Only Alien on the Planet

by Kristen D. Randle

  “She left a two-year-old alone at a pool? “ The voice that came out of my mouth might have been my mother's.

  “I know,” Caulder said, shrugging. “I guess she took it for granted somebody would notice him if he woke up and started wandering around—there are tons of people at that pool all the time. Or maybe she left him with Russell. Anyway, later, when the life guard pulled Smitty out of the pool, he was just about drowned. Actually, he was dead.”

  Caulder pulled his collar up under his ears. “But they got him resuscitated, and he was in the hospital for quite a while before he went home. He never said another word after that. At first, they thought it was the trauma, that it'd wear off eventually. Later, they figured it must be permanent brain damage. Smitty's dad was really broken up about it; my dad says he got real quiet after that. Anyway, it never should have happened.”

  “Amen,” I whispered.

  After a moment, he added, “Smitty doesn't seem real damaged to me.”

  I was inclined to agree with that too. Two minutes, maybe, it had taken him to work out that proof.

  “Maybe it's just the outside,” I said. “Maybe it's just like the outside layer of him isn't functional. Like his facial nerves don't work. Maybe he just somehow lost connection with his language centers, and he can't communicate.”

  “Or like, he won't,” Caulder said.

  I laughed.

  He looked at me and made no comment.

  “You seriously think it's just a matter of him refusing to speak?” I asked. “Refusing to speak for fifteen years? Not likely.”

  “It's a mystery,” Caulder intoned. He grinned at me. I could have smacked him one; I know self-satisfaction when I see it. But then, he had every reason to be satisfied—he'd finally found himself a partner.

  From that night on, I was just as obsessed with Smitty as he was.

  chapter 3

  It took some getting used to, walking with Caulder and Smitty. You try to carry on a normal conversation—you try to be polite so nobody feels left out. I never realized before then how much of my conversation comes out in questions. I never realized before how important it is to have people answer you. Being with Smitty Tibbs for even the barest modicum of time, you could start doubting your own reality.

  The only thing we actually knew about him for sure was that he was standing there. That's not enough for human beings—we have to know what people are thinking, and why and how they're going to jump. So naturally, I caught myself making up personalities for him—you know, the way you do with pets and cute boys and famous people. What's that called? Anthropomorphism. You do it so that you feel like you can relate personally to whatever it is—your dog, or God or whatever. You do that so you can care about things, and so that life at least appears to make sense. And maybe you do it so you can feel like something cares about you.

  The dangerous thing about doing that, Paul told me one time, is what you end up caring about isn't necessarily what's really there—just what you've decided is there.

  Which may be very far from the truth. So you could very easily end up depending on a lie. Or a dream.

  I didn't want to do that with Smitty; I wanted to keep a very scientific attitude toward the whole thing. So I tried to unravel him by concentrating on the hard evidence—the way he dressed, for instance—Caulder had said that Smitty chose his own clothes. And the fact that Smitty's work was neat and methodical. But then, computers are neat and methodical. Also, I figured, anybody who could be willing to help me with my math night after night—we were going over there practically every night of the week now— must be truly nice. And patient.

  So anyway, he had conservative taste, and he was nice and patient.

  Or maybe not.

  Thus, for me to say that Smitty Tibbs had been walking to school with us would be pushing a point. Every morning now, Smitty came out of his house, strolled down his front path to the sidewalk, and walked to school. Caulder, who had been waiting at the foot of his own front path for maybe several minutes, would fall in beside Smitty, and then as the two of them came by my house, I, having stood at the foot of my walk for at least thirty seconds—would fall in with them in turn, and so we all got to school. On a good day, it looked like a Blue Angels flight maneuver.

  Of course we'd never had any way of telling whether Smitty was pleased with the arrangement. “As long as he doesn't let us know how he feels,” Caulder would say, “we get to assume what we want.”

  Which I've already explained wasn't good enough for me. So I took up vigil once again. I wanted to catch something—the slightest flicker of an expression, the slightest reaction. I wanted to see him scratch his nose, or stumble and look sheepish or puzzled or angry. I wanted to see some evidence that he was actually human.

  I kind of missed being able to talk all this stuff over with my mom. We used to like trying to figure things out together. There was presently no chance of that, so I pretty much had to be satisfied with Caulder. Which was okay—he had a level head, and I trusted his judgement. Mostly.

  “Look,” I said to him sweetly one afternoon. “Since you were so kind as to introduce me to your friend, why don't you let me introduce you to one of mine?”

  Evidently, in our relationship, total trust was not a reciprocal thing. Caulder gave me a look that was definitely suspicious and began to edge away.

