They ask me why and I tell them "so I can sit on the boards and have a catch with someone." They produce the second kick board within a few minutes. The football came sometime later (which seemed to be an eternity to me). It was one of those orange nerf footballs. I specifically remember this because I was having a catch with one of the men from the man with the white hair's group. I'm bobbing on the water with the two kicking boards stacked, and squeezed between my legs as I sit on them. To get more leverage, I would grab the edge of the tub with my right hand and throw with my left as I am left handed. After a while I became bored again. So, as a joke, I dunked the nerf ball in the nice warm bath water and I threw it to the guy I was having a catch with. He was only ten or fifteen yards away but I threw it as hard as I could. It was a perfect spiral and I hit him right in the chest. The thing is, it knocked him right onto his back and the other men who were watching all began laughing. The laughter continued for a few seconds but then when he didn't get up the laughter stopped and they all went over to him. He eventually got up, but the other men basically had to carry him into the hallway. I could tell that he was going to be all right but he was hurting. That was the end of the football and the end of my kick boards. I had to tread water for quite a while longer after that, the atmosphere had gone from very festive to very serious.

The thing is when they finally pulled me out of the tub, my skin was as red as a ripe tomato, and as they rubbed me down with towels I couldn't feel them. I couldn't feel anything touching my skin. My penis had shrunk so much I had to check to make sure it was still there. I believe that the water was not hot but very cold and they were trying to see how long my body could overcome hypothermia using only the power of suggestion in the mind. I have no idea how cold the water actually was, or how long I was actually in the tub but I can be sure that it was hours.

After they dried me off they made me do jumping jacks and pushups down on the floor. As I'm doing my pushups I hear a noise over my right shoulder, one of Adolph's men was picking up the towels they had just dried me off with, and tripped or slipped on something and I watched him fall in the tub with my right eye. I heard everybody running behind me. After a few seconds I hear the man with the white hair yelling at me to get my ass up there. I stop doing my pushups and hurry up the ladder. When I get to the top, I recognized the guy in the water, he was one of the more likable guys out of the original group. When I see it's him, I start laughing my ass off and I said something stupid like "how's the water" but everyone around me is VERY serious and they are frantically trying to get the man to grab the end of a broom handle. This guy was a big and burly guy (over 6'-2" and at least 250 pounds). Yet I watched as he could barley close his hand around the broom handle. He was fully clothed and was wearing a heavy dark wool overcoat. They manage to get him over to the edge but there was no foothold or leverage to pull him in and they could not get him out of the water. They tried several times, but the man could not move his arms at all to help them. The man with the white hair now jumps in and tries to lift him out of the water with one hand while holding onto the edge with the other to no avail. He yells at me to jump in. So I do, I try and pull him up as Adolph is doing on the other side and again this doesn't work. So I did the only thing left. I took a deep breath and went to the bottom feet first and came up under the guy who had fell in. With my knees bent and my hands above my head I grab the guy's butt and push off the bottom with my feet locking my arms above me. By doing this I managed to throw him far enough out of the water to where they grabbed him and pulled him out. I repeated this with Adolph, and then just got out myself just like I was getting out of the deep end of a swimming pool. I stood up and watched, but as I watched I became very confused as they frantically cut the man in the over coat's clothing off and they were wrapping him in blankets as fast as they could get them. His face was expressionless, his eyes were wide open but didn't move, and his skin was very very pale. They had some trouble getting him down the ladder, but they managed and they put him right onto a stretcher and wheeled him quickly out of the room and into the hallway. The man with the white hair wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and started yelling at everyone. This all happened in under two minutes, the man was in the water for probably about one, maybe less. I just stood there and hoped he didn't yell at me again (I had already screwed up twice, the football and getting out of the pool without permission). Everyone starts to pat me on the back and tells me what a great job I did. But now I was even more confused? How come he couldn't get out of the pool? Why did his face look like that? Why is my skin red and his is white? What did I do that was so good? I just pushed him out of the pool.

Looking back I don't know why I remember this event so clearly. Maybe it is because it has the least amount of pain, or because it was early on in my development, or maybe it is because afterwards they made me feel special for some reason. I don't know, but that's why I believe that the water was very cold and not the temperature of a luke warm bath.

