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

by Samuel Ben White

  He nodded and they walked on, Garison in front of Heather by several stones, until Garison paused in front of one. He knelt down and Heather hurried over to him. She looked and saw that it was Henry's stone. "He lived to be a ripe old age," she marveled, trying to say something comforting.

  Garison nodded and sat there, tears forming in his eyes. "If he stayed around here, at least I know he probably looked after his mother. He always did look after her, even when he was a toddler." After a moment, he said to the stone, "My son. I'm sorry I wasn't here to watch you grow up. To teach you how to grow up." He stood and turned to the other row of stones. "How to be a man.

  "These," he said, "Must be Justin and his children. Yes, there's Justin's stone." He went over to it and looked at the dates. His death was marked to be 1777. Below the date was also the word "Patriot," carved in now-fading letters, and he wondered if Justin and Purdy were involved in the same battle or if it were just coincidence. After all, he thought, many people died in the war that year, all up and down the coast. Garison said an apology to Justin, and a brief prayer, then rose.

  "Must have died in the Revolution," Heather said, more to herself than to Garison. The Revolutionary War was something for history books, yet here she stood by a man whose son had died in the war. Did she really believe that? As she watched the tears trickle down his cheek, she knew more than ever that he believed it, whether she could yet or not.

  Garison forced a smile and said, "He sure wouldn't have been a Tory growing up in Sarah's household. She was not a fan of the monarchy. Thought everyone ought to have a say in how they were governed.

  "I wonder where Helen was buried?" he asked, looking around.

  "She probably got married and was buried with her husband, somewhere else," Heather pointed out, after a short glance around did not reveal her stone. "I guess she could be buried somewhere in this cemetery, but it might be hard to find out, since you don't know her last name. Even if we find a Helen, we won't be sure if it's her."

  "Of course," he nodded sadly. "I would like to know where she went—and if there were any portraits done of her as an adult. I used to think she looked just like Sarah and I wonder if she did as she grew up." He gestured around the little area of plots and said, "Look at these children and grandchildren I never got to know. They died almost two centuries before their father and grandfather was born. How could Sarah have explained all that to them? Did she even try?

  "Sarah. I wonder—" he noticed two graves which were marked off from the rest by a short fence, but still within the Fitch family area.

  He walked over and saw that the two graves shared one tombstone. It was marked for he and Sarah. Heather asked, "Does this mean they had a funeral and all for you?"

  "I suppose," Garison said, trying to imagine what had transpired after he disappeared from the shed—and the eighteenth century—just a few days ago. "I wonder if she knew? Certainly, there was no body ever found. Sarah must have known I lived."

  "I bet she did," Heather said, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. "That was probably a comfort to her. I know how sad I would be to lose you, but it would be easier if I knew you were still alive and were only away because you couldn't get to me." Afraid she was contradicting herself, she explained, "It'd be different than it is with my brother. I guess it's the difference between being pretty sure someone's dead and pretty sure they're alive. I don't know," she shrugged.

  He turned and looked at Heather, a look in his eye that told her "her Garison" was shining through, "You really would be sad if I were gone, wouldn't you?"

  "Oh Garison. I love you. I always will." Then, in answer, she said truthfully and without hyperbole, “I would be devastated.”

  Just then, she looked at the tombstone and could not keep a short laugh from escaping her lips.

  "What is it?" he asked, awakened from a moment of solemn reverie.

  "Look at your side. Didn't you notice that?"

  He looked, then the laugh lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. He laughed out loud as he realized what Sarah had done. "She put my real birthday on there! They must have thought her a fool when she asked that the year of my birth be listed as 1975. But there it is."

  "She must have been a very special woman, Garison," Heather remarked. "I have a sudden and undying admiration for her sense of humor. You must tell me everything about her when we get home."

  "I will," he nodded, still enthralled with the tombstone. He assured, "And she was a very special woman."

  Heather noticed the expression on his face and offered, "I'm going to look around. You stay here as long as you like."

  "Thank you," he nodded, then knelt down before Sarah's grave as Heather walked away.

  March 20, 2005

  A town changes considerably in two hundred and fifty years. In fact, I probably never would have found Mount Vernon on my own. I could probably have even sailed up the Potomac and missed it; that is how much things have changed since I saw it just a few days ago.

  It has become so surrounded by other towns that it is unrecognizable as the town I lived in for five years. One source told me it had over twenty-five thousand people, but I wondered how they could tell. After all, I could not tell where Mount Vernon ended and the next town began. Heather said it was like trying to tell where Dallas ended and Farmer's Branch began, but it took a little "accessing of the memory banks" to figure out what she meant. In some cases in these big cities, she tells me, next door neighbors live in separate towns. I guess things may have been that way in my old world, but I tried not to go to big cities more than I absolutely had to.

  Heather tells me that the east coast is like this all the way from New York City to Charleston, South Carolina, and will one day be like that all the way to Miami. A person will be able to drive the entire east coast without leaving the city. I can think of few more horrifying thoughts. Have you ever noticed that one of the first things Cain did after inventing murder was invent cities? Evil and cities, the two go hand in hand, if you ask me.

