The Coming of the Bullocks

by Gene Brewer

  But couldn’t I just go there if I could flit from room to room? I floated out the door and somehow wandered down the street toward the subway station, as I had done a million times before. It took awhile — perhaps I would eventually learn better techniques for “past-traveling” as I became more accustomed to it — but I eventually got there. Based on the ages of my children I had a pretty good idea of what year it was, but now I saw that it was early spring: for example I spotted daffodils here and there.

  I found myself on the train heading into the city and downtown. Still weeping because I missed all of this so much, and because I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time, I watched people getting on and off; they all seemed so blasé — didn’t they realize how wonderful their lives were? Eventually I made it to the familiar stop, where I somehow got off the car and rose up the steps near the Manhattan Psychiatric Institute, where I had spent more than thirty years of my life (and my wife and children’s lives, I realized), and approached the building slowly. I tried to go faster, but I still could manage only one speed. Sluggishly I drifted inside, where I found myself in the lounge, a place so familiar that I could have found my way to every table and sofa in the dark. I headed directly to my office, where I found myself talking to a patient, one of hundreds from the past, none of whom I had forgotten about. In this case it was a young woman, barely out of adolescence. She was curled up in a ball in my “analysis chair,” her slippers lying on top of each other on the floor in front of her.

  I took a good look at myself at work. (How many of us get to do this? I wondered aloud, disturbing no one, of course.) My eyes were fixed on my yellow pad and I was concentrating intently on what Susan was saying. Parents! It’s always the parents! At that point something occurred to me, something I had forgotten to ask Walter about: can visitors from the future see each other? There was no one else around as far as I could tell, but perhaps no one would want to visit this particular time and place. Still, I hadn’t seen any evidence of a past world choked with “ghosts.” Maybe we’re all invisible even to one another! Or maybe the number of visitors is limited by some Einsteinian physical parameter, or even by regulations established by future societies. Maybe you need a ticket. I could see a waiting room a thousand years hence, filled with people lined up to depart for the year 1955, say. Or maybe the duration of each visit is limited, and there aren’t enough minutes in the whole of past time to worry about running into someone else from the future. They might all be a drop in time’s ocean, so to speak. (Or maybe not many people would want to revisit the past. Or maybe there is no future…)

  I watched myself ask a question or two — the wrong ones, probably. I could see Susan tense up on the second one. At least she hadn’t attacked me, something that had happened two or three times in my career. Nevertheless, I had probably pushed her too far, something I had never overcome in all my years of experience. I had long realized that I wasn’t really a very good psychiatrist, had never wanted to be one in the first place. I didn’t want to be a doctor of any kind, but when my father died, I had tried to fill his empty shoes. What I really wanted to be was a singer and actor on the Broadway stage.

  I left the hospital and took the downtown #1 train. The theater district! My parents had brought me to Broadway shows any number of times when I was a kid, and Karen and I went to a few when we were dating and for years after we were married (until the kids began to take up all our time). We had seen the original productions of My Fair Lady and West Side Story, and a few of the later hits after the kids were grown. A Chorus Line! Even War Horse, of late, two of the best ever. We had seen the greats: Barbara Cook, Alfred Drake, Mary Martin, and so many more. Gielgud. Burton. Fonda. How wonderful life is! I was so engrossed in memory that I almost forgot to get out at Times Square. No matter. I left when the train was between stations, and floated up to the street.

  Karen and I hadn’t been to mid-town for a while — I’d forgotten how bright the lights are (prot whipped out his sunglasses there). I wandered around like any first-time tourist, gawking at the signs, the tickertape, the traffic. At 47th I turned toward the theaters there just to see what was playing. At the Helen Hayes I slipped inside without a ticket and went backstage, where the stars were applying their makeup. I watched for a while (I had always been curious about that, and whether the actors were ever bored doing the same job over and over again, sometimes for months). They didn’t seem to be. Some were rehearsing their lines, others were listening to a concert or opera on the radio or a cassette tape player, some chatting with their fellow actors or their dressers. I ached to be one of them.

  I hung around for almost an hour, until the first curtain calls came. Throats were cleared or rinsed with gargles, and tested for clarity and volume. I tested mine, too. At last the final calls came, the audience was seated (except for a few latecomers — there are always latecomers!) — and the most thrilling moment in all of theater: the raising of the curtain. I was onstage! I paused for a moment and intoned, “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to do my rendition of the theme from Oklahoma! I cleared my throat loudly and belted out, “Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping — ” Halfway through the first bar, however, I was interrupted by the maid, who came onstage with her duster. All eyes were on her and no one was paying any attention to me. Shoulders slumping, I slunk offstage. Though somewhat disappointed, I was nevertheless elated. I had made my Broadway debut!

