Larry Goes To Space

by Alan Black

  Most men’s aim wasn’t excellent when they were sober, when even slightly tipsy, aim became a relative term. That was why Benny’s Been There Bar and Done That Grill over on Highway 74 used an old, cast iron bathtub in the men’s room instead of fancy porcelain urinals. It afforded the male patrons a larger target and Benny’s busboys only had to mop the men’s room once or twice a night instead of once an hour like the new style urinals Racine used, explaining Larry’s proclivity for urinating in her parking lot rather than wading through the swamp in her men’s room.

  Scooter was starting to get heavy by the time Larry walked up to the spaceship he thought was Scooter’s. They all looked exactly alike — except slightly different. The fourteen ships were like one of the new predesigned housing developments in Wichita or Kansas City. Most of the houses looked like the others, except where this one had a red door, that one had gabled windows, another one had a hipped roof, and the one over there had an old Chevy up on blocks in the driveway.

  He didn’t know whether his time with Scooter had helped to wear away some sense of amazement, but he was seeing details he’d missed before. Each of the fourteen ships was the same size and the same relative shape, but that was where the similarities ended. The spacecraft were exactly like fourteen different teenager’s bedrooms. Their rooms may have all been about the same size with generic closets, but the teenagers definitely made an impact on their living space.

  He could only assume the alien’s impact on their ships was personalization. One nearby ship had swirls on the walls; they weren’t painted or engraved swirls, but more like embossed in the metal. They were not a static design. The swirls continued their swirling activity — maybe. Larry wasn’t sure the swirls were moving or if the fifth beer was playing games with his cerebrum again.

  Another spaceship had inlaid stones, much like the false front on his parent’s farmhouse, but these stones melded into the metal and were almost invisible from a distance. A third ship had alien script stamped deeply into its sides, dozens of languages, sort of looking like an intra-galactic Rosetta stone.

  Larry couldn’t see even the outline of a door, a window, a doorbell, or knocker in any of the spaceships. He set Scooter down in the grass, propping him up against the translator unit. The little alien continued to sleep, the snoring stopped, changing to a gentle breathing. Asleep, the alien actually looked alien.

  Larry rapped his knuckles against the side of Scooter’s spaceship. Scooter’s ship looked tattooed, completely covered with the barbed wire and tribal scrawl symbols that looked amazingly like what every drug dealer had inked on their arms on every TV show Larry had seen in the last decade.

  He knocked hard enough that on a regular farmhouse it would have woken up any sleeping residents. His knocking made no noise against the ship; none at all. He rapped his knuckles harder. There was still no sound. Any harder and he would crack a knuckle.

  He would’ve looked around for a rock, but farmers and ranchers had worked this pasture since 1851. Any readily available rocks had long since found their way to a resting spot along the fence line. For a long time, this field had been a wheat field, a cornfield, or a sorghum field, so rocks were as scarce as June bugs in January.

  He walked over to his tractor, still parked where he left it.

  Tractors being what they were, they were generally found exactly where you left them. That was a good thing about tractors; they were reliable in staying put where they were placed. They weren’t always so reliable on starting. They all seemed to have a tractor-wide propensity for not starting on the coldest day of the year. Strangely enough, that was the same day of the year that Larry had the hardest time getting started. Tractors made for good friends; they never sassed back or gave you an argument. They never took off for the bright lights and big city times of Fredonia. At least, no tractor Larry ever had experience with had done those things.

  His tractor had a disturbed look as if it’d been inspected. The latch on the toolbox under the seat was clamped tight. Larry didn’t ever latch the toolbox. If he needed a tool in a hurry, there was a good chance one hand was stuck somewhere and he was reaching for a tool with the other. Latching the toolbox was clearly not a good idea. But, everything was in place and nothing was missing.

  Larry grabbed an old hammer from his toolbox. The hammer was almost ancient. His good hammer was in the tack room in the barn. This one had been in the toolbox since the tractor was a pup and Grandpa brought it home from the tractor kennel. It was a seriously unbalanced. The hammer, not the tractor. The hammer’s head was way too big for its handle. In that regard, the hammer was a lot like Cousin Mel.

