One Week of Wonder

12. A Man to Man Talk. To Man.

(August 27, 2015)

It was always better to talk to Grunkle Ford when he wasn't in his lab. Down there beneath the Shack, he always found something to distract him. Stan had once remarked to Dipper, "The biggest problem with my brother ain't that he's got a one-track mind. He's got a million of 'em. And one tiny ant on any one of 'em's enough to derail his train of thought." Stan had taken a long swig of Pitt Cola. "That's called a metaphor, kid."

Like many metaphors, it got at the truth.

On Thursday, Dipper waited until the workday was over, until Wendy had gone home—she couldn't linger at the Shack every night, and tonight was the one when she made double dinners for her family, one to serve and one to freeze—until Ford and Stan came over with their wives to huddle with Mabel concerning next week's big party.

Mabel had already made up flyers to display and hand out all around town:

The Party of the Century!

Where: The Mystery Shack! When: August 31, 10 A.M.! What?

What, you ask?

A CELEBRATION OF THE MYSTERY TWINS'

SWEET! (a photo of Mabel, smiling) AND SOUR! (one of Dipper scowling, since she'd just wakened him by jumping on his bed)

SIXTEENTH LEGENDARY BIRTHDAY!

Music! Food! Dancing! Games! Prizes! Excitement! Romance! Intrigue! Heart-Stopping Enjoyment! And Fun!

It will be LEGENDARY! Everyone come! NO admission, NO exit fee, NO presents required (but much appreciated!)

Come one, come all! It will be LEGENDARY!

Soos and Stan had agreed, of course—by now the party was an annual tradition, and the folks of Gravity Falls looked forward to it.

Soos, Melody, Grenda, Candy, Stan, and Mabel were all in deep conference about how to make this year's party the best one ever. Sheila and Lorena were pitching in. Ford . . . was the outsider. He excused himself after an hour, and Dipper followed him out to the porch. "Gets a little crazy, doesn't it?" Dipper asked, handing him a can of Pitt Cola.

"Thank, you, Mason. It does, indeed." He smiled. "Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for you and Mabel, and I hope this will be a party to remember, but I'm not much for planning social occasions."

"Me, either," Dipper said. "I'm barely used to having friends, let alone feeling at home in some of these mob situations." He popped his own can of Pitt and took a long swallow. "Un, Grunkle Ford? I want to ask you something about the being you wrote about in your Journal 3."

"Ah, yes," Ford said, smiling. "I met so many sentient and semi-sentient creatures in my journey through myriad dimensions. I've barely scratched the surface in recording them. I'm writing a longer description now in a book I mean to publish privately: "The Plurality of Reality." It's not as cut and dried as it sounds. I'll be sure you get one of the first copies."

"Thanks," Dipper said. He had given one of the first copies of his own book, Bride of the Zombie, to Ford, but his great-uncle hadn't mentioned reading it.

"It will be my honor," Ford said, surprising him. "It's a sort of return for your giving me that beautifully inscribed copy of your novel. I think you did wonders in revising it, by the way. From reading it, no one would guess how young you are!"

Dipper felt so tongue-tied that he took three sips of cola to cover. "Yeah, my editor thinks I'm about twenty. Thanks, Grunkle Ford, but the book's not as good as I hoped," he muttered. "I see things wrong with it now that I missed."

Ford put a hand on Dipper's shoulder. "Be comforted, Mason. That happens to every good writer. Only the foolish ones think their words are writ in stone. There's always room for improvement."

"I'm trying to do better with the next one," Dipper said, wondering why praise bothered him more than criticism. Mabel had exultantly clipped and printed out every review of Bride that she found and had made him a special scrapbook of them—and eighty per cent of them were solid praise, the other twenty positive, but with some mixed criticisms. Not one panned the book. However, it was the twenty per cent of mixed reviews that he re-read and fretted about.

He coughed. "Anyway, I think the being you encountered and described was in Dimension 52?"

Ford raised his bushy eyebrows. "Ah, Jheselbraum the Unswerving. Also known as the Oracle. I remember her very well indeed. She healed my injuries and gave me courage to go on. What about her, Mason?"

"I had a vision of her last night," Dipper muttered. "Or maybe just a dream. But it seemed more intense than a dream, and I don't know why I'd dream about the Oracle. I mean, I haven't re-read that part of the Journal in over a year. I couldn't even remember her name, but she pronounced it for me. And she got a little ticked off, I think, when Bill Cipher mispronounced it."

Ford stiffened. "Wait? Cipher? You saw him, too?"

