, that I would go with them. I apologized to my wife and daughter, said that I'd explain everything eventually. It all goes spotty here, my wife standing up and shouting, Anna running toward me, Hillary screaming for everyone to calm down. In a tense situation, there's no such thing as a single shot. I don't know which of them fired first or why, but it was the first of several. When the last one was quieted, I'd been shot in the shoulder and in the leg, Anna had been shot twice in the back and Ingrid had been shot in the side of the head.
They say time slows down, but it didn't here, not really. I was blank, couldn't hear, could barely see. As things started coming back to me, I remember Hillary apologizing. Saying it wasn't meant to happen this way. That she was just doing what she had to do. Apologizing again. I think she meant it, too. She looked near tears. In an attempt to stop my bleeding, one of the other agents began to tear up our table cloth and wrap it around my wound. That was an error on his part. I felt a vague sense of disappointment that he should do such a thing, even as I reached out with my ability, grabbed ahold of the tablecloth and strangled him with the length he'd torn. At the same time the rest of the tablecloth slid around behind me to block incoming shots. Hardening it until it was like iron, I pushed the cloth and the three agents behind it back against the wall, letting the dead man in front of me fall. The bamboo cloth contoured to their arms and legs, even as it refused to let them move. Hillary was shouting something, but I couldn't really hear her, didn't want to listen. I looked over their faces and felt the anger that had blinded and deafened me begin to fade away, taking with it love and compassion and everything else that made me feel like I was human. "You know," I said to Hillary as I used one end of the tablecloth to smother one of her men, "you should have told them what to expect. You knew what I could do." She had no response to that, just watched as I let the suffocated agent drop to the floor and then wrapped the tablecloth around her last man. Tightening it, I constricted him until I heard bones pop, then let him fall to the floor like the last, leaving only Hillary. She sobbed and apologized, but I just wanted to know one thing. Who had sent them and why. "He wanted you back," she said. They would do whatever it took to get me back. I dropped the tablecloth and Hillary, relaxing my mental grip, then looked down at my torn suit. It had been made out of that fine Venetial silk and now it was a bloody ruin. I tugged at one of the bulletholes and it tore away in a long, ragged strip of silk. "Run," I said to Hillary, "tell him I'm coming." But she didn't. She was a good agent. She reached for her gun, got it up faster than I would have expected any human to be able to, but I was still faster than that. I didn't have to reach for anything. I was the gun and the knifelike edge of my silk sleeve slid neatly across her neck, moving at the speed of thought. She fell to the ground holding her throat and the last time I saw her, blood was spilling around her fingers. I turned and walked away, not waiting to see that she died.
I have since allowed that Elijah Buchmann died in that room with his family. These days Samuel Book owns a small tailoring in Brooklyn, just a few blocks from where I grew up. New York is where the Company is, and the Company is where he is. As soon as I am ready, I will find him and I will kill him and I will take as many agents with me as I need to. When that is done, when Bob Bishop is dead, then Samuel Book can die to.
If you're reading this, I assume you know how that all turned out.
Cool: For the most part Sam has either burned away most of his anger or else he's buried it down someplace deep. He usually doesn't allow things to bother him, figuring that he's all bothered out for this life.
Professional: When on the job, Sam plays it entirely professional. He doesn't believe in casual killing or collateral damage, but his empathy toward unevolved humans is minimal and for anyone working for the Company is absolutely nil.
Driven: Sam will do whatever it takes to have his justice. He is self-destructive to a point, though he refuses to go over the edge. Not unless going over that edge would mean the destruction of the Company or the death of Bob Bishop. If so, then all bets are off.
Dark: When not on the job, his coldness is usually only punctuated by a bitter, sarcastic sense of humor. He's not exactly writing poetry in his LiveJournal and smoking cloves, but he's taken a bleakly realistic take on where the world is going and has found that, thanks to the loss of his family, he simply no longer cares.
Tactile Telekinesis
Elijah/Sam has the ability to telekinetically manipulate items so long as he is touching them or they are touching an item he already controls. So he could spin a pencil on his fingertip or he could touch the pencil to a pen and touch that on the tip of the pencil. He could stick his hand into a mass of paperclips and pull out a long trail of paperclips, which he could then make writhe around like prehensile snakes. He can set his hand down on a beach and come away with a boxing glove of sand, or make an intricate sandcastle form out of the ground. The limit of the mass he can manipulate is about 50 kilograms. After that it becomes exponentially harder for him to manipulate for each kilogram he adds on. By 60 he's likely to be bleeding from his nose and by 70, from his ears. Instead of focusing on raw strength, Sam/Elijah has spent his life focusing on the dexterity and utility of his ability.
