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The Equally Strange Reappearance of David Gerrold
by David Gerrold

When last we heard from Mr. Gerrold (as printed in the Jan. 2007 issue), Mr. G.
was very vague about his whereabouts, perhaps with good reason. Many people
were concerned, especially those of us who were hoping to get passes to the
premiere of the film adaptation of The Martian Child. Fortunately, our worries
have been allayed by this missive:
****
Dear Gordon,
I got home late last night to find a stack of frantic e-mails from you and a
dozen other people. When I finally recharged my cell phone, there were thirty voice
messages and at least that number of text messages.
I’m very, very sorry, Gordon. I apologize profusely for worrying you and
everybody else. I don’t know how I’ll ever make amends, but I’ll do my best. The
only thing I can think to say is that I must have been in a very weird state of mind
when I wrote that ... well, whatever it was I wrote. Maybe I should excuse it by
saying that when I wrote it I was off my meds, except I’m not on any meds. Well,
maybe I should be. Something like Lithium or Prozac or one of those mood-altering
substances that would let me walk around with a glassy detached expression of
unfocused contentment. Whatever.
So here’s what happened.
Nothing.
We went out searching for the legendary green people of the northwest and
we found nothing at all. Well, not quite nothing. But mostly nothing.
I told you about my friends Dennis and Jay (not their real names) who put me
in touch with some other people, who finally put me in touch with some people
willing to go back and take a look at the area with me. Professional greenie-chasers, I
guess you could call them. Like those folks who go out looking for Sasquatch and
D. B. Cooper’s lost loot. So, that’s how I found myself headed back south in a
rented van with three guys I’d just met, and about whom I was already having my
usual paranoid doubts. The driver barely said a word the whole trip, he had a beard,
and he wore sunglasses and a knit beanie, and one of those silly utility kilts you see
grown men with beards wearing at sf conventions, so the only thing I can really say
about him is that he had exceptionally unattractive hairy legs. Other than that,
underneath all that, he could have been anyone, even the legendary Emmett Grogan.
The other two—well, that’s another short novel.
I’ll call them Bert and Ernie, not their real names—but still a pretty good
indicator of their personalities. Bert is large and bear-shaped, and almost as hairy. (I
guess nobody in the northwest does “manscaping.” That must be a Bravo channel
phenomenon.) He’s fueled mostly by beer and he’s appropriately keg-shaped; at
first glance you might think this guy is all fat—I made that mistake, but there’s a lot
of muscle under that bulk. He’s also very hirsute (I’ve always wanted to use that
word in a story). His long hair is starting to show gray, and it’s parted in the middle;
not a good look for him, but I doubt he cares. His beard reaches mid-chest; it’s also
going gray. In personality, he has an H. L. Mencken sensibility, but without the
anti-Semitism. He’s an equal opportunity cynic; not bitter, just skeptical of
everything, even with proof. Why he believes in the green people of the northwest
enough to go on a snipe hunt like this remains an unanswered question, but his
determination kept us going for the full five days.