The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time (36 page)

There have been a few things I have not been able to remember completely, yet, but I am sure that will come in time. Each day, I seem to remember more.

And yet, I am not losing the memories that I had before this return to the twenty-first century. I once heard it said that the average person only uses a third of their brain capacity. I am beginning to think I am using my entire brain—if for nothing more than memory storage. I have more clear memories than I would have ever thought possible. I can, for instance, distinctly remember two twelfth birthdays.

A memory, or memories, I hope to access more fully soon are those of my siblings. Odd as it may sound, I find it far easier to believe that the world government situation has changed than to believe that I am no longer an only child. Governments may come and go, but I can't imagine my parents having other children. It just wasn't possible.

Yet, my memories and thousands of pictures at my parents house say I have a brother and two sisters: Tommy, Janie, and Susie. I am the oldest of four children! That is so strange I can't even begin to explain how I feel.

With the brother and two sisters also come three in-laws and, so far, two nieces! I have a whole extended family I don't know. Then again, I know them very well and can remember things like camping in the backyard with them and blaming Tommy when I road my bicycle through Mrs. McCarty's flower garden. As soon as we get back from Virginia, I'm going to have to meet these siblings again. Of course, they already know me, so they'll probably think I'm crazy when I try to get to know them as if meeting them for the first time. Heather tells me most people think I'm crazy, anyway, so maybe that will work in my favor.

From the air, the country looked much the same as the way Garison remembered it—from both memories. He was always amazed at the way farmlands looked like patchwork quilts from the air. He knew some people could distinguish the crop from that high up but, even after winning a Nobel Prize in botany, the plants looked a lot alike to him from ten thousand feet. More amazing was that he could distinguish tractors from other vehicles at that height. How could such a complex thing as the mind and the optic nerve be the product of mere chance? he wondered.

“Did I hear you,” she hesitated, almost wishing he hadn’t started the question, “Hear you crying last night?”

His hesitation was at least equal, but he finally said, “Yes. You did.”

“I didn’t know if I should come in and help you, or what. I made it as far as the bathroom door, but, well . . . “

“That’s all right. I don’t know what you could have done.” He forced a smile and explained, “’Midnight of the soul,’ and all that.”

“If I ever can do anything . . . “ she offered.

"I have seen a particular automobile I am most curious about," Garison said to Heather, nodding at her offer as he changed the subject as rapidly as he could. "It is much like a large truck, but smaller—like a family automobile. And the back end is open to the air. I even noticed that we have one, but I forgot to ask about it."

She thought a moment, trying to figure out what he was talking about, then realized. "That's a pick-up truck," she said. "Yeah, we have one. It's yours. You've been driving it since before I met you."

"What is their purpose? I mean, aside from being a mode of transportation."

"They're used for hauling things around on farms and ranches. The back is open for easy access and they have a sturdy frame and suspension service for dealing with heavy loads. At least, that was what they were built for."

"What do you mean?"

She laughed and said, "Pick-ups were invented as a work vehicle. They have powerful engines and are built to haul cargo. Most people, however, are like us and have a pick-up because we like driving them. Wait until sometime when we go to Texas."

"Why? What is there that pertains to...pick-up trucks?"

"Texas is pick-up truck heaven. More pick-ups are sold in Texas than in all other states combined. Something like more than half the vehicles in Texas are pick-ups. And the Dallas Fort Worth area—which doesn't even have Denver’s excuse of having ranches in the city—has more pick-up trucks than any other city in the world. There are probably more pick-ups in Dallas than there are in West Texas where the ranches actually are. And most of the people who drive them never haul anything in them you can't haul in a car."

"Then why do they drive them? It seems like a waste of expense—and passenger space."

Heather nodded, "I guess you could say that. But wait 'til you drive your pick-up. If you're the Garison Fitch I know, you may never want to go back to our other car."

"A vehicle is a vehicle," he pointed out.

"Maybe in the Soviet Union," she shrugged, "But not here. Vehicles are designed not just for utility, but for comfort and enjoyment. People fix them up with stereo systems and phones and even fax machines."

"In a vehicle?"

She nodded and explained, "I feel sorry for some of these people, but many folks spend more time in their car that they do at home. For others, their vehicle has to serve as their 'office on the go'. Look around when we land, I bet you'll see people with phones held to their ears as they drive. I even saw a guy tooling down the Interstate in Dallas working on a lap-top computer he had balanced on the steering wheel while he drove seventy miles an hour."

"Sounds dangerous."

"It is."

"Then why do it?"

"Gotta get to work. Make that money. Who knows?" She looked at him and added, "For some people, their very identity is wrapped up in their vehicle, let alone their lifestyle. For some, their existence is wrapped up in their job. The scary people are the ones who have seemingly combined the two at a molecular level."

Garison mouthed the phrase "molecular level" as if it meant something important, then shook the idea from his head and asked, "I did have another question about these pick-ups and other autos. On the back, I have noticed that several—including ours—have the word 'Ford'. Others have other words like 'Dodge' or 'Mazda'. Does this signify something?"

"That's the manufacturer."

"So, the ones that read GMC are manufactured by still another company?"

"Yes," she replied. "See, here in America, we have three major car companies: Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. On top of that, there was Avanti, a company that produced hand-made cars, and Saturn, which produces good cars but in smaller volume than the big three. Then, of course, there are all the Japanese cars, the German cars, the Italian cars—and so on."

"It would seem unnecessary for so many companies to produce the same product," he pointed out.

"You may have a point there." She smiled, "But I wouldn't say it too loudly. Welcome to the free-market system, where nothing is free but there's a market for anything. I've gotta take you to a Wal-Mart or a mall and just show you everything that's for sale."