  He took a few light taps against the side of the spacecraft, but there was still no sound. The metal of the hammer against whatever kind of metal the spaceship was didn’t leave a mark. Larry slammed the hammer against the side of the spaceship without effect.

  “Hey! Come out here and get your little buddy. I didn’t do anything to him, but you should check him out,” he shouted.

  There was no response.

  Larry walked back to the tractor and put the hammer away.

  Putting your tools away was a habit he had developed at a young age. He hadn’t learned the habit on his father’s knee, but more from the back of Dad’s hand. Dad always likened putting tools away to housebreaking a puppy. Everything had its place. Dog poop did not belong on the living room rug. If he had to train the pup with a rolled up newspaper, then so be it. If he had to train his son to put his tools away using the same method, then so be it. Such training was exactly like a household budget. You couldn’t afford to keep a dog that pooped where you walked barefoot and you couldn’t afford to keep a son that kept loosing tools, so you managed the budget by keeping your expenses down to what you could afford to keep.

  Larry flipped the lid to the toolbox closed, but left it unlatched. He reached over the seat and pulled the tractor keys from the ignition. There was no sense in giving the tractor ideas about running off. Larry didn’t expect the tractor to run off, even if he left the keys in and the engine running. He was sure the tractor was as excited to see the alien spaceships as he was, so it wouldn’t go anywhere unless Larry took it there.

  He walked over to a tree in the corner of the pasture. The tree was the only shade in this corner of the field and was a hundred yards from the spaceship. The tree grew up next to a cow pond filled by a small trickle of crick running from a spring. The crick water was clear, cold, and clean, probably cleaner than the well water at the house.

  The water in the pond was full of all sorts of cow waste, as the cows took to wading belly deep in the pond. The water in the pond was disgusting, much like the floor in Racine’s men’s room, but the cows didn’t care anymore than most of Racine’s male customer’s cared. When Larry’s relatives with kids dropped by, the kids didn’t care as the pond was the closest body of water nearest the house for swimming.

  One of the cows stood in the little crick at the edge of the shade. Larry pushed her out of the way and sat down in the grass. He pulled off his shoes and socks, sinking his feet into the water. He wanted another beer. He thought that if he’d designed the little translator unit, he would have built in a small cooler to hold his six pack. Carrying Scooter and pulling the translator along behind him had kept his hands full and he left the remains of the six-pack in the refrigerator, much to the delight of his fridge.

  His eyes never left the spaceships. He couldn’t see all fourteen of them from his angle on the ground, but he had a clear view of Scooter. He hoped he was far enough away they would come out and get him.

  Larry sympathized with Scooter. He remembered the night he’d turned eighteen. He came home drunk and his parents had locked the doors. His mother made him sleep it off on the porch. He woke up the next morning, cold, stiff, and hung over.

  He got no sympathy from his parents. The day had become a long day with a fast breakfast of sausage and eggs, barf, muck out the barn, barf, haul salt licks to each field,
barf, check every foot of fence, and barf again. Larry wondered why he hadn’t quit drinking then and there. He also wondered if he could get to his fridge and back with a beer before the aliens scooped up Scooter.

  Larry hoped Scooter’s alien associates were of a gentler nature than his parents. Still, he had to admit he’d never staggered home drunk again. At least, not if he had to work the next day and since he was a farmer, he had to work every day.

  He looked at the cows around him. Why were they so bad at taking care of themselves if they were telepathic? He wondered if cows in general had trained humans instead of the domestication going the other way. If that was the case, it would be exactly like having a cat.

  He saw the door on the spaceship melt away. One alien stood in the doorway as if it had its hand on a switch. Two other aliens, male by the look of their tails, jumped down and dragged Scooter into the ship. They dumped him unceremoniously on the floor. Larry corrected himself. It was the deck of the spaceship. He wasn’t an astronaut, cosmonaut, or — what did the Chinese call them? — taikonaut, but he knew enough about ships to know the floor was called the deck. Still, he didn’t have a clue what Scooter called it. He decided to add the question to his list.