  In the days of the frontier—in both my memories—the people who lived in the west were of a different mind set than those who lived in the east. I believe it may always be that way. People of the east—and even of the mid-west—cannot comprehend our wide open spaces out west. I, on the other hand, cannot comprehend their lack of wide open spaces. Maybe the city people need to be fenced in to feel secure, while some of us get paranoid when fenced in.

  I have a friend who lives eleven miles from the nearest human being. He becomes claustrophobic on his rare trips into the town of Gallup. I have other friends who would become unbearably lonely if they were put in the same situation (the thought of Gallup being the nearest city would positively terrify them). But, I guess man has always been divided between the city dwellers and the country people. Abraham and Lot fueled the debate over which was better, but I guess it all goes back to Cain when he built that first city. (I guess the obvious question is: who lived in the city Cain built since he had killed one of the only four people we know for sure the world had at that time?)

  But, back to Mount Vernon. The streets were paved with real asphalt and it was no longer a minuscule little town sitting on the banks of the Potomac. It was a lost little town on the banks of the Potomac. It is surrounded by the city of Alexandria and the smog from there and the neighboring city of Washington D.C. (Heather tells me the national capitol and a state are named after little George!) choke the once blue skies from view. In short, it broke my heart.

  There's graffiti on some of the walls and even a few derelicts wandering the streets. There are new buildings and old ones, well kept structures and dumps. Sure, it probably looks and sounds like any other town in the world; but it's not supposed to. It was supposed to be Mount Vernon. My town. I knew progress would have come, but the naive side of me hoped that the down sides of progress would stay away from my town. And one of the sad things is: even if I had been there I could have done nothing about it.

  Meanwhile, Hea
ther and I grow closer each day. How one could avoid (or would want to avoid) becoming closer to her I don't know. Not only is she pretty and intelligent, she is interesting. I have never been much of a conversationalist—having done most of my talking with my experiments and my work—but I find myself enamored with just listening to her talk. For all their differences, Sarah and Heather do share one thing, I believe: my admiration.

  The airplane rides and the moments after dark when others have gone to bed have afforded us hours to talk and acquaint/reacquaint (there seems no better way to say that) ourselves with each other. I treasure those moments. For, while I remember these details she is telling me about herself and her life, I am also hearing them for the first time. I wish I could explain that to myself, let alone a journal.

  I remember (although I do not remember from where) hearing a man say that one should not marry just someone they love, they should marry someone they are friends with. My experience with Sarah tells me the wisdom of such a saying; and I think I could find no better friend than Heather Dawson.

  Marriage? Am I really thinking of being married to Heather? Of course, I guess I already am...but then again I'm not. I can certainly understand why someone would fall in love with Heather [why I did fall in love with Heather], but I'm also still in love with Sarah.

  And that's a wound that is still very fresh and painful.

  And that's what I really set out to write about in this journal. I want to write about Sarah while I'm still in the town where Sarah and I shared our lives. I want to write about Sarah while the sight of her—I hate to even write the word—grave is still fresh in my mind.

  Sarah died in 1786 at the age of sixty-seven. That means she lived forty two years without me and never remarried. I have to wonder why. She was more attractive when I left than she had been even when I met her. She was also no longer a societal outcast. And, certainly, the men far outnumbered the women in the colonies back then, so there could have been plenty of suitors. Maybe she elected to devote herself to our children.

  Heather suggested another possibility. Perhaps Sarah knew, somehow, that I had made the journey to the future. In that case, she may have never considered herself a widow. It breaks my heart now to think of her leading her life alone like that just because I might be alive somewhere. But, she must have got on pretty well to have lived to the age of 67. Few people lived that long in those days and even fewer of them women. In my five years there, it seemed that I helped to bury an inordinately high number of people—many of whom were close to my own age.

  I must say that—macabre as it may sound—seeing Sarah's grave has helped me a great deal. It has allowed me to say good-bye to her. It has also afforded me the chance to get to know this wonderful woman named Heather. As I wrote above, Heather and I have grown enormously closer. But, it is as if the seeing of Sarah's grave has removed the final barrier between us. That word "closure" comes to mind again.

  On the other hand, I still get angry with myself for letting myself get close to anyone. The head may say Sarah's been dead for two hundred and nineteen years, but my heart reminds me I was holding her in my arms less than a week ago and listening to our children as they got up for the day.

  But, and this really serves to make things more complicated rather than easier, if there ever was a woman to rival Sarah in inner beauty, it is this Heather. She has such an inner peace about her that one cannot help but be effected by it when around her. And the mere fact that she has stood by me during what has to have sounded like the ravings of a lunatic says volumes about her. Had I known her in my time, I believe I would have wanted to marry her there, too. It might be easier on me now if she were a witch or someone I could dislike and drive away, but she's not. She loves her Garison and I have become the recipient of that love.

  Heather seems to know me better than I know myself—at least, she knows my alter ego better than I do. She knows me pretty well, too, I'm learning. She knows when to leave me alone, and when to stay close by me. She knows me so well, in fact, I wonder if I am an open book that everyone can read. I don't think this is true, but it certainly seems a possibility when around Heather. Then, I remember how easily Sarah could read me and I really feel open.

