"San Francisco," Garison replied. He wasn't sure why he remembered that, but he did. "San Francisco is going to massacre Denver."
A month later, all of Kelso's doubts about Garison's story dissipated with one extremely lopsided football game.
Garison reported to Doctor Irwin Kelso's office at nine the next morning, after having gone through every imaginable test at the hospital the previous afternoon. He was ushered in and Kelso sat him down. Showing Garison the reports from the rather lengthy CAT scan, Kelso said, with a slight smile, "As they say, 'We X rayed your head and found nothing.' There is no physiological reason why your memory is the way it is. But you're not surprised to hear that, are you?"
"So what now?"
"I want to hypnotize you, Garison—Burt. I want to probe your mind and see if I can find some clue as to what has happened."
"What do you think happened?"
"I'm not sure," Kelso admitted. "Although I wouldn't be too surprised that there was some trauma in your life that caused you to forget reality and make up the tale you now believe. Speaking honestly, that is what I think happened. That has happened before, you know."
Garison laughed, "Was that just a polite way to call me a liar?"
"Only marginally," Doctor Kelso smiled and gestured for Garison to sit on his couch. "It is possible you have lied to yourself so much you have forgotten the truth."
"What if I'm telling you the truth?"
The good doctor pulled out a pencil and a pad of paper and said, "We can start whenever you are ready." He pulled a tape recorder from his desk and explained, "I was thinking I would tape everything you say under hypnosis so you and I can go over it together after we're done. Is that all right?"
"As long as I get the tapes when this is all over."
"Done."
Garison pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Kelso saying, "I wrote down some questions I would like for you to ask me. Thought maybe they might jog something, you know?"
Kelso glanced at the paper, then nodded and turned on the tape recorder. He said calmly, "Just take a couple deep breaths and try to relax . . . "
"All right. Would you tell me your name, please?"
"Garison Fitch."
"All right, Garison. Tell me where and when you were born."
"December 14, 1975. In Durango."
"Where is Durango?"
"In the state of Marx."
"Where is that?"
"Southwestern corner of the Soviet Americas. Durango is about twenty miles from the Texas border and about fifty from the Japanese border."
"Do you have any family, Garison?"
"Just my parents. But they died when I was fifteen. Then, after I came back through time, they were alive again. And I had two sisters and a brother."
"What were their names?"
"Tommy, Janie and Susie."
"Like the movie?" Kelso asked in surprise.
"I think so. I'm not sure."
"How old are they?"
Garison hesitated, then said, "I don't know. I only knew them for two years."
"Tell me about yourself, Garison."
"Well, like I said, I was born in Durango. I grew up there until I graduated from high school at the age of nine and went to the Universite of Marx. I was . . . "
" . . . do you remember playing baseball as a child, Garison?"
"No, I don't."
"Do you remember going to the University of Colorado?"
"No again."
Kelso shut off the tape and told Garison, "There's another five or ten minutes of me asking the questions from your sheet and your answer is the same for all of them. You don't remember any of these things you think you should be able to."
"So, preliminary verdict?"
Kelso leaned back in his chair and took off his glasses. Rubbing the bridge of his nose thoughtfully, he finally leaned forward and answered, "I don't know what to tell you, Garison. I searched every corner of your memory. You heard the tape. As far as every single scrap of evidence I could find in your brain indicates, your story is true."
"I never necessarily doubted that," Garison told him. "What I still don't know is what happened to all those other memories."
"Assuming your story is true, I can't figure out for the life of me how you got them in the first place. I don't pretend to understand the world of microscopics and quantum physics and all, but I caught the gist of your tale enough to know that the merger just doesn't make sense. If it was at a cellular level, how come you didn't weigh three hundred and fifty pounds? Questions like that come to mind."
"I've thought that for a long time."
"Let me ask you this," Kelso offered. "Again, let's assume your story is true. The whole thing. Are you sure you didn't start losing your memories of 'Heather's Garison' until you came back here to 1987? Are you sure you didn't start losing them, say, when the holes in time appeared?"
"Pretty sure. But it's one of those things that can't be guaranteed. I mean, it's kind of hard to remember just when your memory started to go." Garison laughed and injected, "That sounds like a country and western song, doesn't it? But what are you driving at?"
"I'm not sure. But maybe your memories of the other Garison were somehow tied to the hole in time. Maybe they actually started deteriorating as soon as you came to the future, but it took a long time to notice—like the holes themselves."
"I'm not sure—"
"Think about it, Garison. How often do some memories come up for all of us? If I think back, I can come up with specific memories for every year of my life. On the other hand, I may go three or four years without ever once thinking of Mrs. Armstrong's third grade class. When was the last time I remembered hanging out at Mackey's toy store? So, how long could a memory like that be gone before I would notice?"
Garison nodded in understanding and answered, "It could easily leave and not be noticed until, for some reason or another, you decided to look for it. I see what you mean. But what about the big memories? That's what made me start noticing my memory was gone—when I couldn't remember my wedding. Why did it take those memories so long to start fading?"
