by Alan Black
Larry shook his head, “Nope. There are places around the world that would have Dollar as steaks for lunch and stew by supper time.” Larry thought for a moment. “There is a part of the world that would roast Ol’ Bucky on a spit, bark and all, but then worship those cattle out there as some sort of gods or something.” Food choice among humans was as consistent as everything else humans did, did not do, did but would not confess to doing, or confessed to not doing while sneaking around at midnight to do it.
Scooter nodded in understanding, “This is because you cannot communicate, yes?”
Larry said, “This is because we cannot communicate, no.”
Scooter said in an exasperated tone exactly like Nancy’s tone when she told Larry she wanted to go dancing. “No! What do you mean no?”
The difference here was that Larry knew he wasn’t going to get any probing done with Nancy when she used that tone. He still wasn’t convinced he wasn’t going to be abducted and subjected to a little alien probing.
Larry said, “There are a billion Chinese on the other side of the planet that I can’t communicate with and I have yet to grab a bowl of Chinese Peasant Pellets for breakfast. Still, “Soylent Green is people.”
Scooter shouted, “What? You eat Soylent Green?”
Larry laughed, “Sorry, no. It’s just a line from an old movie. Don’t you know about movies?” He assumed Scooter’s people knew a lot about Earth and humans because humans have been broadcasting stuff about Earth around the planet and into space since The Queen’s Messenger broadcast in the late 1920s.
Television was exactly like Larry’s relatives. Telling what was real versus what was fiction versus what was a deliberate revision of the truth was hard, relatives being what they were. Aunt Nola refused to admit that the now ex-Uncle Gary had ever existed, but somehow he’d been around to help her produce a slew of cousins for Larry to try to avoid.
“But humans don’t eat other humans, yes?”
Larry shook his head. “That is a hard thing to admit, Scooter. It’s generally frowned upon in most societies, but it has and does happen. Not frequently, but often enough to not be considered a rarity. And now that I think on it, there is a huge religion, not mine by the way, that indulges in a ceremony where they believe they are eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god.”
“I am going to be ill,” Scooter choked out. “The Tetra was right to pass on this planet.”
Larry said, “If you gotta upchuck, go ahead. Outside is as good a place as any.”
Scooter grabbed a small pouch taped to the back of the translator unit. He pulled out a pen-looking device and shoved it up his nose. There was a small hissing noise as he depressed the clicker on the back end of the device. A look of relaxed contentment spread over his face, or at least the semblance of relaxation on what passed for his fox-like countenance.
Larry asked, “The “tetra”? They some other friends of yours?” Larry didn’t capitalize the name like Scooter had.
Scooter said, “Ah, no. They are us.”
Larry looked confused, or would have looked confused to another human. He didn’t know what his expression looked like to the alien. Understanding expressions was exactly like knowing the flavor of blue. “So, if you are the tetra and you passed us by, why are you here?”
Scooter looked thoughtful, “Yes. That is the question. Why are we here?” He shoved the pen up his nose and depressed the clicker again. “I have had too much of this inhalant. I am not sure I am thinking straight anymore.”
Larry gestured toward the farmhouse. “Let’s go inside my house, my home, my domicile. I can grab a beer and catch up to you. Then you can tell me more about the tetra.”
Scooter followed along as Larry led the way.
Larry opened the front screen door and gestured for Scooter to enter. “What is that stuff you’re sniffing anyway? Is it some kind of atmosphere thing to help you breathe our air?”
Scooter looked somewhat glassy-eyed. “Air? No, Human, it isn’t an atmospheric enhancer.”
“Call me Larry. I told you that was my name, remember?”
“Yes, Larry. Our planets have much the same atmosphere except for a few minor trace gases. We can breathe freely on each other’s planets. This inhalant,” he waved the pen around in the air, “is a depressant acting on the emotion centers of my brain allowing me to directly interact with people on this planet.”