  Excerpt from A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes

  Harry Jr. had a son named Calvin who, from an early age, is said to have shown a marked ability at the sport of baseball. He received a scholarship to play baseball for the University of Texas, one of the first schools to offer scholarships in baseball. He played one season for the Longhorns before he and his roommate, catcher Henry King, dropped out of school to go fight in the war Harry's father so vehemently opposed. Harry came back to the University of Texas four years later—having made the rank of captain by age twenty-one—and resumed his baseball career. Henry King was one of the first non-Frenchmen to be awarded the Croix De Guerre, then returned home to be a cowboy and never went back to college or baseball.

  While becoming an outstanding baseball player, Calvin occasionally attended class. When the spring semester ended, Calvin ignored his father's protests and dropped out of college again, this time to accept a contract with the Chicago White Sox. Still reeling from having eight players banned for life the previous season, Calvin was able to start in left field as a rookie. He was often kidded about having to fill the shoes of Shoeless Joe, and—in some ways—the joke may have stuck with him, to his detriment. The White Sox, even with the loss of five starting fielders, two starting pitchers and a key benchman went on to the American League championship that year with Calvin batting a respectable .274.

  For the next nineteen seasons, Calvin Fitch roamed the outfield for eleven different teams, serving in both leagues. He did two terms each with both the Braves and White Sox, giving him an aggregate of thirteen trades in nineteen years. Whenever he heard a trade was brewing in either league, he would often contact his wife and tell her to be ready to move, just in case. Once, when he knew he was about to be traded, his wife Caroline asked him where. Calvin replied, "Read the papers, they usually know before I do." He even started a game for the hometown Yankees and played the seventh through the ninth innings for the visiting (and hated) Red Sox.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  After the cemetery, their next stop was to find a clean but inexpensive motel closer to Mount Vernon than the one in Manassa had been. They found one in Alexandria and Heather said she wanted to take a nap. Garison gathered that the long flight the day before and her pregnancy had conspired together to make her more tired than she normally would have been. As she laid down on the bed and went quickly to sleep, Garison pulled out the lap-top computer they had brought along and tried to, as silently as possible, type in a journal entry about his feelings regarding finding Sarah's grave. Heather was so tired, she was soon asleep despite the rat-a-tat-tat of the computer keyboard. When he had finished typing, he set the computer aside and lay back, quickly falling asleep himself.

  They awoke in the middle of the afternoon and Heather, stretching, asked, "What now, Chief?"

  He stretched himself, then looked at his watch and said, "I must've slept longer than I thought. Well, I'm hungry and you're eating for two, so I say we find a diner and get a bite."

  "Good idea, I'm starving."

  "Do you get morning sickness?"

  "Not really," Heather replied. "Mainly, I'm just kind of nauseous all day long—even when I'm hungry. I've never been nauseous and hungry at the same time. It's kind of strange. And I think it's still a little early for morning sickness, but I'm not sure. Soon as we get home, I need to start checking the baby books."

  "Any kind of food sound especially good, or bad?"

  She touched her abdomen and replied quickly, "No sausage."

  "Sarah didn't like anything with cucumbers when she was pregnant. That wasn't much of a problem as their weren't many cucumbers to be had in Mount Vernon."

  Heather put her hand to her mouth and said, with feeling, "Now that you mention it, nothing
with cucumbers either."

  The next stop for Garison and Heather after eating greasy hamburgers that, surprisingly, made Heather feel better, was at the county records building. When they asked for the years they were interested in, a clerk told them they had to go to another address. Records from that far back, she had explained with a surprisingly southern accent, were stored in a warehouse on the far side of town from the river—to avoid as much moisture as possible—and were only beginning to be transferred to computer, she said. It was a long, arduous process and Garison agreed that it must take a special temperament to work at such a task. The clerk allowed that she didn't have that temperament and hinted that her current job was just taken until she found something better.

  The building they had been sent to was an old building that looked as if it had probably begun its life as an office building of some sort. Now, it was a four story building with all but its load-bearing walls removed, full of nothing but records, most of them old, dusty, and smelly. Whenever the employees became disgruntled, one could be assured of hearing someone jokingly suggest arson as the building would go up like the proverbial roman candle.

  An overworked team of a handful of people came to work in this building every day to catalogue what was there and get rid of what files could be gotten rid of. Birth records, marriage licenses and obituaries were kept and filed alphabetically, but there were many things in the way of plans for long-gone buildings and permits and old statements about the raising of the taxes that could be done away with in most people's minds. Unfortunately, there always seemed to be some preservation society showing up and telling them not to throw away even the old garbage reports, yet these societies often didn't want responsibility for the documents, either. So it was the job of the on-sight manager—a rotating position so that no one would shoulder all the blame—to decide whether to keep or toss much of what they came across. The preservation societies were notified on the days the trash was taken out so that they could come and fish out of the dumpster anything they wanted to keep. If they failed to preserve anything tossed into the trash, the city told them, then they had no right to whine about it later.