"Maybe just because they were big memories." Kelso paused and thought, then shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe those memories stuck around because they were reinforced by seeing Heather every day, by going to familiar places and doing familiar things. But now, you haven't seen Heather in half a year, you haven't been to any place you think of as home. The anchors that kept those memories in place are now gone. That happens to all of us, in a way."
"There's another possibility," Garison offered.
"What's that?"
"Maybe this trip through time worked."
"Huh?"
Garison explained, "Maybe when I gave that tape to the young me, I started to change history. Maybe it didn't change everything, but it did change the circumstances that caused me to merge with 'Heather's Garison'."
"So, does that mean time will still be destroyed in twenty years?"
"I guess we'll have to wait and see."
As Garison prepared to leave, he asked, "I have your complete confidence on this. I mean, you're not going to have me carted away or write it up in a medical journal or anything, are you?"
Kelso shook his head and said, "I have no reason to cart you away. While I would like to study you for a while longer, I have serious doubts that I would ever find anything different buried in your psyche. You're not a threat to society or yourself that I can see. At worst, you could be labeled as clinically depressed but I think I'd have a hard time making that stick. As for the medical journals—who would believe me?"
"You're right. You're the one who would be carted off." Garison smiled and stuck out his hand, "Thanks Doc."
"It's been my pleasure. You keep in touch. Let me know what goes on in that head of yours. Especially if anything changes."
"I will."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Garison went back to Doctor Irwin Kelso once a year for a co
uple years, but it became evident there was nothing the doctor could do. If those memories of "Heather's Garison" had ever existed, they were gone. One thing that puzzled the doctor was that no physical or neurological reason for the memory loss ever manifested itself. After a while, the process seemed to stop. "Heather's Garison" might be gone forever, but Garison never ran across any sign that he was losing any of his other memories. It also puzzled the doctor that Garison never once showed any sign of "weirdness." Kelso had even checked into Garison's life a little on the sly and all he found was a quiet man who kept to himself and had pretty much appeared out of nowhere in the summer of '87.
Garison worked in the oil patch as just another rough neck until the winter of '88 '89. By that point in time, he had become bored with just doing manual labor and wanted to do something with his head. He approached his boss with the request, and the man was delighted to finally have Garison as a foreman.
After another season, however, Garison had become bored with that job as well. Having gained something of an interest in geology, Garison thought the business of "wildcatting" might be better approached if one took a more scientific tack. So he enrolled at the University of Houston to study it as a serious discipline. He had looked into several different schools, but had been most impressed by the teachings of DeWitt Van Siclen, a professor of geology at U of H.
Garison proved himself as adept at the academics of geology as he had been at particle physics and law. He took his courses slowly, however, so as not to attract any attention to himself. By 1996, he had a PhD in the field of geology and was highly sought as a lecturer. He occasionally assisted his mentor on consulting jobs, after Van Siclen left the university, but tried to keep his name off the record books. Afraid of the limelight, fearing he might somehow alter the course of the other Garison Fitch (or the cartoonist who was already publishing a strip with a main character named Burt Cottage), he took a teaching post at Sul Ross University. It was not as "prestigious" a post as he could have easily garnered, but it fit his needs:
It was somewhat out of the way.
The scenery was beautiful and offered many outdoor activities.
He could be around and get to know people, but not necessarily be close to them.
It would give him something to do for the next eleven years.
So Garison settled into the life of a college professor in the spring of 1996. He attended a local church on Sundays, went hiking in the Davis Mountains on his days off, and became known to everyone in town as Burt Cottage. Most assumed he was a confirmed bachelor, but a few claimed to have heard things that made them think he had been married once or twice before. This of course led to much speculation about what might have happened to his marriages, but no one ever found out. His life before Alpine was played extremely close to the vest.
Garison occasionally lectured at other colleges, but he refused all invitations to speak at Southern Methodist University. He never gave an answer, but the reason was that he was afraid he would accidentally run into Heather. He knew she wouldn't know him from Adam, and that it probably wouldn't change anything as far as her later marrying him. What he was afraid of was how he would react. He just didn't think he could handle seeing Heather again, especially knowing he could do nothing about it. He could easily picture himself going to pieces if he saw her again.
Garison volunteered to help with Sul Ross's baseball team and quickly proved himself quite a good coach. The head coach tried to talk him into becoming a full time member of his staff, but Garison preferred to teach in the classroom. He also reasoned, to himself, that forty six years old was too old to make yet another career change. He had had enough of change, now all he wanted was a life of anonymity—and even boredom. He figured he would just slowly become one of those college professors who knew nothing beyond their classrooms and were frequently heard talking to himself.
Garison showed up at the practice field one Friday, dressed in shorts and a T shirt. A few strands of grey hair showed beneath the ball cap, but his mustache was still as black as coal. He had grown a beard over the previous winter, but had quickly gotten rid of it when he saw how grey it was. There were a few lines around his eyes now, but not that many. If he had laughed more over the past few years, there might have been more.
