Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (12 page)

Two Guys from the Future

“W
E ARE TWO GUYS FROM THE FUTURE.”

“Yeah, right. Now get the hell out of here!”

“Don’t shoot! Is that a gun?”

That gave me pause; it was a flashlight. There were two of them. They both wore shimmery suits. The short one was kind of cute. The tall one did all the talking.

“Lady, we are serious guys from the future,” he said. “This is not a hard-on.”

“You mean a put-on,” I said. “Now kindly get the hell out of here.”

“We are here on a missionary position to all mankind,” he said. “No shit is fixing to hang loose any someday now.”

“Break loose,” I said. “Hey, are you guys talking about nuclear war?”

“We are not allowed to say,” the cute one said.

“The bottom line is, we have come to salvage the art works of your posteriors,” the tall one said.

“Save the art and let the world go. Not a bad idea,” I said. “But,
mira
, it’s midnight and the gallery’s closed. Come back
en la mañana
.”

“¡Qué bueno! No hay mas necesidad que hablar en inglés,”
the tall one said. “Nothing worse than trying to communicate in a dead language,” he went on in Spanish. “But how did you know?”

“Just a guess,” I said, also in Spanish; and we spoke in the mother tongue from then on. “If you really are two guys from the future, you can come back in the future, like tomorrow after we open, right?”

“Too much danger of Timeslip,” he said. “We have to come and go between midnight and four 
A.M.
, when we won’t interfere with your world. Plus we’re from far in the future, not just tomorrow. We are here to save art works that will otherwise be lost in the coming holocaust by sending them through a Chronoslot to our century in what is, to you, the distant future.”

“I got that picture,” I said. “But you’re talking to the wrong girl. I don’t own this art gallery. I’m just an artist.”

“Artists wear uniforms in your century?”

“Okay, so I’m moonlighting as a security guard.”

“Then it’s your boss we need to talk to. Get him here tomorrow at midnight, okay?”

“He’s a her,” I said. “Besides,
mira
, how do I know you really are, on the level, two guys from the future?”

“You saw us suddenly materialize in the middle of the room, didn’t you?”

“Okay, so I may have been dozing. You try working two jobs.”

“But you noticed how bad our
inglés
was. And how about these outfits?”

“A lot of people in New York speak worse
inglés
than you,” I said. “And here on the Lower East Side, funny suits don’t prove anything.” Then I remembered a science fiction story I had once heard about. (I never actually
read
science fiction.)

* * *

“You did
what?
” said Borogove, the gallery owner, the next morning when I told her about the two guys from the future.

“I lit a match and held it to his sleeve.”

“Girl, you’re lucky he didn’t shoot you.”

“He wasn’t carrying a gun. I could tell. Those shimmery suits are pretty tight. Anyway, when I saw that the cloth didn’t burn, I decided I believed their story.”

“There’s all sorts of material that doesn’t burn,” Borogove said. “And if they’re really two guys from the future who have come back to save the great art of our century, how come they didn’t take anything?” She looked around the gallery, which was filled with giant plastic breasts and buttocks, the work of her dead ex-husband, “Bucky” Borogove. She seemed disappointed that all of them were still hanging.

“Beats me,” I said. “They insist on talking to the gallery owner. Maybe you have to sign for it or something.”

“Hmmm. There have been several mysterious disappearances of great art lately. That’s why I hired you; it was one of the conditions in Bucky’s will. In fact, I’m still not sure this isn’t one of his posthumous publicity stunts. What time are these guys from the future supposed to show up?”

“Midnight.”

“Hmmm. Well, don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll join you at midnight, like Macbeth on the tower.”

“Hamlet,” I said. “And tomorrow’s my night off. My boyfriend is taking me to the cockfights.”

“I’ll pay you time and a half,” she said. “I may need you there to translate. My
español
is a little rusty.”

* * *

Girls don’t go to cockfights and I don’t have a boyfriend. How could I? There aren’t any single men in New York. I just didn’t want Borogove to think I was easy.

But in fact, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

I was standing beside her in the gallery at midnight when a column of air in the center of the room began to shimmer and glow and . . . But you’ve seen
Star Trek
. There they were. I decided to call the tall one Stretch and the cute one Shorty.

