Phase Shift (5 page)

"Please do," Stanley says. He sounds a
little too enthusiastic at the promise of having someone poke
around in what amounts to nothing more than a hole in the middle of
his backyard.

I swing my legs over the edge of the hole,
gently lower myself down and begin scraping away at the exposed
soil facade. There seems nothing extraordinary about the layers of
soil on Stanley's property, but I already suspected this would be
the case based on my research. Stanely's father, Noel Hume,
purchased the house in 1955. Before that, it had been owned by one
Spencer Prescott, assumedly of Prescott and Prefect fame. Prescott
had purchased the property from John McNabb in the summer of 1932.
McNabb had purchased the property in 1909. Prior to McNabb's
purchase, the land had been a parcel of a one hundred acre farm
which was granted to Lockhart Wheeler in 1860. Around the time of
Wheeler's occupation, addresses were organized into lots and
concessions. Proper street addresses would not have applied until
sometime after McNabb had built the current Hume residence. As near
as I could tell, the Hume residence was built on land which was in
a subdivision somewhere in the north-east portion of the original
farmstead, i.e., in the middle of nowhere.

I scrape down the sides of the hole and
spray the exposed surface with my handy-dandy water bottle, to
enhance the colours. The first two or three inches are very dark
brown, almost black, very loamy and imbued with grass roots,
typical of most topsoil layers. Beneath this layer, the soil grows
slightly darker, and loamier, but is otherwise almost
indistinguishable from the layer above. I scrape at the sides of
the pit once more. About six inches down and only in this part of
the hole, there is a thick stripe of yellowish clay. It tapers to
nothing at either end, fading into the soil surrounding it, forming
the imprint of the hole that had been dug to bury the box. I use
the tip of my trowel to outline the periphery of the feature as I
see it. The sides are curved, the bottom jagged—there seems nothing
out of the ordinary about the hole.

"I don't know, Stanley." I inadvertently
grunt as I hoist myself up and out of the hole. "Other than that
the hole was probably dug with a shovel, I can't tell you anything
more about it."

"That's it?" Stanley asks with incredulity.
"Can't you dig it out or something?"

"I'm sorry, no."

"Why not?"

Anything buried—from artifacts to power
lines—is considered by law to be the property of the citizens of
Ontario. To dig, haphazardly and without a permit, for artifacts,
is akin to archaeological sacrilege. "Okay Stanley," I say in what
I hope sounds calm and not condescending. "Let me ask you a few
questions. Do you ever find anything when you garden? Broken
plates? Nails? Glass?"

Stanley frowns and shakes his head.

"Did you find anything in the dirt you
excavated when you dug out the hole?"

Stanley's shoulders fall. He continues to
frown. "No," he says, flatly.

"I'm sorry, Stanley," I say. "I could apply
for an archaeological license, probably get it in a month or so and
be ready to mount a full-out dig, get some students down here and
begin excavations by next spring, but I don't see what the point of
it would be. According to my research, this house has been here
going on a century now, built after the city institutionalized
garbage collection. Before that, it was the middle of a farm. The
farmhouse was about a half kilometre away. There'd just be nothing
here to find."

"Can't you at least dig out the rest of the
hole?"

I shake my head and avoid eye contact with
him by cleaning off my trowel while I speak. "Legally? No, I can't.
Ontario law states if you find an artifact as the result of
activity on your property—landscaping, for example—then its okay.
But the second you begin digging specifically to find artifacts
without a permit to do so, you're breaking the law. Ethically, I
can't excavate the rest of the hole."

"Wait a second. You're telling me I can't
excavate on my own property?"

"No, Stanley. I'm telling you I can't
excavate on your property, not even with your permission. If
however, you decided to continue excavation for your pond..."

Stanley breaks out into an ear to ear grin.
He stands and picks up the shovel, poising it just above the grass
a few inches in front of his feet. "Screw the pond. If I have to,
I'll put in a whole pool."

I swear my stupid comments are going to get
me into trouble one of these days.

