by Chris Rush
I rang the buzzer, which was the greenish color of glow-in-the-dark toys. It was very sci-fi.
The man who came to the door was not sci-fi, at all. He looked absurdly normal, in a sweater-vest buttoned over a starched white shirt.
“Are you Chris?”
I nodded and followed him in with my grubby backpack. He was very polite, showing me to a guest bedroom, asking me if I’d like a snack.
I’d imagined that Mr. Green’s house might look like the ship in 2001: A Space Odyssey—circular hallways with chrome accents—but it was more like the cottage of an old lady, with ceramic figurines, rubber plants, scratchy furniture. My host sat me down at the kitchen table and made me a grilled cheese sandwich. There was even a pickle.
“Mr. Green, I’m sorry that I’m a mess. It was a long trip.”
“I’m honored that you made such an effort. You’re welcome to take a shower after lunch.”
“Thanks. So, where is everyone else?” I asked. I had assumed the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America would be a bustling beehive of offices. “Don’t you have, like, employees and secretaries?”
Mr. Green laughed. “No, it’s just me—and, yes, I should have a secretary. It’s a lot of work.”
He was a good-looking man, swarthy, with slicked-back dark hair and black glasses. The same age as my father, but he was very calm, very California. He told me to call him Gabe.
After my shower, I felt even more nervous, as if the dirt washed from my face exposed me: a clueless kid.
But Gabe was pleasant and attentive, as we sat on the fifties sectional. He asked about my life, my home, my parents. I disclosed the bare minimum, trying not to lie. “Have you seen a UFO up close?” I asked him.
“Of course,” he said. “You know, Chris, I’ve rarely read more passionate letters—I’m speaking of yours, of course. Which is why I felt comfortable inviting you to my home.”
Had I sent him more than one letter? I recall writing one just before my father had flipped out—but maybe I’d sent a few more afterward. It was a blur.
“Are you okay, young man?”
“The AC is a little cold,” I told him.
He got up to adjust the thermostat—and the rush of cool air ceased. In the hush, he said, “So you know how my work began, yes?”
I knew a little from the newsletters.
“My wife,” he said, “was a gifted clairvoyant. It was she who began to receive messages from an unknown entity regarding the future of our planet.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes, but she’s no longer on this plane.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. I still communicate with her every day. But it was through her that I first came to know the entity Korendor, from the star system Alpha Centauri. After she’d been in contact with him for a while, he instructed her to go to a remote location in the Mohave Desert and await further instruction. I went with her—and it was there that we first met Korendor in person. My wife died shortly after this—and the entity then began to communicate directly with me.”
“Your wife died in the desert?”
“No, at home. In peace.”
“So do you still meet with Coriander?” I asked.
“Korendor,” he corrected me. “No, my communications with him now are entirely telepathic. Do you understand, Chris?” Mr. Green leaned in, making serious eye contact. “I am now the one whose job it is to announce the arrival of the Centaurians and share with the world their message of peace. This is my purpose!”
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, Gabe made us a big breakfast—eggs, potatoes, toast with orange marmalade. He sat beside me, drinking coffee and reading the Los Angeles Times. Afterward, he asked if I’d like to see the library. In one of the back bedrooms, he’d assembled thousands of books on metaphysical science. It looked and smelled like the rare-book room at St. John’s—books the boys were forbidden to touch. But here, Gabe said, I was welcome to read whatever I wanted. Books had always made me happy—or at least had been a kind of solace. Life reduced to fact or rearranged into myth.
“You are here to study, Chris—to learn. Take advantage of these volumes. Profitez! as they say in France.”
While Gabe went off to watch daytime television, I scanned the high wooden shelves. His collection was quite varied—antique volumes with crackled leather spines, pages without covers wrapped in twine, mimeographed pamphlets, books bound in metal. Over the next few days, between meals, I sat at a wooden desk, under an old office lamp, speed-reading everything I could. It felt good to use my brain again, to study. I read about the crystal ray guns of Atlantis, about telekinesis and levitating yogis. I read histories of extinct tribes and the channeled wisdom of long-dead prophets.
I tried to drink it in, like a potion in a fairy tale—something to make me strong and wise. Though the truth was, I began to feel more and more confused. I had no plan. As the theme to Days of Our Lives drifted under the door, I wondered: What am I doing here, exactly? I thought of Julie and Sean back home, Owen with his family in Idaho. Had I abandoned them? Had they abandoned me? I couldn’t recall. Now that I was alone, it seemed incredibly important to know if the magical universe was real—if a world of love and spaceships could be proved.
Once the soaps ended, Gabriel would bring in a tray of iced tea. He wanted to see what I was reading, ask me what I’d learned.
“And what do you wish to know from me?” he said.
I asked him about extraterrestrials, of course, and life on other planets—about the possibility of survival there, for humans. I told him that I’d seen a saucer, and he said, “I sensed that. I feel I know you, Chris.”
I felt the same.
He said, “What you are, my friend, is a seeker. It can be a lonely business.”
When I asked him if he had any children, he turned away.
“Not in this lifetime.”
