Durango looked a lot different from the last time he had seen it. It was just beginning to be discovered by the tourists in 1987 and was not nearly as built up, trumped up and beat up. Most of the fast food places weren't there, yet, and a couple of the gas stations actually still provided service. Garison looked, but couldn't see more than three convenience stores from where he was standing. "That, at least," he muttered to himself, "Is a positive sign."
He walked over to an old building on Main Street and sat down on the front steps. The sun was just coming up and he wanted to catch a breath and get his bearings. He also wanted to formulate a plan, though none was jumping readily to his mind. He didn't know if he were just a little overwhelmed by coming back to his hometown—and such a different one at that—or what. Whatever, he mused, it had him a little befuddled.
After a while, he saw a man going along the street and putting The Rocky Mountain News in the newstands around town. Garison walked over to one of them and put in the quarter to buy a paper. Not only did he want to know the day, he figured it wouldn't hurt to catch himself up on where the world was. He had made a couple slip ups on the trip by making references to events that hadn't yet happened, or had happened too far back to be current conversation. Fortunately, none of the gaffes had been major.
Sitting on a bench and looking at the front page, he mumbled, "Tuesday, huh? Now, where was I on Tuesdays in June of 1987? Tuesdays. Seems like there's something about those days that I ought to remember. Something happened on Tuesdays besides 'Matlock'. What was it?"
He thought for a few minutes, trying to remember how he spent his Tuesdays as an eleven year old. He suddenly snapped his fingers and said, "Baseball. I'm going to be playing baseball tonight. I knew something happened on Tuesdays."
So he could meet himself at the Pony League field that evening at sometime between six and ten. If he remembered right, he was playing for the Myers Astros that summer—Myers having been a local super market. He suddenly wondered what had happened to Myers by the time he was an adult, but he couldn't remember. That lack of memory didn't bother him as businesses were always coming and going in Durango, especially in the later years.
Garison had approximately twenty five dollars of current money in his wallet—and about forty more that wouldn't be legal tender for over a dozen years. He knew twenty five dollars wouldn't get him very far, so he decided to walk over to the county building and see if he could get some temporary work. He remembered them often hiring people for temporary work on the county roads or in construction. He knew he would need money, a place to stay, and maybe some new clothes for the next few days.
After that? he wondered. What if he passed the message on, but it didn't destroy him? He knew he couldn't stay in Durango in that case. There would just be too great a chance that someone would recognize him one day, or notice his resemblance to the young Garison Fitch. He also didn't think he could stick around, seeing people he knew, but not being able to talk to or interact with them.
It suddenly occurred to him what a horrifying prospect it was that he might NOT cease to exist. What if he had to go on, living out the rest of his life alone? Alone and having to watch every single move so as not to mess up history further. While he would never, under any circumstances, condone suicide, he realized what an attractive possibility it might become in time.
"As Bat says," Garison quoted to himself, "'We'll jump off that bridge when we come to it.'" Garison walked on then laughingly muttered to himself, "It's not bad enough that I'm quoting from Bat Garrett; I'm quoting from someone who isn't quite thirteen, yet." As he walked off, he wondered where Bat was living at that time. The name of Bat's hometown in Texas was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite boot it up.
Garison got a temporary job with one of the county road crews. They were resurfacing highway 160 out towards Mancos and the foreman said they needed people with strong backs and weak minds to run the shovels. It was a little hard on his damaged shoulder, but he didn't plan on doing it for more than two or three days. Garison found that, after he got his shoulder loosened up though, it wasn't really too bad after all. His main worry was accidentally tearing the cut back open, but it soon became clear there wasn't really a danger there, either. In fact, the work of running a shovel was loosening up muscles that had become too tight, and a little atrophied.
He made friends with a couple of the other workers the first day and was invited to crash on their couch until he could find a place of his own. He thanked them and offered to give a little of his pay to help with the rent. They told him he could just stand for some beers on Friday night and he gladly said he would.
As he was just a temporary, the foreman gave Garison his pay one day at a time. The foreman had told him he would need to show some I.D. if he planned on sticking around long, but Garison said he had lost it. He was then told he might want to come up with a social security number as well, if he planned on working anywhere for very long. Somehow, though, the foreman doubted Garison would stick around many days. He seemed like a man on the move. Garison socked away most of his meager pay (literally) but did buy some liquid groceries to chip in with the guys.
After he had cleaned up and looked to be going out somewhere, Carlos—one of his roommates—asked, "Where you off to, Burt?"
"I hear they're playing baseball over at the Pony League fields tonight. Thought I might go watch a game or two." He added with a shrug, "Something to do."
"I used to go to the games," Carlos nodded. "Played some when I was younger. First base, mostly."
"You want to come along?" Garison asked. It wasn't a very sincere offer, but he thought it might look suspicious if he didn't at least ask.
Carlos took a long pull on his beer and, to Garison's relief, said, "Naw. Think I'll just watch the games on TV. I think the Pirates are supposed to be on. I used to live in Pittsburg, you know."