"He said he'd come to say goodbye to me." Dipper didn't have to remind his great-uncle of the time the Horroracle, a super-dimensional being obsessed with stopping time in all dimensions that it could reach, had come close to succeeding. Only by besting the Horroracle in a contest—and having his heart stopped in return—had Dipper banished it. And Bill Cipher, who said he was desperate because if Dipper died from the Horroracle's attack, time in this dimension would freeze forever and he would never be able to leave it, had jump-started Dipper's heart by donating about six of his own molecules. They were still lodged in Dipper's heart tissue, so miniscule that even an X-ray or a sonogram wouldn't show them.

However, as Cipher worked to reconstruct an analogue of his body in the physical realm (though he was restricted to the area immediately near where his stone effigy stood), the larger part of Bill's mind had inhabited the Mindscape, and for two years it had communicated with Dipper via the heart implant.

"Now that's ending," Dipper said. "I think—I'm not sure—I think the Axolotl is going to let Bill be reborn as a human. He has to live his human life all the way through and well to be sent back to his own dimension eventually. I'm not sure what's involved, really."

"The Axolotl," Ford murmured. "Yes, I know the legends of him. If it is a him. It may be more a mind, a spirit, a force, than a being. It's the overseer of all dimensions, put there by the Creator to make certain everything runs as the eternal laws say it should. The Oracle is his interpreter and assistant. Time Baby is more limited—he has charge of all the variants of our particular dimension. Except he's dormant now."

"The TPAES is still active, though," Dipper said. "Blendin Blandin re-grouped it, and now it's run by a temporary committee of five. I think it's wrong that he's not on the committee. But at least he's been promoted."

"Is Bill being reborn in this dimension?" Ford asked.

"I—think so. I'm not sure." Dipper frowned. "This morning when I woke up, something was running through my head. A poem, I guess? Somehow I realized it was about the Axolotl's decree when Bill asked for one last chance as he was being wiped out by the Memory Gun. Funny, I had this weird feeling that I'd heard it before, but I've racked my brain and can't remember anything about the first time."

"A poem? Can you repeat it?"

Dipper grinned and reached into a pocket of his vest. "Soon as I woke up, I wrote it all down, then recorded the dream in my Journal. This may not be word for word, but it's as close as I can remember."

He handed the folded paper to Ford, who opened and read it aloud:

"Sixty degrees that come in threes.

Watches from within birch trees.

Saw his own dimension burn.

Misses home and can't return.

Says he's happy. He's a liar.

Blame the arson for the fire.

If he wants to shirk the blame.

He'll have to invoke my name.

One way to absolve his crime.

A different form, a different time."

Re-folding the paper, Ford said, "Enigmatic, to be sure. Worthy of Bill Cipher."

"But it says he'll have to absolve his crime by taking a different form in a different time," Dipper replied. "Since I first started to—well, dream of Bill Cipher after Weirdmageddon, after I got past the nightmares, I mean—he's been, uh, helpful? I guess. He did save my life that one time, and he's advised me about other things. He explained about Zanthar when the Banshee was warning us that someone near the Shack would die."

Ford nodded. "Yes, and he took temporary form—though I don't think he was fully material—when Stanley and I were searching for the Fountain of Youth. He was the one who persuaded the owner of the Fountain to spare us some of the water."

"He appeared once to Wendy, too," Dipper said. "She says he was nearly like a ghost, warned her of danger and then just faded away. And whenever I've gone into the Mindscape to talk with him, he's always been willing to offer help or advice. So—if he's coming back as a human—will we even recognize him? And more important, can we trust him?"

Ford's expression hardened. "Will we recognize him? If I know Bill, that won't be a problem. He can't help advertising himself! Can we trust him? Dipper, I'm the wrong person to ask. I could never fully trust Bill, not after his betrayals, not after what he did to me and to my family! I want nothing to do with him in any shape or form."

"He told me to tell you he still thinks you would have been a great addition to his team," Dipper murmured.

"And I regard that as an insult. And as a reminder that I let my ambition and my curiosity overpower my humanity. What I did to Fiddleford—even if it was by accident—and then when I pulled him back and refused to listen to him—Mason, it tears me apart."

"I'm sorry, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said.

"A different form, a different time," Ford said thoughtfully. "That might mean he'll be born a thousand years from now. It may be something you and I will never have to concern ourselves about." He laughed without sounding amused. "On the other hand, with the powers these super-dimensional beings have, he may be born tomorrow, or two hundred years ago, or anywhere and anywhen! I think the best we can do is to be aware of the possibility—and be on guard."

