The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time

by Samuel Ben White

  "Right! See, I am less confused about the changes than I am that anything could remain unchanged. Maybe, in a country on the far side of the world which has virtually no contact with the United States and was little effected by communist rule—like maybe somewhere in Africa—I could understand things being the same. Like one of the third world nations that maybe escaped the notice of the Soviets because there was nothing worth conquering. I could see that country being basically unchanged. But, well, how are you here? How am I here? How does one timeline have you meeting in sixty-nine and another meeting in seventy-three but I'm still born on December 14, 1975 in both times? Like they say, 'What're the odds?'"

  Bobby laughed and said, "You always did know how to start a day, didn't you?"

  Garison laughed, remembering all the breakfasts at which he had bounced his ideas off his logic-teaching mother and baseball coach father. He suddenly remembered his father coaching baseball and it seemed so different from the man he had known who had been a mechanic. Yet, they were so much alike. And his mother, how come she had the same job in both worlds and his father didn't? After a few more bites, he said, rather abruptly, "Heather and I are going to Virginia today."

  His mother looked up at the sudden change in the conversation and said, "All right. Why?"

  "I, uh, I've got to find out about Sarah, about my kids. I've gotta know what happened to them—if I can find out. Did they get married? Did they have kids?" An uncomfortable thought came to his mind and he asked sadly, "What if Sarah remarried? What if she had more kids by her second husband? I mean, it's only been a few days for me, but she might have waited five, ten, or fifteen years before remarrying. She was—she was certainly young enough to have remarried and had kids."

  Bobby reached over and put a hand on his son's arm and asked, "Are you sure you're up to learning about that, yet? Whether all you say is true or not—and I've never known you to lie to me or your mother even though this sounds so...improbable—you've still been through a lot. Maybe you ought to just rest for a while. Go camping or something. You always liked that. Said it calmed you down after a big case or something."

  Garison shook his head and explained, "It's something I have to do, Dad. Before I end up putting it off."

  Loraine got up then, went into Bobby's office, and came back with an old book. It was "coffee table size" and bound in brown leather-like material. On it's spine in gold lettering it bore the legend “A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes”. Loraine handed the book to Garison and said, "Your aunt Loraine wrote that. She was your father's cousin, actually, so I guess she was really your second cousin but we all called her Aunt Maureen. Anyway, besides telling about the Fitch family, she tells how she found all the information. Old graveyards, county records, and things like that. I know she worked backward through time and you'll be working forward, but you might get some ideas on how to operate."

  "Thanks," Garison nodded as he took the book. He glanced at a couple pictures, but didn't really pay any attention, catching only the names Darius Fitch and Franklyn Fitch. He laughed and queried, "You don't really believe all this, do you?"

  Loraine paused, then replied, "No. But I can see you believe it. And I can also see you're not crazy. I think you need to find this out for yourself. If it really is real."

  He smiled at his mother and asked, "So, Mom, how does it feel to know you have grandchildren who were born two hundred and fifty years ago?"

  Her eyes widened as the idea hit her for the first time. She smiled and quipped, "I certainly hold my age well, don't I?"

  Bobby remarked, "Until you can absolutely prove you don't have a concussion, you let Heather do the driving, all right?"

  Excerpt from A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes

  Franklyn Fitch had a younger brother named Harrison "Harry" Fitch. Harry Fitch left Cherry Creek for the silver fields in and around Oro City, which eventually became Leadville. He was a little late for that strike, hitting only a small pocket on his claim. It was enough of a pocket, however, to give him a stake for the next strike.

  Harry Fitch fell in with some other disgruntled late-comers to the Oro City strike and they started home over Mosquito Pass, which should have taken them into Alma. They took a wrong turn somehow and wound up on a pretty little stream the locals were calling Blue River. In that summer of 1860, someone found gold in the Blue River and, within a few months, the booming town of Breckinridge had been born.

  Breckinridge was named for United States Vice President John Cabell Breckinridge in the hopes that they could get a post office. But Breckinridge left office in less than high style and died shortly thereafter. So as not to be associated with a loser, the townspeople voted to change their name to Breckenridge. More than one scoffer remarked derisively that this was what one expected from a town of miners.

  Harry became a millionaire many times over but, and like more than one miner of his day, blew it all in one way or another. Harry had learned one thing in his mining days, though, perhaps especially in Leadville as he watched the Tabors and the Gould's become unrealistically wealthy in a short period of time: the people who sell goods to the miners make more money than the miners. With the last of his Breckenridge money, Harry went back to the store in Cherry Creek, which had been closed since Julius passed away. Harry fixed up the store, brought in a new line of goods, and began to sell. He did a sizable business with people of the burgeoning Denver, but his main business was outfitting greenhorns from the east with "all the equipment they would need to prospect for gold" according to one of Harry's brochures.