Make a red dot the size of a half dollar-
One of the very next things they did was to instruct me in the art of shooting guns. When they brought me from my dorm room I entered the lab but this time they bring me to a different part of the lab. To a place I had never been before. This place is like a long narrow warehouse with the back of the room lined with sand bags about 2/3 of the way up to the ceiling at the far end. I am standing by my self. There is a group of people standing off to my left. Adolph comes over to me and turns me to face him. "Listen to me very carefully," he says. "This is very very important! Do you understand?" he asks. I think I nodded my head. "We are going to work on your shooting skills today" he said. "Here is what you are going to do. Look at me and focus. Are you focused?" he says as his voice raises. "Yes" I say. "When you shoot, you shoot to kill! Repeat it!" he said. And I repeated it. "When you see a target, you will envision two round circles each the size of a half dollar. They are glowing neon red. These two circles are going to appear on every target. One will be in the middle of the targets forehead and the other will be right in the upper middle of his chest. WHEN YOU FIRE, YOU WILL ENVISION IN YOUR MIND, ZOOMING IN TO THESE TARGETS LIKE THE WORLDS MOST POWERFUL TELEPHOTO LENS. IN YOUR MIND THAT LITTLE RED GLOWING TARGET WILL BECOME THE SIZE OF A STOP SIGN. NO MATTER HOW FAR AWAY THEY ARE. IT WILL ALWAYS BE AS EASY TO HIT THE EXACT CENTER OF THE TARGET, JUST AS IF YOU WERE SHOOTING A STOP SIGN STANDING TWO FEET IN FRONT OF IT. IN YOUR MIND, YOU WILL ADJUST FOR WIND AND DISTANCE AUTOMATICALLY. WHEN YOU SHOOT YOU WILL NOT THINK, YOU WILL JUST DO! DO YOU UNDERSTAND! DO YOU UNDERSTAND! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!" he said. I SAID "YES I UNDERSTAND".

One of the other lab guys whom I had never talked to before then comes up from behind me somewhere and he is holding a case. He places the case on this round wooden table and opens it. There are six different pistols in it. He asked me to look at him and not the pistols. He then asks me "if I had ever shot a gun before." I said "once at sleep away camp when I was little" he asked me if I knew the caliber and I said "yes, it was a .22 caliber rifle" and I remember hearing laughter, it seemed to be from all over the room. He then said to "focus your eyes on me, always your eyes are on me". He then asked me if I had ever shot a pistol before and I replied "no". He then told me that he was going to instruct me how to handle a gun, how to load it, how to clean it, how each one is different and what there different characteristics are, and he went on and on. At the end he said "you will remember everything I say and it will become like second nature to you, you will know it like the back of your hand". He then picked up the first pistol and for the next few hours (I presume it was hours) he spent showing me all the guns. Taking apart all the guns, and putting them back together. How to load them. How to clean them. How each one was different etc..etc.. I specifically remember this because after I did it once, I knew each gun like the back of my hand. They on the other hand were quite insistant that I disassemble and then reassemble every gun at LEAST 25 times. After about three or four "assemblies" I spoke out and said "this is a waste of time, when can I shoot?" and then like one voice every one in the room started yelling at me. All basically saying the same thing, that your gun is your life and that all this is very very very important. I got the message and said "well test me". Someone, I think it was Mr. Greení\'s voice says "all right, we'll test you smart-ass" and they made me turn around. I hear them working. When I turn back around all six guns are disassembled and are in a big pile in the middle of the round table. The man with the white hair says to me you have exactly something something minutes to reassemble all the weapons. I really wasn't listening to him. The moment I had turned around and saw the pile of parts I knew what they wanted me to do. I was like a kid in a candy store. Excited at the new challenge, and ready to show them just what I could do, it was all like a game to me. Me against them and they don't think I can do it. As the man with the white hair finished speaking the words I really wasn't hearing. He said "ready" and I look at him and he has a stop watch, to the left of him is Mr. Green standing there with his arms crossed with this shit eating grin on his face. I remember thinking to my self "watch this you son of a bitch" and Adolph says "go." And I rush over to the table. Let me tell you every piece that I touched I instantly knew EXACTLY what gun it went to, how it was used, what purpose it served the weapon and how to clean it. I instantly knew everything and every word the instructor had told me about that piece.