* * *
AFTER A FEW DAYS, our conversations grew odder. I remember Gabriel discussing his affection for popular Venusian fashion: one-piece jumpsuits in translucent fabric. When I asked if he owned one, he laughed. “I’m not quite a sexy Venusian.”
“What do they look like—the Venusians?”
“Well, you know, there are extraterrestrials walking around beside us every day, and you might not recognize them. The ones I’ve met have been quite attractive. They have beautiful skin. Of course, they don’t all look the same. The Venusians are blond, like you, and the Martians darker, like me.”
At night, in the spare bedroom, my mind raced with excitement. Before bed, I snuck tokes of hash to help me sleep. In the morning, I was always ravenous.
“Eggs, my boy? Or would you prefer French toast?”
* * *
DURING MY STAY, there was a heat wave in Los Angeles. After a few days of deep air-conditioning, Gabriel’s house started to make me feel claustrophobic. I’d been in the woods all summer, sleeping outdoors, and I needed some fresh air. One morning, I put a towel down on the backyard lawn and sunbathed modestly in cutoffs. The heat was intense but soothing. Gabriel kept glancing at me through the sliding glass door. Finally he stepped outside and asked me why I wanted to be out in the “godforsaken heat” when I could be inside “cool and cozy” with him.
I told him my doctor had advised me to get plenty of vitamin D.
A little later, Gabriel came outside again, this time with a plastic bottle of Coppertone. It was old and crusty—maybe it had belonged to his dead wife. Perhaps, like me, she’d been a pale Venusian. I applied the lotion to my bony arms and legs and resumed baking. Gabriel continued watching from the sliding glass door, holding up various beverages and treats to tempt me inside.
After three or four days, I started to feel self-conscious and thought I should probably be moving on—though I had no idea where I was headed. “I better go,” I said to Gabriel. “You probably have a lot to do.”
“I do most of my work at night,” he said. �
��And besides, I enjoy making dinner for two. You’re welcome to stay.”
After being evicted so many times by my own family, I was both complimented and distraught by Gabriel’s kindness.
“Plus,” he said, “I’d like to take some pictures of you.” Suddenly he began to rave about his new camera equipment, pulling a bunch of it from a closet. He set up a tripod in the living room. He asked if I’d ever shaved.
“Not yet.”
“I’m jealous. If I don’t shave twice a day—I’m the Wolf Man.”
He growled at me. “Let’s do a photo with your shirt off.”
“I’m really skinny,” I said as I took off my purple T-shirt.
Click. Click. Click.
The air-conditioning was cold. I stood there straight as a soldier. “So the Venusians are, like, here in Los Angeles?”
“Oh yes—they’re everywhere.”
Click. Click. Click.
“I’d like to meet one.”
“You will, I’m sure,” he said. “Your energy is very compatible.”
Click.
* * *
GABRIEL TALKED CONSTANTLY. Other than my mother, I’d never been around someone so loquacious. I was rapt, nervous, grateful—as Gabriel shared his story, bared his heart.
His ideas went far beyond UFOs. He believed souls migrated from planet to planet as they evolved, through the process of reincarnation. The universe was a vast school, he said, with students migrating through countless lives and experiences toward enlightenment .
I found his ideas inspiring.
“Do you remember your past lives?” he asked me.
“No,” I said. “How could I?”
“There is a way, if you want. I have the ability to take people back to memories of their former lives. It’s called regression. Would you like to try it?”
“I’m not sure.” I thought, What if my past lives were worse than this one?
“Chris,” he said, leaning in, patting my knee. “I think you need to.”
* * *
SITTING ACROSS FROM ME on the couch, he asked if I was ready to begin. I nodded, and he told me to close my eyes and breathe deeply. I heard him turn on his reel-to-reel, across the room.
The following is an excerpt from the transcript Gabriel made of that recording:
It’s ten thirty p.m., Saturday, August 18, 1973. Gabriel Green regressing Christopher Rush, age seventeen. All right, Chris, now, guided by your higher self go back to a former life you would like to bring to your conscious awareness at this time, and tell me what you see.
CHRIS: [No response.]
GABE: All right, let’s try looking at other planets. I want you to project your consciousness into outer space. Tell me what you see.
CHRIS: I see just a few stars and a small planet in the distance.
GABE: All right, are you looking at the planet Earth?
CHRIS: No.
GABE: Can you get the name of it?
CHRIS: Neptune, maybe. I’m in a building, walking down a hall.
GABE: Is this a past life you are regressing to?
CHRIS: Yes. I think so.
GABE: What is your name?
CHRIS: I don’t know. I don’t have a name.
I recall the feeling of floating—similar to how I’d felt when Pauly had put me in his magic circle in the woods at St. John’s. In Gabriel’s transcript, I go on to describe a barren planet, frozen solid, and how, eons ago, my civilization had been driven underground.
GABE: Are you married?
CHRIS: No.
GABE: Do you have any romantic interests?
CHRIS: Yes. Blonde hair, a small face, gray eyes.
GABE: Can you see yourself?
CHRIS: Short brown hair. I have a square head.
GABE: Is there hair on your face?
CHRIS: No.
GABE: Was your lover selected for you scientifically?