Larry popped the top off his beer and plopped down on the couch. He waved the beer in Scooter’s general direction. “This is a beer. It does the same thing for me as your inhalant does for you.” He directed Scooter to an old armchair. “Are we really so repellant looking that you have to get drugged up to talk to us? Huh, as aliens go, you guys are positively beauty contestants next to Aliens versus Predators.”
Scooter shook his head. “No. We find your species physically pleasant enough. This is good to say, yes?”
Larry laughed, “That depends on who you are, who you say it to, and what you got in mind when you say it.”
Scooter said, “I do not understand.”
“It’s about human relationships. We don’t understand it either.”
Scooter barked a little laugh. “No. I understand references to “getting down”, “getting it on”, and “getting some of that”. We are not completely ignorant about your culture. I missed the reference to aliens and predators. You are a predator and I am an alien, yes?”
Larry drained his beer, downing it much quicker than he’d planned for as early in the day as it was. “Yes to both, but no to the whole understanding thing.” On his way back from the kitchen with another beer, he grabbed a plastic DVD cover from a shelf next to the television. “Look at these creatures in this picture. That one is an alien and that one is a predator. This is what some people think creatures from other worlds would look like.”
Scooter nodded. “Different species, yes? There are species in this galaxy that look somewhat like these creatures. I am sure they are attractive in their own right to their own species.”
Larry asked the burning question. “What about the other one of you I saw in the spaceship hatch? It had a big bushy tail and you don’t.” He hoped the question wasn’t politically incorrect on his home planet or that Scooter hadn’t lost his tail in some bizarre industrial accident.
Scooter looked a bit bleary eyed. “Female. Females have the bigger tails.” He pointed at his chest. “And boobs.”
Larry looked at the little translator. He wondered where it had learned its English. Just at that moment, the little machine sounded more like Doug Rickenhauser than a professional narrator.
Scooter shook his head. “She spends more time brushing and fluffing that thing than she does grooming her ears.”
Ears over boobs? Larry wasn’t sure what standard of attraction was at work. Maybe it was a species thing and maybe Scooter had some kind of fetish for ears. He realized that was the issue. Alien attractiveness among monsters was just a bit more extreme than he had given voice to before. Humans generally liked other humans. Of course, there were always fellows like his cousin Kenny who raised sheep. He didn’t raise sheep because they were more financially viable, but because Kenny liked sheep. He really, really, really liked sheep. Mutton and wool — not so much.
Larry had determined years ago after considerable thought that he was attracted to short, brown-haired women with freckles, even though Nancy was a tall skinny blond. He knew that Latinos were usually attracted to Latinas. Texans were usually attracted to other Texans. Artists were attracted to other people with artistic sensibilities. Sometimes opposites attract, just as there were some variations and strangeness, like Kenny, but it was mostly people attracted to people. Humans generally weren’t attracted to carp, just as carp weren’t attracted to kangaroos, and kangaroos weren’t attracted to prickly pear cacti.
He took a long pull from his second beer and looked at the DVD cover. He didn’t think one and a half beers would give him beer-goggles so bad as to hit on a predator
at closing time. If he looked at the creature with an objective eye, it wasn’t so repellant that he couldn’t shoot a game of pool or share a drink with either one of them as long as they controlled their urges and didn’t try to impregnate him or eat him. At least, that was the same standard he used when playing pool with the Rickenhauser brothers.
Then it hit him. That was exactly what worried Scooter and his species about humans.
Yes, we all know about those aliens, and the probe, heh, yes, the probe. Let’s talk about the probe. I mean, what are they looking for? (Ellroy Elkayem and Jesse Alexander, Eight Legged Freaks, 2002 film)
CHAPTER THREE
LARRY started to say something to Scooter, but the little creature’s head drooped. The alien was snoring gently.
He stood over Scooter and stared down at the fox-like face. Draining his beer, he decided Scooter was a pretty good little guy for a vegetarian. Not that Larry met very many vegetarians in Kansas farm country. They would be as out of place as a turd in an omelet, a neo-Nazi in the synagogue, or a rabbit at a wolves convention.