It is important to clarify that Sam's tactile telekinesis is not his sending out an invisible hand that lifts and manipulates things. Rather, he reaches through the things he's touching and his telekinesis manipulates them from within, affecting their entire mass, thus his weight limitation. Though he can only lift upwards of 50 kilograms using his ability, by using the materials as the medium of his telekinesis, he can effectively harden what is a generally limp material, such as fabric or cloth. A leather belt can be made as rigid as a golf club, a shirt he's wearing can seemingly absorb an impact far beyond what a polycotton blend could be expected to and naturally thin materials such as silks and threads can be given a near-razor sharp edge, turning a silken kerchief into an instant knife.
While he can grant a material a hardness that seems beyond his normal strength, his strength still applies when it comes to manipulating an object in a way it isn't normally meant to move or bend. He can hold a paperclip in his hand and bend it into various forms using his ability all day, but he cannot bend a length of iron rebar or a steel door he touches with his ability any more than he could with his hands.
His 50 kilogram limit is one of mass, as such he cannot use his tactile manipulation on or through something that has a mass greater than 50 kilograms. As such, he could not use his ability to pick the lock of an armored door, shift something around inside of a heavy safe or even cause a single sheet of paper to fold in two by touching the ground only a half-foot away. With time and effort, he may be able to increase his raw strength with his ability. Something that may be explored in one of the alternate future settings. However, right now he focuses on ways to improve his delicate control and on manipulating multiple items at once.
Seriously Mild Telekinetic Strength Boost
He can apply his tactile telekinesis to just about anything he touches, even if it's over 50 kilograms. He just can't manipulate it. So for purposes of lifting things, he is capable of immediately reducing its weight for his purposes by 50 kilograms. This isn't particularly impressive, but it does mean he never needs help with carrying groceries to his car, can impress the ladies by lifting seemingly heavy objects and can even apply it to his jump, attaining a vert about 6 inches higher than if he's not using his abilities. Not likely to get him in the NBA any time soon, that. Note that this is in no way true super strength. If he were to attempt to throw a bowling ball, it wouldn't be like he threw a basketball. When in his hands and he's applying his TK to it, it feels to him as if it's light as a feather. If he were to throw it at an opponent, the instant it left his hand it would go back to being a bowling ball and would only be thrown as far as he could normally throw a bowling ball. Which isn't far. Bowling balls are heavy.
Nuance
Using his ability, he can give something he throws or pushes or otherwise moves away from him a little more english than someone relying solely on skill could. This is pretty much useless for just about anything other than annoying people by cheating at bowling, pool and golf.
Bulletproof Stunner
This is pretty much two applications of the same power stunt.
Most people weigh over 50 kilograms, so he can't use his tactile telekinesis to manipulate them. However, if he can get ahold of them, he can usually use their clothing against them. Applying his hardening ability on a man's shirt is a good way to immobilize his arms. As Sam has never faced an opponent with super strength, he has yet to go up against someone capable of just tearing through this use of his powers. Should that occur, it's a safe bet he's in for a headache, a bloody nose, achey teeth and the very real possibility that he'll be so worn out he won't be using his abilities for a bit.
Sam can also directly apply this ability to himself. The same stiffening of clothing that immobilizes a foe can be used to make his own clothes temporarily resistant to physical harm, such as from a fist, a club or a bullet. Unfortunately, the side effect is the same as above. Sam might be relatively safe from getting punched, but when he's using this ability on his own outfit, he's not going to be going anywhere very quickly. There are limits, of course. Though the hardness can be used to reduce the strength of impact aimed his way, every blow turned away wears at his concentration and tries his mental stamina. Similarly, though a hardy woolen sweater may be able to handle a couple of pistol rounds, it's still as flammeable as it ever was. There is no defense against anything that is not a purely physical attack. Usually he only triggers this when he thinks the worst is about to happen or as a gut response to danger. It would simply be impossible for him to function walking around using this ability all day. He'd be incapable of walking, eating or using the lav.