  Harry married a woman who, from her pictures, was somewhat homely. She bore Harry seven children: six girls and a boy. The story says that, when the seventh child was born and proved to be a boy, no one sighed more loudly than Harry's wife Sharon. She reportedly remarked that, if the last one had been a girl, she would have died right then because it would have been the only way to get out of trying again for a boy.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Garison's Journal

  March 19, 2005 (ten thousand feet in the air)

  The United States of America, it seems, have become a world power since I pulled little George from in front of that wagon. The Russians are still a world power, but they do not control all of Europe like they did in my day. Heather says they still pull a lot of the strings, but the maps say they no longer control as much land as they did just a few years ago. The relative strength of Russia seems to be a point of contention among many people. Some say it is almost dead, while others say the big bear is just hibernating. I do not yet know enough to have a strong opinion either way.

  Japan is still locked onto that little island in the Pacific, but they, too, are a world power, proving you don't necessarily have to own land to be in control. They aren't a military power, Heather tells me, but they do hold a portion of the world's purse strings, it seems. Again, I am not sure if this is truth or merely Heather's conjecture. She seems to take a somewhat cynical view of world politics.

  I was surprised to learn that there is still a royal family in England. They just have no power. Heather tells me they receive enormous sums of money for occupying a castle and cutting the ribbon at the openings of new super markets. As diminished as their power may be, it is still far better than it was in my time when virtually the entire royal line was wiped out by the German bomb. Any that survived the bomb did not survive the Russians, who—with a sense of historical irony that was completely uncharacteristic—manufactured a guillotine to do away with the heads of state of conquered monarchies (pun not originally intended, though I kind of like it now as I look back on that sentence).

  To the north of the U.S.A. lies Canada, a British province. I know very little about them, as yet, but Heather says they are very friendly to Americans. She mentioned something about them housing many of our soldiers during a war called Vietnam. She said that with an odd tone in her voice, but I don't know yet what she meant by it. The Vietnam war is one of the many me
mories I do not seem to have recalled, yet. There was no such country as Vietnam in my day, and my alter ego (I can think of no better term) has supplied me with no information concerning the country, which I believe to be somewhere in Asia.

  To the south of us lies Mexico. Of the few people I've talked to (all relatives), no one seems to know much about Mexico except that it is crowded, hot and basically impoverished. The capitol of Mexico—the ancient Aztec city of Mexico City—is so entrenched in smog, they tell me, that a mutated form of human being is arising. I find this hard to believe, but there is no other explanation as to how a person can live there under such horrible conditions, they say. Heather, who has been to Mexico City, says it is reminiscent of the Black Plague. This is a far cry from the highly industrialized Mexico I remember. Of course, the Mexico I remember had had more than fifty years to be industrialized by the conquering Japanese.

  Alaska belongs to the United States, Heather tells me. I still have not figured that one out. I never understood how the Japanese wrestled it from Russia's grip, and I certainly do not understand how the Americans (as we are called—even though everyone from this continent should be called Americans) came to possess it. Heather tells me it was an outright sale, but I cannot imagine Russia selling another country land. That is less believable than a car dealer who will actually make you a good deal. [Yes, we had car dealers in my day. The cars they sold were inferior to those on the market now, but the salesmen certainly would not have admitted to that. Odd that it seems some seemingly inconsequential details are constant. Like the trails of the Old Ones, car dealers appear to be one of those things.]

  A most curious thing is my growing ability to "access" the memories of my alter ego. It is much like a computer. If Heather mentions something (or some other event sparks an idea) I merely concentrate on the phrase or word and the memory begins to take form in my mind. If it weren't for the detail of the memories I conjure up, I would think that is exactly what was happening: some conjurer's or hypnotist's trick at work in my mind.

  There have been a few things I have not been able to remember completely, yet, but I am sure that will come in time. Each day, I seem to remember more.

  And yet, I am not losing the memories that I had before this return to the twenty-first century. I once heard it said that the average person only uses a third of their brain capacity. I am beginning to think I am using my entire brain—if for nothing more than memory storage. I have more clear memories than I would have ever thought possible. I can, for instance, distinctly remember two twelfth birthdays.

  A memory, or memories, I hope to access more fully soon are those of my siblings. Odd as it may sound, I find it far easier to believe that the world government situation has changed than to believe that I am no longer an only child. Governments may come and go, but I can't imagine my parents having other children. It just wasn't possible.

  Yet, my memories and thousands of pictures at my parents house say I have a brother and two sisters: Tommy, Janie, and Susie. I am the oldest of four children! That is so strange I can't even begin to explain how I feel.

  With the brother and two sisters also come three in-laws and, so far, two nieces! I have a whole extended family I don't know. Then again, I know them very well and can remember things like camping in the backyard with them and blaming Tommy when I road my bicycle through Mrs. McCarty's flower garden. As soon as we get back from Virginia, I'm going to have to meet these siblings again. Of course, they already know me, so they'll probably think I'm crazy when I try to get to know them as if meeting them for the first time. Heather tells me most people think I'm crazy, anyway, so maybe that will work in my favor.

  From the air, the country looked much the same as the way Garison remembered it—from both memories. He was always amazed at the way farmlands looked like patchwork quilts from the air. He knew some people could distinguish the crop from that high up but, even after winning a Nobel Prize in botany, the plants looked a lot alike to him from ten thousand feet. More amazing was that he could distinguish tractors from other vehicles at that height. How could such a complex thing as the mind and the optic nerve be the product of mere chance? he wondered.