Garison hadn't known Carlos for very long, but he had already found out that the man had lived virtually everywhere. His fifteen months in Durango was on the cusp of a new person record.
Garison sat in the stands and, with an odd sense of wonder that he hoped didn't show too obviously on his face, watched himself play baseball. He realized that his memory hadn't been faulty: he was good, for a twelve year old, that is.
He looked around the crowd and realized that his parents were there. He wanted so much to go over and talk to them, but knew he had better not. He stared at them a moment, knowing it was safe because they were watching him intently. The him on the field, that is. He knew better than to stare too long for humans, like most other animals, have a latent sense of being watched.
As the game ended, with the Myers Astros having stomped the Golden Chicken Cubs fourteen to two, Garison realized he would get no chance that night to talk to himself. What with his own parents, other parents, and teammates all around, there would be no opportunity. He'd just have to find another place and time. When would things be less crowded around an eleven year old genius baseball star?
Garison stood out in the parking lot and watched himself get into his parents' car. It was an old Cutlass he remembered well. He couldn't remember if this was before or after he spilled ice cream down the radio speaker.
There was Tommy and Jainie and Susie—his parents' own, weird, tribute to "It's a Wonderful Life". He remembered growing up as an only child in the Soviet Americas and wished he could somehow take part in life with siblings again. But there was his youngest sister Susie, whose wedding he had just recently served at as usher, being carried by their mother.
"The tangled web of deception is nothing compared to this," Garison mumbled as he set off for Gil and Carlos's place.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Garison's Journal
June 14, 1987
I saw myself last night. It's a sensation I can't quite get over. It was absolutely nothing like seeing myself in a mirror, or even on video. I actually saw myself as other people see me—used to see me. I saw myself as a yo
ung man—a boy, really.
As an adult, I had forgotten just how awkward I was as a boy. Maybe everyone is that way. Oh, I was a star at baseball—made the all state team, even—but off the field it was a different story. Well, even on the field I wasn't exactly Cal Ripkin or Ozzie Smith, just really good for an eleven year old.
I was gangly and awkward in my movements, and incredibly shy around girls. Partly because the girls I knew from school were so much older than me. I don't know, though, I probably would have been afraid of girls anyway. They were even more of an unknown quantity to me than they are to most guys.
In the summer of 1977, when I guess I was eleven years old (not turning twelve until December), I had just graduated from high school. On the other time line—in the Soviet Americas—I went off to college when I was ten. (I still can't remember what caused the difference. I think it's because the Soviet system was always ready to exploit a talent, while the American system wanted to make sure there was actually a talent there.)
Either way, I was far younger than the girls I went to school with. Younger, underdeveloped, and probably somewhat of a nerd. I was also far smarter than the girls, or so I thought. After all, while I was contemplating quantum physics and interdimensional travel, they were experimenting with make up and planning parties. Such things seemed like a waste of the human intellect to me.
The truth was, though, that I would have given anything to be invited to one of those parties. Maybe I could have, if I had been nicer to people. But I was a snob because of my intellect. Combine that with my young age and it was no surprise I never got invited to parties. I told myself I didn't need their stupid parties anyway, but who knows? My brother Tommy, while valedictorian of his class as well, took the full twelve years through school. He was always invited to parties and was quite the life of them. Jainie and Susie both took top honors their years, too, and both did pretty well on the popularity circuit. There was a lot of pressure on them all, especially after what I had done, but I conveniently ignored that. I would have never admitted it to anyone, but—even though I was away getting my PhD while they were in high school or junior high—I was a little jealous that they fit in with society so much better than I did. They also all found spouses before I did and—though I love my brothers and sisters in law—I was jealous of that, too.
All that was, I guess, just another brick in the wall of who I am, musically speaking. If I had been around girls socially at that age, things might have been different. I might have fallen in love with one of them and either gotten side tracked from my work or never met Heather. So, while I kind of wonder what I missed out on, I guess I'm glad I did.
It occurs to me that, every time I've gotten married, I've changed the world. If that's not an argument for celibacy, I don't know what is.
Although now, here I sit in a run down house with two bachelors. Two bachelors who talk a lot about women, but don't seem to have a lot of first hand knowledge about them. I'm either a bachelor or a widower myself (depending on your point of view), but either way, I'm alone. And as if that weren't enough to make me miserable, new wave music is popular.
"Some kind of typewriter?" Gil asked.
Garison was startled as he thought he was the only one up. He turned and smiled and said, "Uh, yeah. Kind of. It's kind of like a mini computer."
Gil leaned over and looked at it and remarked admiringly, "Pretty fine. But where's the paper come out?"
"Um, you have to hook it into a printer. Right now, everything I've written is just stored in the memory. It's kind of complicated. A friend of mine who works in Denver gave it to me to try it out for her." Was that a lie? Garison wondered. Not exactly, he decided.
"Hmm," Gil shrugged before walking away. Obviously, he wasn't that interested, which made Garison glad. He was a little upset with himself that Gil had even seen it. Somehow, he doubted that Gil would take the knowledge and change the future by inventing lap tops.