“
Bienvenidos
to our century,” said Borogove, in Spanish, “and to the Borogove Gallery.” Her Spanish was more than a little rusty; turned out she had done a month in Cuernavaca in 1964. “We are described in
Art Talk
magazine as ‘the traffic-control center of the Downtown Art Renaissance.’ ”

“We are two guys from the future,” Stretch said, in Spanish this time. He held out his arm.

“You don’t have to prove anything,” said Borogove. “I can tell by the way you arrived here that you’re not from our world. But if you like, you could show me some future money.”

“We’re not allowed to carry cash,” said Shorty.

“Too much danger of Timeslip,” explained Stretch. “In fact, the only reason we’re here at all is because of a special exemption in the Chronolaws, allowing us to save great art works that otherwise would be destroyed in the coming holocaust.”

“Oh dear. What coming holocaust?”

“We’re not allowed to say,” said Shorty. It seemed to be the only thing he was allowed to say. But I liked the way that no matter who he was talking to, he kept stealing looks at me.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Stretch, looking at his watch. “It doesn’t happen for quite a while. We’re buying the art early to keep the prices down. Next month our time (last year, yours) we bought two Harings and a Ledesma right around the corner.”

“Bought?” said Borogove. “Those paintings were reported stolen.”

Stretch shrugged. “That’s between the gallery owners and their insurance companies. But we are not thieves. In fact—”

“What about the people?” I asked.

“You stay out of this,” Borogove whispered, in
inglés
. “You’re just here to translate.”

I ignored her. “You know, in this coming holocaust thing. What happens to the people?”

“We’re not allowed to save people,” said Shorty.

“No big deal,” said Stretch. “People all die anyway. Only great art is forever. Well, almost forever.”

“And Bucky made the short list!” said Borogove. “That son of a bitch. But I’m not surprised. If self-promotion can—”

“Bucky?” Stretch looked confused.

“Bucky Borogove. My late ex-husband. The artist whose work is hanging all around us here. The art you came to save for future generations.”

“Oh no,” said Stretch. He looked around at the giant tits and asses hanging on the walls. “We can’t take this stuff. It would never fit through the Chronoslot anyway. We came to give you time to get rid of it. We’re here for the early works of Teresa Algarín Rosado, the Puerto Rican neoretromaximinimalist. You will hang her show next week, and we’ll come back and pick up the paintings we want.”

“I beg your pardon!” said Borogove. “Nobody tells me who will or will not hang in this gallery. Not even guys from the future. Besides, who’s ever heard of this Rosado?”

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” said Stretch. “It’s just that we already know what will happen. Besides, we’ve already deposited three hundred thousand dollars in your account first thing tomorrow.”

“Well, in that case . . .” Borogove seemed mollified. “But who is she? Do you have her phone number? Does she even have a phone? A lot of artists—”

“How many paintings are you going to buy?” I asked.

“You stay out of this!” she whispered, in
inglés
.

“But I am Teresa Algarín Rosado,” I said.

* * *

I quit my job as a security guard. A few nights later I was in my apartment when I noticed a shimmering by the sink. The air began to glow and . . . But you’ve seen
Star Trek
. I barely had time to pull on my jeans. I was painting and I usually work in a T-shirt and underpants.

“Remember me, one of the two guys from the future?” Shorty said, in Spanish, as soon as he had fully appeared.

“So you can talk,” I said, in Spanish also. “Where’s your
compañero?
”

“It’s his night off. He’s got a date.”

“And you’re working?”

“It’s my night off, too. I just—uh—uh . . .” He blushed.

“Couldn’t get a date,” I said. “It’s all right. I’m about ready to knock off anyway. There’s a Bud in the refrigerator. Get me one too.”

“You always work at midnight? Can I call you Teresa?”

“Please do. Just finishing a couple of canvases. This is my big chance. My own show. I want everything to be just right. What are you looking for?”

“A bud?”

“A Bud is a
cerveza
,” I said. “The top twists off. To the left. Are you sure you guys are from the future and not the past?” (
Or just the country,
I thought to myself.)

“We travel to many different time zones,” he said.

