“You asked me to.”
“You know what I mean.”
He looked up at me. “It’s mostly true.”
“No, it’s not!” I yelled at him. “It’s nuts! It’s a lie. It’s a fantasy. Or worse, you’re crazy and don’t even realize it.”
“I’m working on something,” he said. “I got caught here for a while. Really, it’s as simple as that.”
“Stop it!” This was like trying to argue with my mother about Lizards and lightbulbs. I know! I know it doesn’t do any good.
“You’re not rational,” I told him.
“Not entirely,” he said. “That’s one of the lessons we learned.”
“I said stop it!” I yelled. I felt like choking him, and that scared me.
“Okay,” he said. “Can I just sleep for a while? I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow.”
“No!” I said. “No effing way! I have some questions. What about that story about your mom and the gazebo that you told me when we first met?”
“That happened earlier,” he said. “In another town. Before she killed herself.”
“You’re such a slick liar,” I was yelling at him. “I don’t even know if you have a mom! Why did you ever tell me that 4000 story in the first place?”
“You asked.”
“No more, Marco. No more! The truth now. Or I’m calling the police and holding you till they come.”
“Well, you did ask. And you were the only person, the only kid I’d met in this area that I thought might understand. It, the story, was kind of my way of thinking things over, like reviewing what had happened. I was wondering what I wanted—”
“See? That’s what I mean! One minute you’re a guy from 2007, like just now, and other times you say you’re not from here!” I could hear how shrill my voice was.
“Look,” he said, “I’m under constraints. I tried to suggest that to you. You know it would create a paradox to bring material back in time that would then alter the future. Novikov’s time-travel self-consistency principle. Well, similarly, travelers also can’t divulge information that would change the present and lead to a different future.”
“That’s convenient,” I said. “So, you can hide any inconsistency in your story behind that shield, and nothing really ever has to make sense.”
“Everything I’m telling you makes sense and you know it,” he said.
“What about the police and the SUV in the Garvins’ garage?” I thought I had him.
“It may not have happened yet. They’ll blame you for it, you know.” He arranged a pillow behind his back and slouched against the wall. Fading.
“What about the Lizard stuff, the reptile stuff?” I pressed on.
“The skin changes actually happen, or at least will continue to happen until they get their physiology readjusted. The ideas about the red stuff I got from your mom when I was with her on the unit. She was brilliant, actually. I guess I just used those details to hook you in. I knew I might need an ally at some point.
“Some of the other things,” he went on, weary, humoring me, “Bellarmine and the like, I got from the black cube on my last trip. The cube extrapolates along some kind of probability matrix. The written language stuff is also true. They call it Neuglish. It’s a streamlined polyglot of basic English and the most universal words and symbols from historical world languages that have stood the test of time. So to speak.” He smiled. “Once they explain it, it’s easy to read the writing.”
The paper with the code. “We, they, we, they. You slide back and forth.”
“Yeah, well, you’re right. Sometimes I can’t keep it straight myself. Playing these roles. I just slip.”
His lids had drooped all the way closed. Like he had been trying to fight it, trying to answer my questions, but sleep was overtaking him.
I went to the kitchen and got a towel. Soaked it in cold water. It brought him around again, but it didn’t startle him like you might think.
“What is this crap about portals, wormholes?” I had waited too long for these questions. He was not going to put me off.
He dried his face with the bottom of his shirt and scrunched up against the wall to sit up straighter. “Wormholes have both a space and a time component. If the time shifts, the space may move correspondingly. They’re like folds in reality where different dimensions touch. Our theorists believe this portal may not stay located at the same coordinates more than another day or two. I’ve made my decision. I’m going back. There’s nothing for me here. And I’ve got to go back now. Plus, I’ve met a girl.”
“On the locked unit?”
“Sauria. The one who welcomed me back.”
He reached out as if to touch me. I stepped back and he quit.
“Look, Ben”—the expression on his face was almost pleading—“if I seem unreal to you, it’s because you have known me while I was right in the middle of fulfilling my destiny. I am a man of destiny, and you have been here to witness it. I will always be so grateful to you.”
“Marco, this is exactly like talking to my mom. You’re crazy. You need help.”
“Ben, I was never from here. I’ve been on the move for two years. Since high school. My family has money. I had a good bank account before my dad ditched me, so that’s how I can rent places, but there’s nothing left for me here. There’s nothing to go home to. Dad had left. Mom took herself out of the picture my senior year. She couldn’t take being crazy anymore. She was the laughingstock of our community. She OD’d.”
“Right!” He was so full of it!
“True. Took all her meds at once. Never woke up.
“Anyway, here, I’m an outcast. A bum. A nothing. Gradually flushing my bank account down the toilet. There, I’m famous. I’m like a scientist. When I return, I’ll publish this most recent experience. I’ll be a cultural historian with ties to the Venerable Ones.” He was becoming more animated.
“Marco, that’s grandiose bullshit. You’re going to just keep running away until something awful happens. If you treat this thing now, this craziness—”
“Hey,” he said. “Don’t you wonder why else I told you the story?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Didn’t you just tell me?” I asked him. “Or was our conversation here just one more lie?”
