The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 2): Saving Time

by Samuel Ben White

  The young boy started to lift his feet as if to peddle away, but Garison pleaded, "Wait. I can prove it. Last year about this time, you rode your bicycle through Mrs. McCarty's flower garden. You did it because Old Man Twombly's dog got loose and was chasing you. You never got blamed for it because she thought Jimmy Post did it."

  "How do you know that? Were you there?"

  "Yes I was there, I was you. I mean, I am you. I'm either thirty two or thirty seven years old, depending on how particular you are. But I am you."

  "Then how come you don't even know your own age?"

  Garison smiled and explained, "Because I spent five years in the past before returning to 2005. Like I said, it's a long story. So while the calendar may say I'm only thirty two, my body says I'm thirty seven. Well, actually, I guess the calendar now says I'm eleven. You see, my birthday is December 14, 1975."

  "That's my—" the young Garison looked up suspiciously and said, "Anyone could have known that. It's not hard to find out someone's birthday. The paper's always printing stuff like that when it does articles about me—I guess for that boy genius angle."

  "You're right. Just about anyone could know that." Garison thought a moment, then snapped his fingers and said, "Rachel Nash!"

  "What?" the young Garison asked quickly, though obviously ill at ease.

  "You have a crush on Rachel Nash at church but you're afraid to tell her. You once even snuck out of your bedroom in the middle of the night to go tell her, but you chickened out when you got to her yard. You walked around the block twice, trying to get up your nerve, then went back home. You had little pebbles in your hand to throw at her window and you finally let them go about halfway home."

  Garison remembered the story and knew his younger self did, too. The boy was blushing, but trying to keep a poker face. Garison went on, "One day last year, Jainie shoplifted a comb from Myers and you caught her. You made her take it back and you promised to never tell anyone—and you haven't."

  The young boy swallowed, then asked, "Are you really me?" Garison realized the boy was giving him the "one raised eyebrow look" he so often gave people he was questioning.

  "Yes. I am." He returned the look, and the boy recognized it.

  The boy took on a serious tone and asked, "Then why are you here? If you're really me, then you could really mess up history by talking to me. Your history. My future. Us. Whatever."

  Garison nodded and said, "That's why I'm here." He reached into his canvas bag and pulled out the video tape. It was wrapped in brown paper as if to be mailed. He held out the package and said, "Do you know what video tape is?"

  "Yeah. It's like what the newspeople use," he replied, taking the package. He hefted it, expecting it to be heavier—and maybe larger.

  "Well, that's a video tape. And you have to watch it on the morning of March 16, 2005. Now, remember that: March 16, 2005."

  "All right," Young Garison replied with a confused shrug.

  Suddenly, the older Garison fell to his knees with a groan of anguish, his hands going to his head. Young Garison looked around, scared, then asked, "Are you all right?"

  Older Garison suddenly stood up and said, "Strangely, yes. For just a second I had a headache like—like I've only had a couple other times in my life. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. I feel fine, now. Like there was never a problem."

  Young Garison shrugged, then pulled a pen out of his book bag. He wrote the date on the wrapping of the tape and said, "All right. Now, what's on this tape?"

  "I can't tell you. I've run too many risks by all I've done so far. You're just going to have to watch it in 20005 and see. I can't tell you what's on it, but I can tell you it's the fate of the world if you don't." He paused, then instructed emphatically, "First thing in the morning. Before you shower, before you eat breakfast, before you even kiss your wife."

  "My wife?" young Garison asked, as if the word had an oily, unpleasant taste. "I'm not ever getting married."

  "That's what I said," Garison laughed. "Believe me, when you meet her, you'll change your mind."

  "Who is she?" His eyes brightened up and he asked, "Rachel?"

  "I can't tell you that, either. It's all just got to happen naturally."

  "But can't you tell me anything about the future? Like who the President is, or what kind of job I'll have? Or if the Broncos will ever win the Super Bowl."

  "No, I can't," Garison replied, though the mention of the Broncos had brought a grimace to his face that the younger boy had noticed. When he saw the look of disappointment on his young face, he said, "Maybe this: pay attention in church. It's a lot more important than you know."

  "All right." Young Garison laughed and said, "I was kind of hoping you could tell me who'd win the World Series, though."

  Garison shook his head and said, "I'm sorry to say I don't remember. So I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to." Garison pointed at the package and said, "Don't lose it. Put it in the blue box, maybe."

  Young Garison's head snapped up and he said in awe, "You really are me!"

  "You didn't believe me?"

  "Maybe. But nobody knows about the blue box—not even Tommy."

  Garison remembered the blue box. In fact, he had kept it into adulthood and had it hidden in the lab in La Plata Canyon. He will hide it there one day, he corrected to himself. It was a box where he kept his "valuables". A four leaf clover, a picture of Cheryl Ladd, some wheat pennies and a few other odds and ends. The video would be safe there.

  "Well, I guess I better go," Garison told himself. He offered his hand and the boy shook it. They both looked at their hands in awe as they had felt . . . something. Neither could put a word to it, but the touch had been odd somehow.

  "See ya later," young Garison told him.