“Must be exciting. Do you get to watch them throw the Christians to the lions?”

“We don’t go there; it’s all statues,” he said. “Statues won’t fit through the Chronoslot. You might have noticed, Stretch and I broke quite a few before we quit trying.”

“Stretch?”

“My partner. Oh, and call me Shorty.”

It was my first positive illustration of the power of the past over the future.

“So what kind of art do you like?” I asked while we got comfortable on the couch.

“I don’t like any of it, but I guess paintings are best; you can turn them flat. Say, this is pretty good
cerveza
. Do you have any roll and rock?”

I thought he meant the beer but he meant the music. I also had a joint, left over from a more interesting decade.

“Your century is my favorite,” Shorty said. Soon he said he was ready for another petal.

“Bud,” I said. “In the fridge.”

“The
cerveza
in your century is very good,” he called out from the kitchen.

“Let me ask you two questions,” I said from the couch.

“Sure.”

“Do you have a wife or a girlfriend back there, or up there, in the future?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “There are no single girls in the future. What’s your second question?”

“Do you look as cute out of that shimmery suit as you do in it?”

* * *

“There’s one missing,” said Borogove, checking off her list as the workmen unloaded the last of my paintings from the rented panel truck and carried them in the front door of the gallery. Other workmen were taking Bucky’s giant tits and asses out the back door.

“This is all of it,” I said. “Everything I’ve ever painted. I even borrowed back two paintings that I had traded for rent.”

Borogove consulted her list. “According to the two guys from the future, three of your early paintings are in the Museo de Arte Inmortal del Mundo in 2255: ‘Tres Dolores,’ ‘De Mon Mouse,’ and ‘La Rosa del Futuro.’ Those are the three they want.”

“Let me see that list,” I said.

“It’s just the titles. They have a catalogue with pictures of what they want, but they wouldn’t show it to me. Too much danger of Timesplits.”

“Slips,” I said. We looked through the stacked canvases again. I am partial to portraits. “De Mon Mouse” was an oil painting of the super in my building, a rasta who always wore Mickey Mouse T-shirts. He had a collection of two. “Tres Dolores” was a mother, daughter, and grandmother I had known on Avenue B; it was a pose faked up from photographs—a sort of tampering with time in itself, now that I thought of it.

But “La Rosa del Futuro”? “Never heard of it,” I said.

Borogove waved the list. “It’s on here. Which means it’s in their catalogue.”

“Which means it survives the holocaust,” I said.

“Which means they pick it up at midnight, after the opening Wednesday night,” she said.

“Which means I must paint it between now and then.”

“Which means you’ve got four days.”

“This is crazy, Borogove.”

“Call me Mimsy,” she said. “And don’t worry about it. Just get to work.”

* * *

“There’s pickled herring in the
nevera
,” I said, in Spanish.

“I thought you were Puerto Rican,” said Shorty.

“I am, but my ex-boyfriend was Jewish, and that stuff keeps forever.”

“I thought there were no single men in New York.”

“Exactly the problem,” I said. “His wife was Jewish too.”

“You’re sure I’m not keeping you from your work?” said Shorty.

“What work?” I said forlornly. I had been staring at a blank canvas since ten 
P.M.
“I still have one painting to finish for the show, and I haven’t even started it.”

“Which one?”

“ ‘La Rosa del Futuro,’ ” I said. I had the title pinned to the top corner of the frame. Maybe that was what was blocking me. I wadded it up and threw it at the wall. It only went halfway across the room.

“I think that’s the most famous one,” he said. “So you know it gets done. Is there a blossom—”

“A Bud,” I said. “In the door of the fridge.”

“Maybe what you need,” he said, with that shy, sly futuristic smile I was growing to like, “is a little rest.”

After our little rest, which wasn’t so little, and wasn’t exactly a rest, I asked him, “Do you do this often?”

“This?”

“Go to bed with girls from the past. What if I’m your great-great-grandmother or something?”

“I had it checked out,” he said. “She’s living in the Bronx.”

“So you do! You bastard! You do this all the time.”

“Teresa!
¡Mi corazón!
Never before. It’s strictly not allowed. I could lose my job! It’s just that when I saw those little . . .”