It takes Stanley the better part of an hour
to excavate the other half of the hole that was probably first dug
by Prescott sometime around the middle of the last century. As
Stanley digs, I sift his dirt. Every shovelful comes up empty. I
hate to say, I told you so, but...

After we backfill the hole, Stanley invites
me in for a cup of tea and although hot drinks aren't my bag, I'm
parched. There's something about inhaling dirt for the better part
of an afternoon that does that to you. I accept Stanley's gracious
offer, against my better judgment—I've already done my good deed
for the day and then some. What I really need is to hop into a
steamy hot shower.

As we wait for the water to boil, I fill
Stanley in about Prescott, McNabb and Wheeler.

The pot begins to whistle and Stanley pours.
After his tea steeps, he drinks it European style, through a sugar
cube he holds between his front teeth. I wait for my sugar cubes to
dissolve and the tea to cool while Stanley asks questions about my
experience as an archaeologist, which I answer with reluctant
detail, willing my tea to cool quickly so I can drink it and make
an excuse to leave. Though I can't put my finger on it, there is
something unsettling about sitting in a stranger's house alone and
drinking tea that prevents me from feeling safe in the situation.
Too many horror movies as a teenager, perhaps? I contemplate asking
for an ice cube to speed the cooling process, but decide against
it.

When the tea is finally cool enough, I drink
it in large gulps, eager to be done with the visit, especially
since Stanley has begun to speak of his Mother's demise and his
cloying loneliness, and without prompting, I might add.

Finally, I am able to empty the cup, save
for the pepper-like residue left behind by so many brands of
mass-produced tea bags, when Stanley reaches for the kettle,
intending to pour me a second cup of hot water. I stay his hand,
thank him graciously and make an excuse about Palmer expecting me
for dinner. He walks me to the door and I thank him once more,
expressing empathy in his disappointment at coming up empty
earlier, and at long last, manage to escape into the waning
daylight. On the way home, I treat myself to a celebratory,
good-bye-Stanley-Hume iced mocha drink at the corner coffee shop
before getting on the subway.

"...And so do you always roam around the city
in your pajamas?"

"Pajamas?" he bellowed, tone fraught with
insult, "I do not know this word. What is this 'pajamas'?"

"Your robe," the detective said.

"Robe! How dare you? This is not a robe!
This is a scholarly gown!" He shot quickly out of his chair and
stood, stiff as a board, arms locked, hands planted firmly on the
table in front of him. His chair lay toppled on the floor behind
him.

The detective remained sitting, unflinching
at Voren's outburst. He looked at him with an expression that
begged to know if the man with the long, white hair, and long,
white beard was crazy.

Voren considered his stance and then
relaxed, realizing he must appear threatening to his captor. "I
apologize for my behaviour." He checked his posture and smoothed
his gown. He ran his hands over his hair and beard, pausing to wipe
a thin bead of spittle which had formed on his lower lip. "It is
unbecoming for a man of my station in society." He bent to right
his chair.

Behaviour unbecoming a man of his station,
indeed. His treatment since he had arrived had been anything but
deserving of a man such as Voren Prefect. First there was the
noisy, foul-smelling vehicle ride and then the blackening of his
finger pads and blinding, flashing lights (strange ceremonies),
followed by this—forced to spend the better part of the day in a
drab grey room with nothing more than a single bright light
overhead and a single mirrored window on the far wall.

"Ok, pops," said the detective in low tones,
only slightly more cordial than before, "we've been at this for
hours now. What say you come clean and tell us who the hell you
really are?"

The bearded man cleared his throat and
pronounced (and not for the first time that day): "I am Voren
Prefect. First Prefect of the—"

"Mexus Prefecture. I know. I know." He
sighed. "Same old song and dance."

They heard a quick knock at the window. The
detective glanced in its direction before rising and leaving the
room. Voren heard the click of the lock behind the man after he
closed the door. He folded his arms across his chest and
harrumphed.

"I don't know, Chief," Detective Nick Mozzone
conceded, "the guy's a tough nut to crack."