  The older Garison smiled and replied, "Only in the mirror some day." He turned to walk away. He had gone only a few steps when he said, "You might want to hold on to all the Ken Griffey Jr. cards you can get your hands on."

  "Who?"

  As Garison walked away feeling elated, he suddenly became very depressed. While he was patting himself on the back for a job well done, he realized it hadn't worked.

  He was still there. The world hadn't rewritten itself.

  Not only that, he didn't remember the exchange he had just had. He searched his memories—both sets—but could find no record of ever having met himself. An older self from the future.

  Garison sat down on the curb and put his head in his hands. He closed his eyes and concentrated with all his might, but it was no good. There just were no memories in his head of what had just happened. It hadn't happened. Not to him.

  "Did I get the wrong boy?" Garison asked out loud. He knew, though, that he hadn't. That had been the eleven year old Garison Fitch he had just talked to. That had been him.

  Then why couldn't he remember it? If it had happened to him as a little boy—as it obviously just had—why couldn't he remember it? When the money clip had gone backwards through time, Day had remembered finding it. Garison himself remembered receiving the package and leaving it out in the rain. He should be able to remember this event.

  So why couldn't he?

  "I hope I didn't just make everything worse," he mumbled.

  Garison spent the night with Gil and Carlos—which rather surprised them—but said he would leave in the morning. They said they didn't mind and thanked him for tuning their cars. Carlos had already noticed an improvement in gas mileage. He was especially grateful as the evening news heralded a possible sudden jump in the price of oil—and gas.

  The next morning, Garison went back out to the road to Fort Lewis College. He was sitting on the curb when the young Garison Fitch rode up on his bike.

  "What are you doing here?" the younger Garison asked.

  "I—uh—I just came to make sure you put the tape somewhere safe."

  "Sure. I put it in the blue box, like you said."

  "And you'll remember to watch it, right? Promise?"

  "I pro
mise." The young Garison couldn't figure why the older one seemed so nervous. After all, shouldn't he know that he would watch it? Shouldn't it be a memory for him? Maybe time worked differently than Garison thought. "On the morning of March 16, 2005, I'll watch that tape and kiss my wife and everything."

  The older Garison stood up and nodded absently. "Well, I guess I'll be seeing you. Or well, actually I won't. But you'll see me one day—in the mirror."

  The younger Garison looked at his older self and hoped he wouldn't look so sad at that age. Trying to add some levity to the moment, he called out, "I don't think I'll go with the mustache, though. Looks cheesy."

  Garison turned and smiled genuinely for the first time in a while. Stroking his mustache, he said, "Some people like it."

  "Some people like new wave."

  "Good point."

  Young Garison sat on his bike and watched his older self walk sadly away. He wondered where he was going, and why he seemed so sad.

  He knew the older man was himself, though. Somehow he could sense it. It wasn't just the things the man had said, it was something completely intangible. He'd read once about some twins who were separated at birth and then later met up. According to the story, they both claimed to have just known somehow that they were brothers. Garison had always thought it was just because they were identical, but now he thought maybe they had something. There was something that told him that sad man really was him. Some untouchable connection.

  The older Garison turned around and, with a forced smile, said, "Ninety-eight and ninety-nine—bet on the Broncos in the Super Bowl."

  "You're serious? Twice?" The older Garison nodded and the younger Garison asked, "How will I wait that long?"

  He shook his head of the sad thoughts of a moment before and began to peddle on home. Once there, he checked to make sure the package was there in the blue box, then went about his normal business.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Garison's Journal

  June 16, 1987

  I gave myself the tape yesterday, and saw myself again today. I had thought beforehand that, if I were to be successful in passing on the tape (and not be whisked into non existence), I would write a joyful entry in my journal.

  For, beside the point of a world and time saving mission, I was looking forward to meeting myself. I have seen pictures of myself as a young man. I remember looking in the mirror. But to see myself, in the flesh as it were, as an adult . . . well, I expected it to be a lifechanging moment. It was, after all, something no one else had ever been able to do in the history of the world.

  All such thoughts and plans have been dashed to the ground in the face of a brutal and totally unexpected reality: I don't remember this having happened. Not a moment of it!!!

  I remember getting the package and leaving it in the rain that one time. I remember thousands of things that have nothing to do with time travel. Things like TV programs, science classes, and football games. I can remember Gerald Ford, George Bush, Michael Dukakis, Gary Hart, Frank Gifford, Kathy Ireland, Phyllis George, Ben Crenshaw and a million other celebrities, politicians, jerks and saints. I remember old jokes, bad jokes, and plotlines to books I read as a child. For some reason, I can even remember that the Skipper's real name on "Gilligan's Island" was Jonas Grumby.

  But I simply cannot remember the day an older version of myself came and handed me a video tape when I was eleven.

  I would think that would stick in my mind. Like I said, it's not often that one actually gets to meet oneself from another time. Why would I be able to remember the theme song to a game show or Jenny's phone number and not an incredible event like that?

  The only conclusion I can reach is that it never happened. Yet I know it did. I know that boy I gave the tape to was me. I know that as sure as I know myself. And I know I really did it. It was just yesterday. I was there. I saw myself and spoke to myself not once, but twice.