  Feeling better about having achieved my lifelong ambition, I left the theater and drifted toward the subway. I use the term “drifted” for want of a better one. To me, at least, it seemed like drifting. I tried again to vary the pace, but my attempts to speed up ended in failure. Flapping my arms or pumping my legs had no effect at all. I suppose that made some sense: since there was no passage of time in the “present” I had left behind, there was certainly no hurry about getting anywhere in the past. Apparently I could stay here forever and come back to the same instant it was when I left. Yet — what determined the seemingly slow pace I was making? Why should it be that, and not something else? How could one travel back decades and then be stuck in one place? Could it be a mental, rather than a physical process? I decided to set a speed record to get to the next traffic light — and there I was! Is that how I got here in the first place? What if I decided to travel forward by ten years? I wasn’t sure whether I had accomplished that goal, but when I got back to the house (in an instant!), things were a little different than they had been a short time earlier. Some of the furniture had been moved, for example, and the television set was bigger. But no one was home. Where the hell were they?

  Can a visitor to the past get tired? I was exhausted. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them I was back in the committee room at exactly the same moment I had left. The endless discussions about grammar and semantics were still going on. Soon thereafter, thankfully, the chair announced that we would move on to an analysis of the political content of the speech — i.e., whether there were words therein that might offend any of the other four major nations with veto power, or weak terms that might not effectively convince the delegates of the Bullocks’ intentions and their ability and willingness to act on them. As that discussion began, and dragged on and on, it occurred to me that Walter had led me to begin my travels both to the past and into the realm of space as well. Was this happening so that I could tell the world about the wonders we would encounter if we played our cards right? Or was I supposed to find something else on my travels through space and time? Something more personal, perhaps? Or perhaps there was some way to change events in the past after all?”

  Not likely. There was the unbeatable grandmother paradox, for one thing. If someone went back and steered his grandmother away from his grandfather, he wouldn’t have been born and couldn’t go back and meet his grandmother, etc., etc. For another, a visitor to the past is invisible, and can’t interact in any way with the people living at that time.

  But maybe it was more subtle tha
n that. What’s in the past, anyway? Everything! If everything in the past hadn’t happened exactly the way it did, the present and future would be different. Could a visitor make some infinitesimally small change to events that would affect some other event, which would affect another event, and on and on? What if they did something because of this that they wouldn’t have otherwise? What if I were to determine who the first killer was, and somehow change his or her mind about what he was about to do!?

  No. Same problem: the grandmother paradox.

  I decided to try again, maybe to see something I hadn’t noticed before. In a trice I was back at the place I had just left. So why was I here? Some of my family drifted in: my wife and I, soon followed by our son Chip, perhaps ten years older than he was before. Where were the others? Grown up and gone due to the inexorable passing of time?

  I gazed at my wife for a few minutes, remembering how lovely she was then, which I calculated to be about 1989 or thereabouts, so she (and I at that time) would have been about fifty, the prime of our lives. I stared at myself, too. It’s impossible to describe how weird it is to gaze at oneself at a time in the distant past. One is filled not only with nostalgia, but also with sadness that time rushes forward and all must end, and much too soon.

  I hung around until everyone started to get ready for bed. I didn’t follow anyone to their bedrooms — even Karen’s and mine — that seemed a bit too prurient, despite the unusual circumstances. But I did ponder another question: now that I was in that past, could I travel to K-PAX or anywhere else I might wish to go from there? Probably, but I would save that for another day. Shasta got up and stretched, wandered to the kitchen for a drink of water, settled back down on the carpet. I watched her sadly, remembering the day she died, the day we all comforted ourselves by telling one another that she had lived a long and happy life. This was one of those moments in the life she loved so well, perhaps more than the rest of us.

  Another weird thing occurred to me: perhaps we had all been to the same theater at which I had performed my rendition of Oklahoma a decade earlier, to no acclaim whatsoever…

  I went to Abby’s room, hoping she would be there. It was filled with all her things: photos of the Beatles and a few other bands I didn’t recognize or remember, an anti-Vietnam war poster (she hated that conflict), as well as dolls and toys from an earlier time in her life. No computer or other electronic gadgets, only a record player and a few dozen LPs. A portable radio. A little makeup on her dresser, clothes and books scattered around. But no Abby.

  Could I move quickly ahead to another month or year? I closed my eyes, but didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Walter? Are you here? I floated through the wall and into the backyard, wondering where to go from here. Shasta was relieving herself along the back fence, after which she trotted to her door and went back inside.

  It occurred to me that I didn’t have to go back to that goddamn meeting for ages — time would not have moved and they would still be writing my speech. I could take centuries if I wanted to visit ancient Greece, or sail with the Vikings, or sit with Mozart as he composed the Jupiter Symphony. I could visit the locker rooms of both teams after a World Series game. I could indirectly participate in anything that ever happened! But I wasn’t in the mood. All I could see in my mind was the upcoming Security Council meeting with me at the microphones. When I opened them I found myself back in Room Two and the Task Force on Brewer’s Speech. A week ago I would have been shocked to find that the proceedings were at the exact same moment as when I left, even though it seemed to me that I had been gone for hours. No more. Even this was beginning to seem routine.