The truth was, more than one woman around town had tried setting their cap for Burt Cottage. He had even had a dinner with one or two of them, but that was as far as he could go. He had even walked a quite attractive woman to her doorstep and had been about to kiss her—but he just couldn't. All he could think about was Heather and Sarah, so he had said goodnight and left. Embarrassment had prevented him from even calling her again, though he would have loved to tell someone besides Doctor Kelso what was going on. Kelso had moved by that time and Garison wasn't even sure where to.
Out in the west Texas sunshine of a June afternoon, things looked bright. The team only had a couple games left in the season—make ups for spring rain outs—and then things would quieten down for the summer. Garison put on his batting glove wishing the season didn't have to end. What had become a melancholy—or even morose, at times—existence was brightened by only two things it seemed: baseball and church. He did enjoy going for hikes in the nearby Davis Mountains, but they just didn't quite compare to his La Platas.
As Garison walked over to where the other coaches were standing, expecting to be hitting the fungoes that day, the head coach said, "Cottage. Glad you're here."
"What do you need?" Garison asked warily. The coach was using that tone of voice that had last resulted in Garison catching a flight to Wichita Falls to watch a high school boy play ball. That trip hadn't been too bad, but the coach's particular tone of voice had foretold some dire outings before.
The coach told him, "There's a guy here to check out the program. He's spent the last two years playing third base for Ranger Junior College. I saw him once back in high school but it's been a while."
"You want me to watch him?"
The coach nodded, "See how he is on the basics. Maybe take him out to lunch or something. I think he's hoping for a scholarship, so see if you think he's a good enough player. You have a good idea for talent—especially when it concerns that side of the infield."
Garison glanced out at the field and remarked, "A third baseman? He'd have a hard time beating out Yarburo."
"I know, but let's give him a look, anyway. Lots of people told a kid from Oklahoma named Mantle that he'd never make it in the bigs. I'm going to talk with this kid this evening, but I'd like your impressions before then." The coach leaned closer, then said conspiratorially, "There's a rumor going around that Yarburo's going to transfer to Tech. We may be needinga good third sacker."
"Where is he? This new kid."
The coach pointed and said, "That's him over there with his back to us by the dugout. First name's Pat, I think."
"You think?" Garison laughed.
"How many players I get through here in a year, Cottage?" the coach returned. He was notoriously bad with names, even when dealing with players who had been playing for him for three or four years.
Garison nodded and trotted over to the third base dugout. There was something vaguely familiar about the young man, even from the back, but Garison couldn't place it. He hadn't really thought about his faulty memory in years, so it didn't occur to him that this person might somehow be related. As he drew near, he asked, "Pat?"
The young man turned around and replied, "Bat. With a 'B'." He offered his hand and said, "Bat Garrett."
After nine years, Garison almost used his real name. He recovered and shook the young man's hand, saying, "Cottage. Burt Cottage. Um, Coach asked me to check out your skills." He said it slow, his mind not really with the words, as he stared at the apparition from his past.
"All right. Whatever you want."
Garison said, "Well, let's get you warmed up, then we'll try some infield. You play third, right?"
"Yeah."
"Any chance of converting t
o short stop?"
The young man shrugged, as if battling his conscience, before finally replying, "Not much. I mean, I'd do it to play, but it's just not my position, for some reason. You wouldn't think there'd be that much difference between third and short. I can play the outfield, though."
Garison told him, "Unfortunately, we have more outfielders than we need already. I'll be honest with you, Bat, you're really going to have to show us something special for us to be able to offer you a scholarship—or even a chance to start."
The young man nodded and took up a position about thirty feet from Garison to begin warming up. As they tossed the ball back and forth, Garison asked, "Where are you from, Bat?"
"Abilene."
A light went off in Garison's head, but he tried not to let it show.
"I'm going to Ranger Junior College right now. I mean, I was. I just graduated. With my associate's. I was thinking of going into Phys Ed, but I'm not sure."
Garison knew what the answer to his next question would be, but he also knew he would burst if he didn't ask, "Have we met before, Bat?"
The young man shrugged and replied, "Not that I know of. Why?"
Garison took his turn to shrug and said, "It's just that, well, you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago. Almost ten years ago, I guess. The resemblance is uncanny."
"Well, I don't think we've met. Although, I was only eleven ten years ago."
"The person I'm remembering," Garison smiled, as if putting off the notion, "Was an adult." He added with a laugh, "Biologically, anyway. The guy I knew was kind of immature."
"I can't stand people like that," Bat told him seriously. He couldn't understand why that made Coach Cottage laugh. Maybe it was the altitude. The man seemed a little odd.
"You're good, Bat. You really are," Garison told him.
"But I'm not great," Bat nodded, taking Garison at what he meant, not what he said.
Garison nodded over their supper in a fast food joint and said, "I hope you understand. You're a good enough player to play college ball, but we've got a good third basemen in the program ahead of you. Have you thought about any other colleges?"
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 2): Saving Time Page 24