I have no idea how fast I assembled those six pistols. I was so focused on the task I had no idea about anything else around me. How much time had gone by, where I was, nothing. I was going very fast and when I finished and slammed the last pistol to the table and yelled "done". As I looked up they all had this blank stare and mouth open look to them. Mr. Green says "do it again" and I did it two more times. Then the man with the white hair and black leather coat goes behind me and takes apart one of the guns and holds it in front of me and instructs me to tell in detail what gun this part goes to and what it is used for. I would then tell every detail word for word exactly as the instructor in the blue lab coat told me. After three or four parts Adolph is now strutting around like a proud peacock. He praised me and made me feel good about my self, and I said with a very cocky attitude "now can I shoot" as I looked at Mr. Green. Mr. Green breaks a smile and says "Shit!! let him shoot".

The lab instructor grabs a second case out of the hall. It's black look identical to the other case only smaller. He opens it and it has boxes of bullets in it. He places five or six bullets on this little slotted plastic tray, grabs one of the guns and proceeds to walk down to the closest shooting station. It was a movable divider type wall (like the kind you see in office cubicles) and had a small ledge about a foot wide on it. We were only about ten yards away from this hanging paper target (the kind with a black silhouette on it). The instructor then proceeded to tell me to do exactly as he instructs. He tells me to load the clip, insert the clip into the pistol, enter a round into the chamber, step up to the line on the floor, envision the "red dot" on the targets forehead and chest, raise and stiffen my arm like a "steel beam", slowly squeeze the trigger, repeat until all the rounds have been discharged, step back, remove the clip from the pistol, discharge the last cartridge from the chamber, place the clip and the pistol on the ledge and then take two steps back. He says "do it now". I walk up to the ledge, load the clip, insert it into the pistol, load a round into the chamber, step up to the line, raise my arm and fire all the shots at once!.

BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM!BLAM! step back, remove the clip from the pistol, clear the last round from the chamber, place both the clip and the pistol back on the ledge and take two steps back. This all took place in probably under 10 seconds. I did all this just like I had done it a thousand times before and like I knew it like the back of my hand. The instructor comes by my side and starts lecturing me about squeezing "gently" on the trigger and how to shoot my rounds "one at a time and in control". I have tuned him out as I am only focusing on the small crowd which has now gathered around the target within a matter of seconds, and there seem to be mixed reviews about my "performance" and a large amount of discussion is going on. It seems I had hit the target exactly in the center of the head, but only once. Finally, Adolph walks back and stands in front of me. "Rhino" he says, "Why did you shoot the target once and then deliberately waste the rest of your rounds?" he asks. "I didn't" I answered. "Rhino, there's only one hole in the fucking target, now answer me, WHY DID YOU DELIBERATELY MISS WITH THE REST OF YOUR ROUNDS". "I didn't" I answer, and at that point I remember a feeling of such pride, and such arrogance. A feeling that I had never felt before. This feeling overwhelmed me and I could not help but smile, and as I stood there I stuck out my chest and in the cockiest demeanor I could muster I answered "LOOK AGAIN!!!". Adolph is looking at me with this sort of puzzled look on his face and turns and walks back to the target. He moves people aside and looks at it, he turns and looks back at me, then looks at the back of the target. He takes three steps towards me "Rhino, there's only one.." "LOOK AGAIN!!" I yell. He walks back to the sand bags and the group follows. They are looking for the bullet holes. I am watching as all eyes are scanning the wall of sand bags. I hear "here it is" and I see one of the lab instructors stick his finger into one of the sand bags. There is still puzzlement and confusion amongst the group. They can find only one bullet hole. Finally, I see the man with the white hair pull out his pocket knife and cuts into the sand bag. I cannot see what is going on as the group closes around him, but all of a sodden I hear this ROAR of approval from the crowd, and Adolph emerges from the crowd with his hand out stretched and something is on his palm. He approaches me and there is a small pile of bullets in his palm. "You shot all your rounds through the same hole didn't you?" "Of course? It's what you told me to do?" I answer. And as I answer the ROAR erupts again.

I remember standing there, feeling very proud of myself, yet at the same time feeling very puzzled. "What are they so excited about?" I was asking myself. To me, it was as easy as taking the cap off a ball point pen and putting it back on really fast five times. Simple, a child could do it. What was all the hoopla about? I had absolutely no clue.

For the rest of the night I repeated this from all possible distances, angles, and firing positions. I was so fast with the firing procedure they had five or six stations all set up and I had to wait for them to examine the results and reset the targets etc... I would load it, fire it, remove the clip or spent cartridges, place everything back onto the shelves exactly as I had the first time and move onto the next spot. I was in heaven, ever since the fifth or sixth grade I had been really into all the "really cool" stuff that you weren't supposed to have as an upper middle class kid (in total secrecy from my mother of course).