  He would have to remember to write the list down when he got back to the house.

  The two aliens refused to follow tourist protocol. Not that Larry had much experience with tourists. The Kansas prairie was interesting for only the first few hundred miles. After that, most tourists would drive away quickly while looking for something to look at, to shop in, or to climb on.

  Standing on another planet, on another new world, on another spinning globe in the vast galaxy Larry would have stopped to look around. He would want to smell the air, touch the grass, and maybe try to sneak up on a sleeping cow and tip it over.

  After dumping Scooter on the deck, the two aliens dashed back to the translator unit, and twisted a few knobs on the little machine. They raced back to the ship, leaving the machine in the open field. They vaulted into the ship. The alien on the door watched Larry for any movement and slammed the door — the hatch shut on the heels of the other two.

  Larry had to admit they were fast little suckers. In the arena of fight versus flight, Scooter’s people must have opted for flight development. That might explain the well-developed muscles in Scooter’s legs. Not that it followed that all herbivorous creatures were herd beasts or resorted to the flight option between fight or flight. Rhinoceroses were herbivorous and from all reports, had a nasty disposition and generally, they took a while to get up to cruising speed, but they were not herd beasts. Wolves were carnivorous and ran in packs. A pack was not a herd, but the similarities were there. Baboons were omnivorous like humans and they ran in packs as well.

  “No. Not packs,” Larry said to the cow standing near him. “Congress. A group of baboons is called a congress.”

  The cow didn’t respond. Not that Larry expected her to answer. None of them ever answered before, so it would be odd if one started now.

  Still, Larry felt good that he remembered one little fact about baboons, even if there was no one to tell except cow number — Larry looked. Her ear tag said 173. He didn’t know if she had a name. After all, you don’t name something that’ll become supper. It certainly wasn’t his doing if she had a name.

  “Maybe I should point that out to Scooter,” Larry said to the cow. “He has a name so I wouldn’t really consider him edible. Betty neither.” Larry knew that in the history of humanity, eating something with a name was not a hard and fast rule. The Donner party in California had all been properly named as had that airplane of soccer players stuck on the Andes mountaintop.

  He sat and watched the spacecraft for a half an hour. He didn’t expect much to happen with them, it just took that long for his feet to air dry before he put his socks and shoes back on. He really liked to run around barefoot, but as hard as he tried, somewhere in the pasture, he would step on a Russian thistle or a burr. Plus, if Scooter was indisposed for a while, then he was going to drive the tractor back to the barn.

  It wouldn’t hurt the tractor to leave it outside overnight. Tractors actually like the fresh air, that was why they went into the tractor business. If they liked being inside, they would have become looms, or printing presses, or maybe — if they like meeting new people — the luggage-go-round at an airport.

  In any event, this tractor’s foot pedals didn’t have comfortable little footpads. It had metal pedals with roughed edges so a muddy boot wouldn’t slip off, making it danged uncomfortable on bare feet.

  He finally wandered back down to the spacecraft. He knew knocking wouldn’t do much good. Been there and tried that. He wondered if they had external video feeds and figured they must have some way to see outside as there wasn’t any visible window on this side. He walked around the spaceship and did spot a window, view screen, or whatever it was called on the other side, but it was as high as a second story bedroom window. He walked all the way around back to his starting spot.

  “Hello?” he asked, addressing the greeting to the translator unit. He was comfortable talking to machines. It’s an easy habit to acquire when working alone. It was so easy it was exactly like working in an open pit coalmine. The hole is there, all you had to do is fall in.

  Larry often talked to his tractor, his truck, and even the brush hog, although he would readily admit the brush hog had a nasty disposition as far as farm tools went. He considered all of them partners in labor. His equipment was as necessary as the bulls and cows that were an integral part of his steer production team.

  The hatch to the spacecraft melted open.