"I think I remember such places, but they almost seem too fantastic to believe after the society I grew up in. It's hard to imagine a country that is this—"

"Free?"

"Well, that too. But the word I was thinking of was 'unregulated.' And back home—in the colonies, I mean—we had the freedom of choice but certainly not the selection."

Heather asked timidly, "Do you really think of there, back there, whatever, as home?"

"It was for five years," he replied quickly. "And it wasn’t that long ago. But, well, it's more than that. The life I had in Mount Vernon was the first home I'd had since my parents died. Since way before that, really, because of the way I traveled and everything. I had my house in the canyon, but I never really had a home until I met Sarah."

Trying to be understanding, Heather pointed out, "And it was your home just four days ago."

"Yes." As they headed into an increasingly darkening eastern sky, he said morosely, "Less than a week ago I was part of a family of five." He quickly reached out and put his hand on her thigh and added, "I love you. I know I do. But there's a part of me that feels like I'm falling in love between—between the death and the funeral and it just doesn't seem right.

"I remember when Charlie's wife died. About nine months later he started dating a woman he worked with and asked her to marry him. Some people said that was too soon. We were talking about it and Charlie said, 'I promised 'til death do us part, not 'til death and then some.'" He looked out the window for a moment, then said, "But now nine months seems a lot longer than four days."

“I understand, Garison. At least, I try to.”

A question completely off the current subject popped into his mind and he asked, partly to get away from the sad thoughts of what he had lost, "What about my books? Do I still have a collection of books in the basement?"

She looked at him strangely and said, "We don't have a basement."

"A subterranean floor to our house. Maybe you call it by a different name in—"

Heather laughed, "I know what a basement is. We don't have one. Not in our house."

"No wonder I couldn't find it the other night. That is depressing," he told her. "You know, I had more that two hundred books down there. They were my most prized possessions. Many of them were very hard to come by."

"You have more than two thousand books in your office on the back side of the shop," she told him, confused about what he had said. "You must not have made it in there, either. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't have made it back out." Two hundred books would only last the Garison Fitch she knew about a year or less.

"Two thousand? And the authorities have not—" he looked at her with surprise and a smile crept across his face. "Am I to take it that it's legal for one to keep books in one's house?"

"Of course it is."

"Any books? There's not a government approved list or a bureau of censorship or anything?" Memory told him this was true, but it seemed hard to believe.

"No," she said with a chuckle. "Don't you remember all the reading you've done? You spend hours and hours sitting in that big recliner in the living room just reading."

"Recliner?"

"That big ugly, leather chair that leans back when you pull the handle on the side. Looks like a pile of tar someone dumped in our living room then left."

"That's what the handle was for," he laughed good naturedly. "I was afraid it was an ejection seat so I didn't pull it. Wondered about it, though."

She laughed and reiterated, "You've sat there—with the lever pulled—for what seems like a fourth of our married life. It was such a part of your life I can't believe you could forget it—or your library of books."

He thought a moment, then exclaimed, "Yes! I have read innumerable books!" He sank into thought, then added, "There are so many I must read again!"

"Oh no," Heather said, in mock fear. While some wives were football widows, she occasionally thought of herself as a book widow. Garison had once read all twelve hundred pages of Michener's Centennial straight through, halted only by restroom breaks. Fortunately, she enjoyed reading, also, and many nights were spent with the two of them cuddled next to each other on the couch, engrossed in books.

"I am remembering names," he said, screwing up his forehead as if it helped him think. "Tell me if these are authors: Twain...ah...L'Amour, and Clancy, and Fleming and—"

"Yes," she told him, "They are all authors. Twain and L'Amour were two of your favorites. In fact, L'Amour used to have a house in La Plata Canyon—but that was before we moved there. He died when we were about in Junior High, I think. At least, I was. You were already in college by that time." As he rattled off names, she told him briefly who they were (and thereby bringing to the fore more memories). She mused, "It's kind of funny, you know?"

"What?" Garison asked, coming out of his own reverie. The books had reminded him of the places he had been when he read them, people he had discussed the books with, and—most of all—the world contained in the books themselves. He was being flooded by pleasant memories and the most frustrating thing was that they were coming so fast he wasn't able to give much attention to any of them.

"When people have spoken of disrupting things by changing the past, there are so many things we never think about changing" she told him. "Now, from what you have said, some people exist in all time lines—maybe everyone does. But other people disappear or turn to a different lifestyle."

"I don't follow you."

She explained, "Twain and L'Amour and those other people were not writers in your time, apparently. Your other time, I mean. Were they never born? or did they become longshoremen or dentists? Maybe they would have been writers if the communist system had let them. And who was a writer in your time that may have done something else in the world I grew up in? Obviously, some works were lost while others were gained. At a guess, I'd say more works were gained than lost, but it's still kind of sad to think of the great and not-so-great books that will never be written or the movies that will never be made."

"The loss of Soviet filmmaking is quite negligible, believe me."

"Makes you think, though, doesn't it?"

"It gives me a headache," Garison replied. "You wouldn't think such havoc would be meted out by saving a young boy from being run over, would you?"

Heather broached a question she had puzzled over the whole time, "Are you sorry you did it?"

"What?" Garison asked, his mind already having jumped to other thoughts; mainly, the remembering of some of his literary heroes he was looking forward to reading of again.

"Saving the little boy—George Washington. Are you sorry you saved him?"

"How could I be?" he asked, as much to himself as to her. "I couldn't let him die."

He thought for a long moment, then admitted, "I have asked myself, over and over, the same question these last few days. Maybe, at some subconscious level, I knew that what I'd done had changed the world and that's why I got dizzy and nauseous. I don't know. But, if I had known then, would I have done the same thing? If I had known that it would destroy everything, would I have just stood there and watched him be killed by that wagonmaster? Would I—could I have done that?