Now, that female alien he’d seen was a different story. She had the look of a real little betty and a foxy strawberry blonde, to boot. Larry shook his head; maybe he was getting too old for two beers. He was letting his mind wander. Thinking about sex with extraterrestrial aliens was exactly like macadamia nut cookies and chocolate milk. It might sound tasty, but it probably wasn’t good for you.
Larry sat back down with a thump. Maybe that was his definition of a sentient being, having the ability to agree to a little probing or to dissent against it. Anything less was less than agreeable. Children were not mature enough to consent to sex. Certainly, his relatives who were children weren’t smart enough to give consent to anything more difficult than when to go potty. Cousin Kenny’s sheep certainly couldn’t give consent. Betty might or might not be mentally capable of agreeing to a good probing. For that matter, did Scooter or Betty even do any probing beyond the occasional alien abduction?
His thoughts were interrupted as a car crunched to a stop on his gravel drive. The day was early enough for him to be in his fields or out in the barn. Everyone knew that. Whoever was dropping by wasn’t looking for him. Ol’ Bucky wasn’t around to bark at his visitor, so he pushed himself to his feet, realizing he should have had lunch before he downed two beers.
He reached the front door, banging through the screen, letting it shut behind him before Nancy got to the top of the steps. She was as beautiful as she always was. Natural blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and lush warm lips. Larry shook his head, knowing for certain that he shouldn’t have had that second beer without at least slapping a bologna sandwich together.
She was pretty enough for a good roll in the sack, though she didn’t even pretend to like him anymore. That was all right with Larry. He could put up with a little hostility if — as Scooter said — it led to him “getting some of that”. Of course, since their divorce Nancy never let much of that get loose. Not with Larry anyway, although he wasn’t too sure that the television station manager wasn’t “getting down” with her.
Something kept Nancy from being fired because she sucked at being a reporter, and she couldn’t read a teleprompter without mispronouncing every other word. Somewhere around here, he had a recording of her on the air trying to read a report about the Shi-ite. Apparently, no one had ever told her it wasn’t pronounced that way.
He stood blocking her access to the house.
She’d argued in the divorce that the house and farm were half hers, but the judge agreed with Larry that the house and land had been in his family since before the dust bowl, so she didn’t get a dime of it. Since, she left Larry, the judge had informed her that she didn’t deserve any alimony either. Whatever she was looking for in his house, he wasn’t planning on letting her have it … unless he could work out an exchange for a little post-marital probing.
“Why aren’t you out there with your precious cows?” She tried to sidle around him, but he hung his arms across the doorframe, casually blocking her entrance and view into the living room.
“The cattle are doing fine. What do you want, Nancy?”
“I left some clothes in the back bedroom closet. I just want to grab that green dress.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Did so.”
“Jeez Louise, Nancy. You hauled a dozen boxes of clothes and shoes out of here already. Remember, we both double checked the last time when I caught you trying to sneak off with my great-grandma’s pearl necklace.”
“I wasn’t sneaking off with it. I just wanted to see it in sunlight.”
“Oh, right. I get confused thinking that the window provides as much direct sunlight as I get on the porch’s front steps.”
“You’re a nasty man for thinking so evil of me, Larry.”
“So what is it this time, Nancy? Are the television station’s paychecks late again? Sorry, but I don’t have anything left to pawn except for my DVD player and it is already such old technology that it wouldn’t be worth the gas to haul it to the pawnshop.”
“I told you, I was just looking for a dress I left behind. I need that green dress. I get the chance to fill in as an on-scene reporter when Jacob Joshua goes on vacation next week. That dress is perfect.”
“You already took the green dress.”
“No, I didn’t. You don’t want me to succeed, do you? I’ll be famous one day, you’ll see and then you’ll be sorry you let me go.”