What Garison had told the man, he rationalized, was basically true. The lap top computer he was using was made by Darston Computers out of Denver, which was owned by Heather's friend Darla Gaston. And while she had given the Fitchs the model on a trial basis, to see how well they liked it, Darla was only about seven years old in the summer of '87. It would be another twenty years before the computer would be given to Garison, yet there he sat with it. Such thoughts still gave him a headache.
Thinking of Darla made Garison think of Heather. For, somewhere in Highland Park, they were both attending the same private school. Heather's father, Henry Dawson Senior, was Frank Gaston's lawyer. Garison looked at the calendar and mused that in about fourteen years Frank Gaston would be murdered and Bat Garrett would solve the case. While he had mostly adjusted to being in the past, it still startled Garison when he realized some event or another that he knew of well was several years off.
Could Garison somehow save Mister Gaston's life? He wondered. Then he remembered that it was on that case that Bat had met Heather. While Garison mused to himself for a moment that he wouldn't mind keeping Heather from meeting Bat, that would mean Heather would never meet Garison, either. For, it was while working on a case with Bat that Heather and Garison had met. So, though he rued the thought, for him to meet Heather, he couldn't interfere with her meeting Bat.
On the other hand, did that make Garison an accessory to murder if he did nothing to stop Franklin Gaston's death? If so, though, that would also make Garison an accessory to all those deaths he pronounced while Justice of the Peace in La Plata County. He could stop those, too. Some of them, anyway. And what about the airplane crashes he remembered reading about in Dallas and Colorado Springs and other places? Was it murder if he didn't do something to save all those people? It was kind of like that TV show he used to watch where the guy got the paper a day early.
He moaned in pain and went to get aspirin for his headache.
That day after work, the foreman paid Garison but told him they couldn't keep him on unless he could provide a social security number. Garison thought about providing his old number, but that number had just recently been given to a local boy who was heading off to college. He shook the thought out of his head, not wanting to jeopardize things for his younger self.
Garison took his pay and decided it was time he went to see himself, anyway. Once that was done, he would either cease to exist or move out of town. Either way, he wouldn't be working for the county. Then he could work on getting a social security number, which he knew wouldn't be hard.
He dearly wanted to go to Wednesday night services at the First Christian Church where he had grown up, but knew that wouldn't be a good idea. Even if his younger self wouldn't be there, people who would know him later in life would be. So he spent the evening with the Methodists and returned to find Gil and Carlos already asleep. He felt rather sorry for them for it seemed their life consisted of work, sleep, and partying on the weekends. How many other people had he known like that, though? He wondered if he should do something about it, but he wondered what?
It was time he found himself and passed on the message. He had wondered how and where to go about it, and thought he had come up with a good spot and time. Garison chuckled as he remembered a college in Abilene, Texas, that used to advertise, "Find yourself at McMurry College." He laughed that maybe he would have to give that a try if his current plan didn't work.
"Abilene," he suddenly nodded. "That's where Bat's from. I knew I'd remember it eventually.
On Thursday morning, Garison took the canvas bag he now carried his worldly goods in in his left hand and carried the lap top in his right. He set out towards the community college and watched the time all the way. He knew where he needed to be and when, but he couldn't afford to be arrested for loitering. If he were stopped, it wouldn't look good that he was a transient with few possessions (one of them unexplainable) and no identification.
At the appropriate time, he stepped from behind some trees to the sidewalk and waited for a young boy on a bicycle to p
ass. As the boy drew near, Garison calmly asked, "Garison Fitch?"
The boy pulled to a stop, but kept a safe distance away. He looked up at the stranger and was sure he had never seen him before. Yet, there was something familiar about the man. Something he couldn't quite put a finger on. He shook off the thought and looked closer. The man was tall, had black hair and a black mustache. The man had distinctive features, but the boy couldn't quite be sure whether he had ever seen the man before or not.
Garison, for his part, tried not to stare too hard at the boy. It was like looking in a mirror with a twenty five year delay. Same unruly black hair, same skinny arms. Garison felt like he even remembered the clothes. He had worn that Broncos jersey until it had worn out, lamenting their recent losses in the Super Bowls of the 80s for months. Garison even remembered the bike his younger self was riding. It looked something like the BMX bikes they road on ESPN, but had some character he had built in himself in the form of retro reflectors and a psychedelic paintjob. Garison lamented to himself that bikes just didn't have character like that anymore.
"Yeah?" the boy said cautiously.
"I know you've never seen me before, but I need to talk to you."
The boy looked around warily, a little frightened that no one could be seen. The man had picked just the right spot on the bicycle route from the college to be concealed. Realizing that made the young boy even more nervous. He finally asked, "About what?"
Garison took a deep breath, then said, "I'm Garison Fitch."
"Huh?"
"I'm Garison Fitch. I'm you in about twenty five years. In one way, twenty years, but that's a long story. In other words, I'm you from the future. If you look closely, you may see some resemblance." It briefly occurred to Garison that he might should have shaved the mustache, which might have made him more recognizable to the boy.
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 2): Saving Time Page 21