The Suit
This doesn't describe a power stunt. Rather, it's a very specific application of his ability. Sam has created for himself a special suit of particularly fine Italian silk. When he's not wearing it, it looks like a framework of cloth with two dozen or so six to eight foot long by one to three inch wide black silk ribbons hanging from it. When he puts it on, he uses his ability to wrap the ribbons around himself so it hangs naturally, looking to the naked eye like any other tasteful, expensive suit. However, should he need to, Sam is capable of unfurling the ribbons and using his ability on them to wield them as edged weapons. Sam specifically designed the suit so that he would never be caught unawares and unarmed.
Well he once killed a man with a guitar string
He's been seen at the table with kings
Well he once saved a baby from drowning
There are those who say beneath his coat there are wings
Tom Waits
Black Wings
Appendices
What's he good at?
Tailor: Sam's mother was a tailor and though he was never all that interested, he learned more than a few things from her. As he got on in life, he returned to his old hobby and developed a considerable respect for the trade. As an assistant to a professional, he's learned quite a bit and is now a capable maker of fine Italian suits.
Accounting: Hey, he almost got his masters in it. Not only does Sam have a good knowledge of the sweet science of accounting, but he also has a pretty solid grasp of tax law. He always did his taxes when he was married and he ALWAYS got a good refund.
Cop Lore/Streetwise: The US Marshals are a more direct operating arm of the Department of Justice than, say, the FBI. As such, Sam has had plenty of opportunity to soak up the wisdom of his fellow marshals, as well as local law enforcement. He knows the ins and outs of both lawmakers and criminals. He seems to have an especially keen grasp on the mind of someone on the run, with a good idea of what they'd do and where they'd go.
Languages: Sam speaks English and Hebrew fluently, but is also nearly fluent in Spanish and Russian, two of the most common languages spoken in prisons. Additionally, he has a rudimentary grasp of Mandarin and Italian and can recognize a number of eastern European dialects, even if he cannot speak them.
People Reader: Sam knows people. As part of his training with the US Marshals he took a few psychology courses, but even without that formal education, he seems to be able to get an intuitive read on most people he comes across. Additionally, he knows how to ask the right questions to get the answers he's looking for. No need for thumbscrews or Jack Bauer nonsense. Given enough time, he can get someone's mother to happily tell him where her son is hiding out.
Prison Lore: Though he never worked much prison transfer or worked inside of a prison, as someone who was expected to track down prisoners, he knows from prison life. As such he can recognize gang tattoos, figure out how prison schemes might work and discern the social hierarchy of a prison given time and profiles.
Shootin' and Fightin': As both a former US Marshal and an active agent with the Company, Sam has trained extensively in the use of a number of firearms, as well as in hand to hand fighting. He's no ninja, but he's reasonable at Aikido, Judo and Krav Maga. Additionally, he's taken time to work his unique abilities into his martial arts, attempting to utilize his ability to take people by surprise to his advantage. As such, he's taken to watching Wu Shu demonstrations, but he hasn't signed up for any lessons.
Violin: He can play the violin. But not very well.
Others: Thanks to his ability, he's pretty decent at racquetball, squash and origami.
Memorable Quotes:
A guy goes into a clothing store to buy a new suit, but he doesn't want to spend too much money. The tailor shows him a really nice suit for $400, but the guy says it's too much. He shows him another suit for $200, and the guy says it's still too much. After showing him several others, he finally shows him one for $10.
"That's more like it!", the guy says, and he goes to try it on. He comes back and looks in the mirror and one sleeve is about two inches shorter than the other.
"No problem," says the tailor, "Just hunch up your right shoulder."
So the guy hunches his right shoulder way up, and the sleeves look OK, but the lapels are crooked.
"No problem," says the tailor, "Just stick out your left arm and cock it like a bird's wing."
So the guy sticks out his left arm and the lapels look OK. But then he notices that one pant leg is shorter than the other.
"Well, just keep that leg stiff," says the tailor, "and no one will notice."
"I'll take it!", the guy says.
So the guy leaves the tailor shop wearing the suit, walking with his left leg stiffened, one arm stuck out like a bird's wing, and one shoulder hunched way up.
As he's walking down the street he passes two orthopedic surgeons. One of the doctors says to the other, "I have never seen anyone in such bad shape in my twenty-five years of practice!"
"Me neither," the other doctor says. "But he sure has a nice suit!"
Trivia and Notes:
- Sam can't do an Irish accent at all. Don't even ask.
- For the role of Sam, Brad Pitt actually learned to sew. Unfortunately, he was terrible at it and kept making his planned projects many sizes too small. As such, he decided to adopt just a whole ton of kids to wear his outfits, then pretended like he'd meant to do it the whole time.