  So somehow, it didn't work. Or, I changed time somehow and now it's all bent out of shape. What do I do now?

  Should I just get on with my life and wait twenty years to see if the world comes to an end? What then? Try to jump back through time again? Would it mean going through the punk rock era again?!?!?!?!

  One thing seems clear, for now any way. I need to leave Durango. If I stay around this area, I'll just make things worse. It's only a matter of time before the young Garison starts looking like me and people start to notice.

  So I'll just move off somewhere and start a new life. A life where I can't afford to make close friends. That's all right, in a way, because I don't really want to. I've had Sarah and I've had Heather and I couldn't stand to lose another friend.

  I think I'll walk down to the highway and try to become someone else. It shouldn't be too hard. Fortunately, I remember how to do that as well.

  One thing. After passing the tape on to myself, I had one of those horrific, instantaneous, short-lived headaches. The kind I got when I saved George Washington and when I first touched Sarah's hand. I don't know if it's something good, but I get the feeling I changed the world again. Maybe that was my DNA being rewritten or something.

  Garison went out to the highway and hitched a ride south to Farmington. He figured he'd work his way far away from Colorado so he would never be associated with the other Garison Fitch. He had an idea that working in the oil patch would be a good place for that. People had been known to disappear into that life before. An old friend of his used to claim that was what he was going to do some day. Just pack up and hit the oil field and never be heard from again.

  The problem was, he acknowledged, if he wanted to work for a legal outfit (which he did) he would need identification. His drivers license that said he was born in 1975 wasn't the answer. Might make for a good gag, but who could he show it to? So Farmington became the first stop on his pursuit of identity.

  It was early afternoon when he got to Farmington. He thanked the Navajo who had given him a ride into town and walked over to the library. It looked newer than the last time he had seen it, which was sometime in late 2006. Even when newer, though, the architecture didn't seem to match or conform to any known style. A he walked up the steps, he thought to himself, "Let's see, my body's thirty seven years old, so that's about how old I look. I need someone from about 1950, I guess."

  It occurred to him that Bat's amateur love of architecture could probably explain the building to him. "Yeah, that'd be about right," he muttered to himself. "Only someone as weird as Bat could explain this building." Garison described the building to himself as a sort of "neo classical cracker box Tinkertoy affair".

  Garison went to the reference desk and asked if they had any copies of newspapers from 1950. The woman at the desk, dark haired and wearing the requisite "glasses on a string" of librarians, smiled and led him to the files. She apologized as she loaded the microfilm, "We may not have every issue. Many of the papers from that era were not treated with the best of care and it was hard to transfer them to film. If you need an issue that is missing, you might try over at the newspaper office on Monday. We do have a pretty good representation, though."

  Garison nodded a thanks as she left and sat down to scan the files. As he searched for obituaries, he mumbled to himself, "I hope this works."

  He was into the month of August before whispering to himself, "Bingo. Oliver Daniel Lyons. Six weeks old. That ought to work."

  Garison was carrying his laptop with him, but he feared to take any notes with it in public. He borrowed some scratch paper and a pencil and wrote down the name of the deceased infant and his parents. That done, he rewound the film and returned it to the librarian. He thanked her for her help and she said she hoped he had found what he needed. He returned that he hoped he had, too.

  He left and walked out to the highway. After a few minutes of hanging out his thumb, he caught a ride with another Navajo in another pick up. He wondered if they ever owned anything else; but he couldn't blame them as he love pick ups, too. "Where you going?" the ma
n asked.

  "Just as far as Aztec," Garison replied.

  "No sweat, man. Climb on in." The man offered Garison a cigarette as he introduced, "Nate Begay."

  "Burt Cottage," Garison introduced, declining the cigarette. "You any kin to a Charlie Begay?"

  The man laughed and said, "I'm kin to at least four Charlie Begay's that I know of. It's a little like asking a man named Smith if he's kin to John Smith."

  Garison kind of shrugged in response, but smiled at the man's easygoing nature. It struck Garison that the man would have been a good one to make friends with. They made desultory conversation on the way to Aztec, but Nate soon realized his passenger's mind was somewhere else. The man looked to be on the run (why else would a belegana be hitching in the heat of summer?). Oh well, Nate thought, we all go through it from time to time.

  Nate dropped Garison off at the county courthouse and Garison smiled as the man drove away. Garison walked into the courthouse and went to the first desk he could find. He smiled at the man working there and said, "I need to get a hand on my birth certificate. Where would I go for that?"

  "Born in San Juan County?"

  Garison nodded and said, "June 30, 1940. In Farmington."

  The man smiled and commented, "Got a birthday coming up then, huh?"

  "Uh, yeah. I need a copy of my birth certificate for a—a federal job. You'd think a drivers license would be enough." Garison had learned long before—in another life, almost—that the easiest way to find an ally was to complain about the inefficiency of government. The government was wildly different but the tactic still worked.

  The man nodded and muttered something about bureaucrats, clearly ignoring the fact that—technically—he too was a bureaucrat. The man handed Garison a form and said, "If you'll fill that out, I can get a copy of your birth certificate for you."