  “Did I hear you,” she hesitated, almost wishing he hadn’t started the question, “Hear you crying last night?”

  His hesitation was at least equal, but he finally said, “Yes. You did.”

  “I didn’t know if I should come in and help you, or what. I made it as far as the bathroom door, but, well . . . “

  “That’s all right. I don’t know what you could have done.” He forced a smile and explained, “’Midnight of the soul,’ and all that.”

  “If I ever can do anything . . . “ she offered.

  "I have seen a particular automobile I am most curious about," Garison said to Heather, nodding at her offer as he changed the subject as rapidly as he could. "It is much like a large truck, but smaller—like a family automobile. And the back end is open to the air. I even noticed that we have one, but I forgot to ask about it."

  She thought a moment, trying to figure out what he was talking about, then realized. "That's a pick-up truck," she said. "Yeah, we have one. It's yours. You've been driving it since before I met you."

  "What is their purpose? I mean, aside from being a mode of transportation."

  "They're used for hauling things around on farms and ranches. The back is open for easy access and they have a sturdy frame and suspension service for dealing with heavy loads. At least, that was what they were built for."

  "What do you mean?"

  She laughed and said, "Pick-ups were invented as a work vehicle. They have powerful engines and are built to haul cargo. Most people, however, are like us and have a pick-up because we like driving them. Wait until sometime when we go to Texas."

  "Why? What is there that pertains to...pick-up trucks?"

  "Texas is pick-up truck heaven. More pick-ups are sold in Texas than in all other states combined. Something like more than half the vehicles in Texas are pick-ups. And the Dallas Fort Worth area—which doesn't even have Denver’s excuse of having ranches in the city—has more pick-up trucks than any other city in the world. There are probably more pick-ups in Dallas than there are in West Texas where the ranches actually are. And most of the people who drive them never haul anything in them you can't haul in a car."

  "Then why do they drive them? It seems like a waste of expense—and passenger space."

  Heather nodded, "I guess you could say that. But wait 'til you drive your pick-up. If you're the Garison Fitch I know, you may never want to go back to our other car."

  "A vehicle is a vehicle," he pointed out.

  "Maybe in the Soviet Union," she shrugged, "But not here. Vehicles are designed not just for utility, but for comfort and enjoyment. People fix them up with stereo systems and phones and even fax machines."

  "In a vehicle?"

  She nodded and explained, "I feel sorry for some of these people, but many folks spend more time in their car that they do at home. For others, their vehicle has to serve as their 'office on the go'. Look around when we land, I bet you'll see people with phones held to their ears as they drive. I even saw a guy tooling down the Interstate in Dallas working on a lap-top computer he had balanced on the steering wheel while he drove seventy miles an hour."

  "Sounds dangerous."

  "It is."

  "Then why do it?"

  "Gotta get to work. Make that money. Who knows?" She looked at him and added, "For some people, their very identity is wrapped up in their vehicle, let alone their lifestyle. For some, their existence is wrapped up in their job. The scary people are the ones who have seemingly combined the two at a molecular level."

  Garison mouthed the phrase "molecular level" as if it meant something important, then shook the idea from his head and asked, "I did have another question about these pick-ups and other autos. On the back, I have noticed that several—including ours—have the word 'Ford'. Others have other words like 'Dod
ge' or 'Mazda'. Does this signify something?"

  "That's the manufacturer."

  "So, the ones that read GMC are manufactured by still another company?"

  "Yes," she replied. "See, here in America, we have three major car companies: Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. On top of that, there was Avanti, a company that produced hand-made cars, and Saturn, which produces good cars but in smaller volume than the big three. Then, of course, there are all the Japanese cars, the German cars, the Italian cars—and so on."

  "It would seem unnecessary for so many companies to produce the same product," he pointed out.

  "You may have a point there." She smiled, "But I wouldn't say it too loudly. Welcome to the free-market system, where nothing is free but there's a market for anything. I've gotta take you to a Wal-Mart or a mall and just show you everything that's for sale."

  "I think I remember such places, but they almost seem too fantastic to believe after the society I grew up in. It's hard to imagine a country that is this—"

  "Free?"

  "Well, that too. But the word I was thinking of was 'unregulated.' And back home—in the colonies, I mean—we had the freedom of choice but certainly not the selection."

  Heather asked timidly, "Do you really think of there, back there, whatever, as home?"

  "It was for five years," he replied quickly. "And it wasn’t that long ago. But, well, it's more than that. The life I had in Mount Vernon was the first home I'd had since my parents died. Since way before that, really, because of the way I traveled and everything. I had my house in the canyon, but I never really had a home until I met Sarah."

  Trying to be understanding, Heather pointed out, "And it was your home just four days ago."

  "Yes." As they headed into an increasingly darkening eastern sky, he said morosely, "Less than a week ago I was part of a family of five." He quickly reached out and put his hand on her thigh and added, "I love you. I know I do. But there's a part of me that feels like I'm falling in love between—between the death and the funeral and it just doesn't seem right.