“Let you go? Hell, Nancy. You left me and I couldn’t run fast enough to catch you when you left. Look, I do want you to be famous. I promise I will do everything I can to make you famous, but that dress won’t help.”
“Why not?”
“Your station shoots its on-scene reports in the studio, right?” Larry knew — and everybody this side of Chanute knew — that Nancy’s station was more on screen than on-scene. “What color is the green screen you shoot in front of?”
Nancy started to speak, but clamped her mouth shut. “Well, maybe a red one would look better anyway.”
“You took your red one.” Larry knew both the red and the green dress were in the back closet. So were a plethora of other clothes that she hadn’t been able to squeeze into the ninety percent of the front bedroom closet she’d claimed as hers. Still, he didn’t have any intention of giving them up easily anymore than Nancy had given up anything easy in the bedroom.
“Get out of my way and let me go look.”
Larry shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I … um, it isn’t a good time for visitors. The place is a mess.”
“I’m not a visitor, you idiot. I’ve seen your mess — you have company, don’t you? Don’t lie to me!”
“So someone came to visit. So what?” Larry didn’t think calling an alien visitor a “someone” was a lie, not that he had any problem lying to Nancy, or anyone else for that matter. It’s just that it was always easier to keep track of the truth when trying not to tell someone something you didn’t want them to know, unless they gave you time to write down your lies. Nancy was good at lies — telling them and catching other people at them. Sticking as close to the truth would be best.
Besides, Nancy wouldn’t let it go if she found out he had a space alien passed out in the overstuffed living room chair. It would hit the news faster than a macho athlete claiming to really be a woman and pregnant by a female movie starlet claiming to really be a man. Once Scooter and his friends hit the news, the media circus, UFO nuts, religious fanatics, and government agents would tromp his cattle pasture grass down so fast it wouldn’t ever grow back.
It might actually make Nancy famous to break the story, but it wouldn’t be so good for Scooter to become personally involved in some government vivisection program. Knowing what the government was like these days that would be the most likely outcome. Probing was one thing, but being cut up and dissected into little pieces was something Larry planned to avoid if at all possible.
“Who have you got i
n there, Larry?” She stomped her foot, giving her shoulder length blond hair a flip. Back when they were in high school, that little flipping-her-hair move always gave Larry’s heart a little flip. Now the only thing it caused to flip was his middle finger.
“No. It isn’t anybody you know. It’s a … a guy I met recently. He was interested in, um, how we raise cattle and I was showing him around the place. He goes by Scooter.”
“Bullshit, Larry.”
“That’s out behind the barn. You remember which pasture the bulls use, right?”
“Don’t lie to me, Larry. You aren’t telling me everything.”
“You don’t tell me everything either. Remember? We’re divorced and I don’t have to tell, so there.”
“I do too tell you everything.”
“Do not.”
“Do, too — when you ask politely.”
“Who was the last guy you gave a blowjob to, Nancy? It’s been so long that I know it wasn’t me. Besides, I put great-grandma’s pearl necklace in a safe deposit box at the bank.”
Whether Nancy had had enough verbal banter or the news that the necklace was out of reach mattered, she stomped back down the porch steps, climbed into her beat up old four-door sedan, and spun the tires hard enough they threw gravel halfway to the old root cellar door.
Larry sighed. He’d hoped to convince Nancy to swap a few bucks or some of her old clothes for a bit of post-marital coitus the next time she’d come around, but having Scooter passed out from whatever he sniffed up his nose kind of put the damper on his plans. Nancy might have agreed to participate in a little bed sheet mambo, but climbing into the house through Larry’s bedroom window just to avoid going through the living room was a bit much for her big city sensibilities.
Once the dust cloud from Nancy’s car passed by old lady Simpkins place, he went back into the living room. According to the clock on the wall, Larry had a lot of time left to get things done around the place before sundown. He shook his head knowing he was done working for the day. His head felt a little muzzy from the two beers.