"Thanks for listening," Dipper said. "It was impossible to keep that to myself."

"Any time." Ford sighed. Again he sounded thoughtful: "One way to atone. A different time. I spoke just now of how a good writer always finds fault with his or her work, Mason. And it's true. You see the few flaws, not the many successes. It's inevitable. And the same is true of our lives. Lorena has me reading poetry, something I rather neglected during my education. There's a work by a Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, about his dying father. Thomas talks about how different kinds of men confront death. In one part he says, 'Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright / Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'"

"I don't understand," Dipper said.

"I think it means that if one is good—truly good—one never believes one is good enough. A good man sets a standard he can't possibly reach, and judges himself against that impossible standard. Yet objectively, and to the world, he is good. Another poet put it this way: 'Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?' Our ambitions—if they're for good—should be high. Indeed, we may think we have failed, in this world. But the reward a good man receives from posterity, or in heaven—that will reveal the value of such ambitions." He sighed. "Every man, every woman, would go back in time and undo some of their deeds if they could. Would that help? Would it hurt? No one can possibly say."

Dipper shook his head. "Too much philosophy for me. I guess we'll have to watch and wait. I only hope Bill has become, or will be, a better—person's the wrong word, isn't it? A better spirit than before." He sighed. "You talked about seeing flaws. It's true, and it's not just my book, either. I know what regrets are, Grunkle Ford. So many times, I've let people down. You, Stan, Wendy. Mabel, especially, so many times and in such bad ways. I just feel like such an idiot sometimes, for not seeing what's right in front of me. If I could do it over—but I've found out I can't."

"We're all in the same boat, Dipper," Ford said, patting his shoulder. "Including me." He sighed. "When I was just about your age, I worked out a formula that suggested I might tap into a virtually endless supply of free energy. I spent a year working on a device that could demonstrate that. And just before my project was to be judged—Stanley accidentally unbalanced it and the jury said it was worthless. I blamed Stanley for that. My father kicked him out of the house—at seventeen! And I—I stood by and watched him go and said nothing. That was so wrong of me. That was so stupid."

"Yeah," a grating voice said from the doorway, "and you never apologized for that, either! That's what pissed me off, Brainiac! Scoot over."

He sat on the old sofa next to his brother. "Yeah, it was an accident, Dipper. See, I knew the committee was comin' to judge, and I panicked, 'cause I knew that if the jury loved the doohickey that Ford had built, it meant he'd move away forever and I'd never see him again. Me, I'd be stuck with a lousy barnacle-scraping job! But you know what? Anybody ought to have regrets, it's me! I'm the one who pounded on the table and unbalanced that machine."

"But that was an accident," Ford said. "You didn't mean to disable it. I'm guiltier than you are—I still managed to achieve my dream, though not getting the scholarship to West Coast made it much harder. On the other hand, you were a failure."

"Not so much," Stan said. "Yeah, all my big plans crashed and burned every single time—but I was learnin' all the time, Poindexter! I always started over again, and failed again, and learned again! I got my education on the road and in jail cells!"

Dipper broke in: "I've heard this before, you know. And his education did let Stan learn enough to fix the Portal and bring you home," he told Ford.

Ford grinned. "Very true. And that homecoming did create a rift and allow Bill Cipher to break into our dimension."

Stan chuckled. "And that made it possible for me to act like an asshole and refuse to hold my own brother's hand!"

"And still, the two of you fought off Bill Cipher and canceled out the end of the world," Dipper said, overriding them both. "I'd say everything evened up."

"Yeah, pretty much," Stan agreed. "Hey, Brainiac! I got wind of a baccarat tournament in Venice, Italy. Payout's likely to be in the million-buck range for the big winner. Sheila's always wanted to see Venice. You and Lorena in?"

Ford stared at his brother. "Would you even go if I said no?"

"'Course not!" Stan said. "Baccarat's just a dumbed-down form of 21, but to have a fighting chance, I still need help with the odds!"

Ford nodded. "When?"

"Very end of September, first week in October. You in?"

"Well . . . maybe. As long as Lorena can get someone to cover for her job."

"Then you're in," Stan said, his grin widening. "Talked to her last week, and she already arranged that."

"You drive me crazy," Ford said.

Stan threw his arm around his brother's shoulder and hugged him, laughing. "We drive each other crazy!"

"Dip-PER!" Mabel yelled from inside the Shack. "Come here! We need some nerd advice, now!"

We drive each other crazy, Dipper thought.

But he yelled, "Be right there!"