  The final touches of the damn thing were just being finished. It had been broken down into six main paragraphs. The first, the introductory one, would briefly summarize my background and my earlier experiences with prot and fled. The second, that another alien race called the Bullocks were now on Earth, and were demanding that we stop killing each other. The third would present their specific demands, that we stop 20% of the killing in the first year, and so on until there wasn’t any at all (except for accidental deaths). The fourth would encompass a plea to immediately phase out hunting and fishing, laboratory experimentation, and even animal husbandry, with the goal of ending the slaughter of Earth’s animals as well as ourselves. Fifth, the evidence that the Bullocks were for real and, for all intents and purposes, all-powerful, at least compared with us, and could do anything they said they could do (as evidenced by the videos of the disappearance and reappearance of various huge structures around the world; a sample of what was on the cone would follow). And sixth, what would happen to us if we failed to comply. There would then be a final summary and desperate plea for the world to comply with Walter’s demands.

  The Secretary of State apologized for changing the subject, but he nevertheless asked, “Dr. Brewer, do you have any further indication of how the Bullocks are going to eliminate us?”

  “They aren’t saying precisely. I suppose they could sterilize us, but that wouldn’t stop the killing for decades, so I don’t think that will happen. Or perhaps they could make all the weapons disappear, but we would just make new ones. The only thing I can suggest is that we will probably be taken to a remote planet and dumped there.” I didn’t mention the cannibalism part.

  “This is all speculation, Mr. Secretary,” the chair correctly pointed out. “It isn’t really relevant to the issue at hand, is it?”

  “It might be if it’s going to be a horrible experience. People might change their way of thinking simply out of fear.”

  “Point taken, but it’s still speculation at this point, right, Dr. Brewer?”

  I had to admit it was.

  “Very well, let’s move on with the speech, shall we?”

  After that I lost my focus for a while: it occurred to me that since I could leave for days, months, even years, and come back to the same point in time as when I left, did this mean I could live forever (and delay my presentation for that long) if I just left this space and time and wandered the universe until it collapsed back upon itself? It would be a tempting option, of course. But not, I quickly realized, if I had to do it alone and couldn’t take Karen with me.

  I suddenly realized that I was being spoken to again. “Sorry? I didn’t quite catch that.”

  The chair repeated, “Now that your speech is essentially complete, we could start working on your delivery tonight. Or, if you’d prefer, we could start fresh in the morning. Do you have a preference?”

  “What’s the right answer?”

  This time the titters were sympathetic ones. “The sooner we get started, the better your presentation will be. But we also know that the stress must be taking a toll on you. After we finish here, we’re going to ask you to stop by the medical room for blood pressure readings and the like. If everything’s okay, we could start rehearsals after dinner.”

  I thought: rehearsals? It sounded like a movie. “If you could print me a copy, I’d rather practice it at home tonight, and then we could begin to go over it here tomorrow morning.”

  “Objection?” asked the chair. There were none. “We’ll get you a fresh copy right away, Dr. B. Thank you all. Do you have anything you want to add, Mr. President?”

  “I think everything is going as smoothly as it possibly could. I would only like to remind Gene that we’re all behind you a hundred percent, and that you can ask any of us, including me, anything at all during the next couple of days. If there is anything any of us can do to help you get through this, all you have to do is ask.”

  “Mr. President, will you be with me in the Security Council chamber?”

  “I’ll be right beside you, and the ambassador will be on the other side. Others of us will be right behind you throughout your entire presentation.”

  “Can my wife come with me?”

  “She can come to the UN with you, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for
her to accompany you into the Security Council chamber.”

  “Will your wife be there?”

  The President smiled. “That can be arranged. She loves New York.”

  “Anything else?” queried the chair. “If not, the meeting is adjourned until tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”

  As everyone was streaming out (some paused to shake my hand and offer words of encouragement), Mike sidled up to me and said, “You didn’t ask for me to be present at the UN.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, Mike. Of course I hope you’ll be there. I guess I just assumed you would be.”

  “Just kidding, doctor. You won’t need me there. My job will be finished. For now, it’s still to act as liaison and make sure everything’s okay and on schedule.” He and Dr. Schultz escorted me to the clinic for temperature and blood pressure readings, which were normal. Schultz asked if I was sleeping well. I told him I was. I don’t think he bought it, but what could he say?

  Mike walked me to the door. “You go have a nice dinner with your wife, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I had almost forgotten about Walter, but he was there (and had been the whole time, no doubt). “Did you enjoy the trip to your past?”

  “Not especially, though I did take care of some unfinished business.”

  “Is that what passes for music on this planet? O-kla-ho-ma?”

  I was in no mood to argue to point. “Something occurred to me while I was in the TF meeting. Will you be present when I speak to the Security Council?”

  “Wherever or whenever you are, I will be there.”

  “You’ve demanded a lot from us. Here’s one for you: I demand that you give another demonstration there.”

  There was a pause before they said, “How many times must we prove to you that we can do what we say we can do?”