Chief Waldo Emmerson of New York's
15
^th
division motioned for Nick to close the door behind
him and sit down. "What've you got so far, Nicky?"

"The guy's a ghost." He worked his notepad
from the breast pocket of his shirt, and flipped through the pages
until he found his notes. "No warrants, no record, no driver's
license, no service record—I'm telling you, there is no record of a
Voren Prefect anywhere. He doesn't exist."

"Of course he exists." Emmerson pointed down
the hall, gesturing with his hand as though directing traffic.
"He's sitting in the interrogation room as we speak."

"We ran his prints: nothing. I'm tellin' ya:
a ghost. He's no one. It's like he never existed before today."

Emmerson picked up his telephone and dialed
three numbers—an internal extension.

"Captain?" asked Mozzone.

"I'm calling for a psych eval. Let's wait
for the results before we declare him a resident of the Twilight
Zone, huh?"

There are more things on this earth that we,
as human beings, can ever hope to understand. Some label the
unknown as “religion”. They believe the inexplicable to be proof of
the existence of God. Others embrace Science as a means by which
they might find an explanation for the inexplicable through
supposition and controlled experimentation. The dogma of others
settles somewhere between the two. Not content with faith alone,
these people seek the reason behind the unknown, sometimes looking
to religious symbolism, other times borrowing from the scientific
method, melding the two into something called “Pseudo-science”.

When studied under the lens of Anthropology,
Pseudo-science is an interesting system of beliefs, as it provides
insight into the study of human beings and how they make sense of
their world. This is the crux of the pan-discipline of
Anthropology, the umbrella under which Archaeology, the study of
the concrete ways in which people have shaped the world around
them, falls. Though extremely fascinating, and given to moments
that make one go “hmmmm”, I prefer to relegate my forays into
Pseudo-science to hobby. Humankind may never know the true
circumstance of John F. Kennedy’s demise on the grassy knoll, or
the exact resting place of Jesus Christ’s remains, or if beings
from another planet ever visited. The truth of the matter is none
of that really matters. The fact these events are in question at
all is what interests me. Archaeology deals in the concrete (as
I’ve already said), which means I deal in the concrete. If I can’t
examine it on a tray in my lab, I choose to reserve judgment until
I can.

While I may be above making snap judgments
about the unusual and/or the unknown, my students are not. This is
why a little course I created about Pseudo-archaeology has
ballooned to gargantuan popularity. Given the current political
climate, my students are more than likely to believe the government
has a secret agency—call them The Men in Black, Majestic 12,
Project Blue Book, or whatever you will—whose sole purpose is to
squash reports of alien abductions, evidence of life on Mars or the
secret location of Atlantis or the Garden of Eden. Criptozoology,
The Yeti, Sasquatch, The Loch Ness Monster—all of these things and
more provide easy fuel for my lectures. And the students eat it up
and greedily ask for seconds.

The current lecture is one on the
anthropology of Piltdown Man, the name given to a doctored skull
found in England close to the turn of the twentieth century. The
sole light in the darkened lecture hall is through my first
PowerPoint slide. It shows a photographic depiction of the remains
of Piltdown Man. It bathes the room with a warm, terra cotta
glow.

"Behold: Eoanthropus Dawsoni, more commonly
known as Piltdown Man," I say, voice amplified by the microphone on
the head-set I use. "Discovered in 1912 by Charles Dawson near
Sussex, England, this fossil would turn the evolutionary world on
its ear. The skull, being so humanlike, and the jaw, being so
apelike, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt it was the human
intellect that was first to evolve, which satisfied us
anthropocentric Homo sapiens that we were so far removed from the
common ape it really didn't matter if we shared a common ancestor
somewhere down the line."

A few students chuckle nervously, as though
they're not sure if they should find this statement funny. I change
the slide to a graphic representation of the human evolutionary
tree before continuing. "But the problem with Dawson's namesake was
as more and more evolutionary discoveries were being made, the
specimen simply didn't seem to make sense anymore."