“I wanted to show you there is hope to cure mental illness,” he said, weary again, shaking his head. “You could even be the one who makes the next neurological breakthrough. With the ideas I’ve shared, you may put this century farther on the path to healing in the future. Don’t you think you understand what people with mental illness are up against?”
“Is there anything I could say to get you to face reality?” I was up in his face. “To get you to come with me back to the unit without a fight?”
“Look,” he said, “how could I have known about the Garvins’ keys?”
“Snooping?” I said. “Working for them?”
“Okay,” he said. “When I’m gone, just ask them if they ever knew a guy named Lasalle.”
“You could have given them a different name!”
“Come on, Ben! The simpler explanation is that I’m you. Just shifted in time. I’m really just like you!”
“I’m not like you! I’m not like you! You’re crazy! I’m not crazy!”
Now I was the one who was exhausted. See where it gets you. Argue with someone when they’re psychotic. They don’t play by the rules.
“Marco, we don’t even look alike!” Stupid! I didn’t want to keep talking this crap.
“Occam’s razor,” he said. “You’ve heard of it, haven’t you? With two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler? I’m going back and forth in time! Either that, or you’re crazy, too.”
“I’m not going to argue with you any more.” My voice was so loud!
“Tomorrow, you’re turning yourself in,” I said. My arms felt heavy, like I’d been in a wrestling match. I was bone-marrow tired, like you get when an opponent’s been riding you for two mi
nutes and you can’t get up off the mat.
Not Too Close
When I awoke around dawn, he was gone.
I washed my face and scrounged in the kitchen for a snack. I found some grapes that weren’t all moldy and some Triscuits. I was hungry for some cereal but the box was empty. I didn’t have to dress since I was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. I wasn’t in a rush. I thought I knew what I would find.
His house looked broken-down, derelict. I hadn’t noticed that before. The front door was standing open. The chairs in the dining room remained. The sleeping bag and his notebooks were gone.
I walked out to the oak tree. Looked around the area. I didn’t see any other big oaks. I pushed branches aside and went in toward the trunk. The clothes he had been wearing were in a pile toward the back. I don’t think I had expected that. But I knew it was staged. I knew he would have other clothes, stashed, because the police would have a description of him. He needed to change his appearance to travel. I knew he would move again, go someplace where people didn’t know him, and there he’d continue to run his game. Continue to believe he was a special person who had a special relationship to the future. Continue the sad cycle of hospitalizations. Probably continue to find gullible strangers he could fool. Someone he could mesmerize in his special way. Bipolar. Isn’t that what he called it?
I looked for the wormhole’s wavy pattern, feeling like an idiot as I did. I didn’t see it. Oh, maybe something weird with the light in the back corner. I stretched my hand toward it. Not too close! I pulled it back. I reached over my head and pulled a leaf off. Little sparkly webs. Mites. I knew there would be. Probably kill the tree sooner or later. What a story! What a bizarre, loony idea.
Maybe someday, I’d come back to this tree. Go inside. Walk all the way through, front to back. This portal may not stay located at the same coordinates. Maybe I’d bring Hubie or Z and have them watch. It would be like an experiment. Or not. Maybe someday after I graduated from high school, when I was accepted at the University.
I may have zoned out for a bit. I was pretty tired. It was chilly, but there was still light on the trunk and the glittery area and the pile of clothes. I picked up the vest and put it on for some warmth. As I zipped it, I knew why I hadn’t left yet. If I was leery of putting my hand in the glittery area, then I guess a part of me believed Marco. Bought his story. What if there really was a 4000, like he described, and a cure for mental illness waiting to be discovered? What if I followed him and wound up learning how to cure mental illness back here? Mom and thousands, maybe millions, like her would be free! What a fantastic possibility!
It was noisier. Were there railroad tracks nearby? I couldn’t remember. What if this tree really was a dense hologram? Could you turn up the light or sound from some master control? I looked up. Nope. Solid. I couldn’t see the sky.
I tried to remember how Marco sat. So calm, so together. Like a meditation guy. I closed my eyes and I could see him again, practically reach out and touch him. And I could see the year 4000, what the buildings must have looked like. If I could get people to understand what Marco had told me … if Marco was right, and his work was actually the beginning of a real cure for mental illness here in 2007, I would be like the guy that discovered Marco. What if years from now, this oak tree was on a dollar bill? Or there were statues and everything! Or even a hospital—the Mander-Lasalle Clinic!
I’d start by getting Z and Hubie to understand. I’d tell them the whole thing start to finish, and we’d all be famous.
I got to my feet. I needed to tell this story right away before I forgot a single word.
Are You High?
I was driving too fast. I knew it. The last thing I needed right now was to get stopped by the police. Not now. Not when I had so much to say. So much to tell. So much to give!
A traffic officer would never understand about Marco and 4000 and this whole breakthrough idea. The police might know I knew Marco. They could think I helped him escape. They might know all about Mom and even believe I’m crazy, too.