CHRIS: No. Our relationship was spontaneous.
GABE: Do you engage in sexual activity?
CHRIS: Yes. We met on a public transportation tube and knew we wanted to copulate. She got off on my stop instead of hers.
GABE: It’s a woman?
CHRIS: I think so.
After a long series of questions about Neptunian sex practices and politics, Gabriel, sensing I was tired, brought me back to the present by touching my hand. He clicked off the tape recorder.
“I didn’t make that up,” I said. “It was all frozen where I came from. Everything was ice.” There was a strange sadness in all I’d seen.
“But you found a way to live,” Gabriel said. He helped me into the kitchen and made us some peppermint tea. “Not only did you live, but you passed through many other lives to be here now, with me.”
* * *
I WOKE to a pile of clean clothes—everything I owned, even my obscene underwear, washed and folded and lying in three neat piles on a chest at the foot of my bed. After breakfast, Gabriel said, “Do you want to go to the mall with me today? I have some shopping to do.”
I hadn’t been in fancy department stores since shopping trips with my mother. I enjoyed walking around the mall with Gabriel. I wondered if people thought he was my father.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Gabriel said. “I just like browsing.”
Finally, at Sears, he bought a meat thermometer.
He turned to me. “If you need anything, get it.”
I was running out of money. “No, thank you. I’m okay.”
“Please. I’ll pay for it.”
I looked around and tried to come up with something cool. I found a little pillow, gold and green, with goofy tassels. I thought it would look nice in my tent.
Gabriel seemed perplexed. “Anything else? A new pair of jeans?”
I shook my head and we left—with a meat thermometer and a pillow.
* * *
GABRIEL SUGGESTED we try another regression.
It was different from the first session—no tape recorder. Gabriel said he didn’t want me to be self-conscious. He sat closer than he had the first time.
He took me back slowly, telling me not to be afraid.
A story begins to play in my mind—a flickering shadow, a scratchy movie of a boy moving through a dark landscape. I see the life of this child; see him playing in winter woods, going to school in a red jacket.
It’s Earth.
Gabriel asks where.
I say, “Germany, World War Two.”
He asks what I see.
The boy in the red jacket is twelve or thirteen, with blond hair, blue eyes. He is me. He’s walking on a road bordered by trees. There’s shouting from the forest, then men. The boy is shot—he’s murdered. I can feel the pain of the bullets piercing my body. “I’m dying,” I say.
Gabriel takes my hand, “No—not you. Come back now, Chris.Come back.”
Fear and blackness overcome me. There is no way back.
But then I’m sitting on the scratchy couch, weeping in Gabriel’s arms.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING DAY, I told Gabriel that I had to go—some lie about meeting a friend.
“I’m sorry to hear this,” he said. “I feel like we’ve just begun.”
For some reason, my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Gabriel asked me to sit with him for a moment at the kitchen table. “It was good you came to me.” He reminded me that as I headed back into the world, I must take with me a message. “The Space People are here, among us.”
I nodded.
“And why are they here?” he asked.
My hands were out of control. “Love?”
“And why are you here?”
“Love?” I ventured again.
“Do you see?” said Gabriel. “You are not who you were when you came here.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant Earth or Los Angeles.
“Chris, those bad things … they all happened a long time ago.”
He told me how glad he was to meet me, and
then he kissed my forehead.
It went deep. I can still feel that kiss.
“You can always come back,” he said.
But I never did.
30.
By the Grace of God
AFTER THREE DAYS OF HITCHING, I arrived in Tucson. Late August, 110 degrees.
Scorched and hungry, I found it hard to think straight. I knew that classes would be starting soon in New Jersey—my last year of high school. At the side of a road, I stuck out my thumb. But instead of heading east, toward home, I headed north, toward the high mountains. I needed shade and shelter.
A few miles from the base of Mt. Lemmon, I ducked into a tiny grocery store to buy a gallon of water, some bread and jelly. On a staticky radio, someone was talking about Vietnam—about how the war had finally ended. When I heard a crash of thunder, I ran back outside.
The sky was half-black, a wall of monsoon rain sweeping across the valley. Bolts of lightning struck ahead of the downpour. I waited until the first icy raindrops stung my face. Soon I was soaked, shivering in a soggy T-shirt, dancing in the mud. The war is over!
As the storm passed by, the smell of chaparral rose from the ground, overpowering and familiar. Even without Donna at my side, the desert filled me with a feeling of home. Back inside the store, I reclaimed my meager supplies. The woman behind the counter chided me. “Are you crazy, running into the lightning like that? You wanna get killed?”
I smiled, set my things before her.
“That’s all you’re getting? Buy some jerky, you’re too skinny.” She held out a small plastic bag of shriveled meat—no label, closed with a twist tie. “We make it here.”
I hesitated.
“Just take it,” the woman said. “My treat.”
“I don’t eat meat,” I told her. “But maybe I could take an orange?”
She gave me a dozen.
* * *
WITHIN FIFTEEN MINUTES, it was dry again, the temperature creeping up. Patiently, I sat on my pack, waiting for a ride up the mountain. Finally, an old station wagon with Sonoran plates pulled over. A family on vacation.