  Scooter, at least Larry thought it was Scooter, dropped down to the deck in the hatchway, and let his feet dangle over the edge. “Good afternoon, Larry.”

  Larry checked his watch. “Evening by now, Scooter. How you feeling?”

  Scooter brushed the fur on his chest and rubbed both ears. “I’m much better. The ship’s doctor rebalanced the med-pen. I was taking too much and became a little woozy.” He pointed at the translator. “That communicated well, yes?

  Larry nodded, “Very good. At least, I understand what the machine said. I don’t know how well it took what you said and translated it into English. But we are communicating here, little buddy.”

  “Little buddy?”

  Larry said, “I guess the translator isn’t exactly sailing all that smooth. For all we know, I could use the word “bank”. And it would translate it as a place to store money, but I meant the sides of a river.”

  Scooter swung his feet lazily in the air. “It is a good translator. This version manages context very well. I just do not have a context for “little buddy”. You called me this, yes?”

  Larry said, “Yes. In this context is means a close friend who is of smaller stature. It is meant as a compliment.”

  Scooter swung his feet faster. “So, it does not imply you see me as an appetizer?”

  Larry said, “No. I do not see you as an appetizer, as a side dish, a mini desert, or even a late night snack. I am sure that anyone from Earth who thinks of you as an appetizer would be considered clinically insane.”

  Scooter barked out his fox-like laugh. “That is me, Big Buddy Larry. I am already considered clinically insane to sit and talk with you.”

  “Huh?” Larry asked. “Am I as bad as all of that?”

  “What would other humans think of you if you volunteered to jump into the water in the middle of a school of hungry sharks?”

  Larry nodded. “Yep, crazy as a loon. Most likely, they would tie me down and medicate me to the point where I wouldn’t hurt myself.”

  Scooter imitated Larry’s nod. “Yes, hence the medi-pen. I did over do it and gave myself enough that it put me to sleep.”

  “Hey! Would that stuff have an effect on humans? If I have too many beers, alcoholic beverages, then I act silly. I didn’t have too many when we were talking earlier, but I sure had the urge to act silly.”

&nbs
p; Scooter leaned back in the hatch and spoke to someone out of sight. The translator did not translate.

  When he turned back he said, “The medical consensus is that our bodies do not appear dissimilar. You may have been getting a secondary effect of the aerosol spray. You are in a normal state, yes?”

  Larry answered, “Yes. As far as I know, but then I’m sure crazy people all think they aren’t crazy.”

  Scooter barked a laugh. “Oh no. I am as crazy as a !>_)* on a #*&_ _ _.”

  Larry chucked. “That didn’t translate across. I’ll bet there are no equivalent words. But, I get the point. So, are you ready to head back to the house and finish our discussion? I do have a few questions of my own, you know.”

  Scooter replied, “I am ready. However, I am no longer allowed to leave the spacecraft. Even now, crewmembers are standing just out of sight—sorry. They did not want me to tell you that. They are here to drag me back and slam the hatch at the direction of the medical team.” He looked behind him. “Who are not, repeat not, standing just out of your sight.”

  Larry laughed. “So, it’s like my friends would do if I went swimming with sharks. They’d tie a rope on me to drag me back if it became too dangerous.”

  Scooter said, “Yes, very much so. Yes.”

  “Are you bait or just an adrenaline junkie?” Larry asked.

  Scooter waved his hands in front of his face, stopped and then shook his head. “Sorry, I forgot that humans nod and shake their heads to indicate agreement or dissent. I meant to indicate “no”. I mean no as that did not translate. Bait is understandable. It is a trick we use to lure dangerous creatures away from a family grouping. But the other did not come across.”

  “I got the hand waving thing meaning no. Anyway, adrenaline junkie: well, we have a gland in our bodies that produces a chemical we call adrenaline. It gives us energy and a burst of — well-being. Not exactly a restful well-being, but a fire inside to do, to accomplish, to prevail. This gland activates when we face danger or fast-paced action. A junkie is a person addicted to something. Do you know addicted?”