I don’t know why I’m so revved up. I’m not afraid. Am I? This is just so important! I want people to know what I know.
I probably should stop for a minute and focus. I’m getting kind of dizzy, breathing too hard. You can’t keep a secret like this. Not something that will actually change the world. Make thousands of people well. Turn science on its nose. I mean, it’s not like I have the answers, but I know the direction to go in. I’m the only one who really knew Marco.
Z will help me get a grip. She’ll listen to me and help me figure out what to do next.
“I may have been wrong! It might not be just bugs and webs. There could be a wormhole! Like a portal, a connection to another dimension. I mean, I didn’t reach my hand in or anything, but we can do that later.”
“Whoa, Ben, you’re going a little too fast for me.”
Ben. Z hardly ever called me by my regular name.
Z was sitting on her porch steps in a band tunic and short skirt over tights. A lot of dark makeup around her eyes.
I was pacing in front of her, trying to explain what had been happening. I knew she would understand.
“Okay,” I said, “sure. Well, he’s gone. I knew he would be.”
“Who? Who’s gone?”
Z didn’t seem to be able to think fast enough to follow me. Her eyes were green. Or olive. I needed to be closer to make sure. Focus!
I tried to slow down. “Marco. The guy I told you about. The guy from the year 4000. I mean, that’s the story he told.”
“You said something about him to Hube and Mom, but you didn’t talk much to me,” Z said, biting her lip. She was so patient with me. That’s one of the thousand things I love about her.
“Yeah. Okay. I met him in the psych hospital.”
“You were in the psychiatric hospital?”
“Yeah. Visiting. Mom and then him. And he was really nice at first, and then he got pretty strange and began telling me about the year 4000 and trying to cure mental illness.”
Z shifted on the steps like maybe the concrete was making her butt cold. “Are you high?” she asked.
That kind of embarrassed me. “No. No, I’m … a little nervous maybe. Restless. Too much has been happening.”
“I think I better get Mom,” she said, looking back toward her front door.
I followed her inside and we sat in the living room. Or they did, Z and Mrs. Ludlow and Hubie, who came up from his basement hideaway to join us. He didn’t like Marco, but he would be interested in more of the story. I was still too stoked to sit. It was hard to decide where to start. With Marco’s access to 4000 or his meeting Monitor and Gila or the different kinds of treatment they had in the future?
“He may have been crazy, you know, but he was still brilliant,” I told them. “The future is so advanced, things like Mom’s illness are not even a problem. They have all these techniques, and just knowing what they called them, we could begin to—”
“Ben. Ben, don’t talk quite so fast,” Mrs. Ludlow interrupted. She had such a soothing voice.
I saw Hubie and Z look at each other. I checked myself. Oops. I had forgotten to take off Marco’s vest. Forgotten to clean up.
“Maybe we ought to go to the hospital for a few minutes,” Mrs. Ludlow said, “just to check things out.”
Why? “You think I’m not okay?” I asked.
“Well, I think it might help us understand things a little better,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “Perhaps this person Marco could be back there now. Back on the locked unit. He could clear everything up.”
Wow. Good idea. I hadn’t even thought of it. That’s probably why Z wanted to bring her into this in the first place. Maybe that’s where Marco is!
I sat in the backseat with Z. She smelled like some foreign spice. When we were almost there, I got a chill. Maybe I hadn’t been sleeping enough. She reached over and held my hand! Never done that before.
I was ready to start at the beginning and tell
the whole story. Maybe someone else would understand it even better than I did. For the first time since my mom went totally nuts a couple of months ago, I knew everything was going to be okay.
Wasn’t it?
Let Me Get This Straight
“If he isn’t back here yet, he may be soon. Really, maybe he wasn’t crazy like I thought and you guys thought. If we could start studying the things they knew—”
“Slow down, please.” The nurse was taking notes. She was older. I mean, really older. Sixty maybe. She was wearing normal clothes, a polo and wheat-colored jeans, and she was so skinny. Tiny, really. What was she doing working in a place like this?
“Just take a deep breath. We have plenty of time, and I want to make sure I understand.”
I could feel my heart racing. Settle down. They’ll think you’re crazy! “Okay,” I said, making myself breathe through my nose. Isn’t that what they always told Mom to do? “He met them in 4000. They thought he was crazy, too.”
“He?”
“Marco. The guy I’ve been telling you about.” Why couldn’t she keep this straight?
“You said ‘I’ earlier.” Her tone of voice was really patient. She was good at this.
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“I thought you were talking about yourself,” she said.
“No! No. I meant Marco Lasalle,” I said. She needed to get this right. “Marco and the two scientists or doctors from 4000 got to know each other, and we could use the information they talked about.”
“I see,” she said.
“They couldn’t get caught coming here,” I explained, “because it would mess up both the present and the future.”
“It would.”
I know now why they hired her. She was so calm. Compassionate. “Like, if the cops found out they were from 4000, that would alter the present. Have that knowledge present in our world. It would create changes, paradoxes, and then their own future wouldn’t be the same and … I’m not sure. I have to ask Hubie.”
Lizard People Page 11