  “Yeah?” he said. “And just who might you have in mind?”

  “How come you never go out?” I asked bluntly.

  “I go out,” he said indignantly. “I go out with you all the time.”

  “I mean with girls,” I said—for once pushing aside the obvious implications. He spluttered. “What a jerk,” I said. “I suppose you're going to tell me that you're shy.”

  “I am shy,” he said. “I've always been shy.”

  I gave him a sidelong look of pure disgust.

  “All the Pretigers are shy,” he said huffily.

  “You should have asked Hally out years ago,” I said.

  His mouth dropped open. “Forget it,” he said.

  “What do you mean, 'forget it'?” I asked. “You guys'd make a swell couple.”

  “Ginny,” he said carefully, as though he were talking to some kind of idiot, “have you looked at me lately? I mean, really looked? You think somebody like Hally would ever go out with somebody like me? She would never take a second look at me.”

  All of a sudden, a little light went on in my brain. “You like her, don't you?” I asked him, mildly amazed.

  He nodded dumbly.

  “So, how come you never said anything?”

  “I don't have to tell you everything,” he pointed out, making a sad little grab for dignity.

  Then I got a touch perverse (which happens more often than you might think). “You never asked her out because she's smart. That's it, isn't it?” I said. “You're one of those guys who has to have an airheaded, adoring little girlfriend who doesn't threaten you. Caulder, I can't believe this—you're scared to go out with her because you might find out she's more intelligent than you. I am so disappointed.”

  He glared at me. “And you are so wrong.”

  I folded my arms and gave him a long look. “So prove it.”

  “I don't have to prove it,” he huffed, “and I don't want to talk about it anymore.”

  I laughed my head off, and then we started talking about something else. But if he thought the subject was closed, he had another think coming.

  The next night, I got us into trouble. It was really Caulder's fault; he should have warned me. Well, there are times when maturity seems to evaporate. When otherwise perfectly responsible, disciplined people get a little silly, maybe, and suddenly everything is hilariously funny. You try—you say, “Okay, guys—we have to get serious now…” and everybody genuinely tries to get back to work. You try to keep your mind on what you're doing. You try not to think about laughing—but then somebody slips and lets out a half strangled sputter and everything totally falls apart.<
br />
  I love it when that happens.

  I don't know what set us off this one night, but it got bad. We were just so funny. I was having a great time until I came up against these logic problems that were definitely not amusing—not even accessible to the normal human mind—especially when I realized that Mrs. Shein wasn't going to think it was so funny when I handed her nothing but my name and an apology next day. Definitely material for Tibbs Tutorial.

  Maybe we shouldn't have gone over there until we sobered up.

  We managed to maintain perfect maturity while we standing in Mrs. Tibbs's presence. I did get a little crazy for a minute, though, and I actually talked directly to her: I asked her where she was going. It was an honest question; it seemed like every time we came in, she was just going out.

  She looked kind of pleased that I should ask. “Actually,” she said, checking her watch, “I'm a little late. I'm treasurer for Child Rescue, and we meet every other Tuesday. You know about Child Rescue?”

  I had to admit that I didn't. I was, however, very aware that Caulder was looking at me like I'd lost my mind.

  “Well, we're a philanthropic organization dedicated to protecting children from inner city areas—lower income groups—from various kinds of abuse. We have a shelter that we operate downtown. We've done some wonderful things. Maybe sometime, you'd like to do some volunteer work down at the shelter?”

  “Maybe next summer,” I said, backing up half a step. Among my other faults, I'm not very good at commitment on short notice.

  “Let me tell you—here's Smitty—if you have the time and you're willing, there's a lot of good you can do out there.” She smiled, shouldered her purse, and opened the front door. “Enjoy yourselves.” She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. “It's nice that Smitty has some friends,” she said, and then she closed the door behind her.

  Suddenly I wasn't feeling so silly anymore.

  “Get in here,” Caulder said, and hauled me into the dining room by the shoulder of my sweater.

  Smitty followed us in, just the way he always did—like he'd suddenly gotten the urge to go and sit in the dining room and do the math that just sort of mysteriously appeared there every night.

  It was all so ridiculous. I started trying to explain why I didn't understand the first problem, but I got all mixed up, and after a few minutes, I could hear Caulder starting up again out of the corner of my ear. I couldn't look straight at him because I was afraid I'd start cracking up too.

  He sat over there spluttering to himself from time to time, and after each little outburst, I had to stop and take a careful breath. My stomach muscles were starting to cramp from being held in so hard. My cheeks were stiff.

  We were trying not to be impolite. The harder we tried, the worse it got. Finally, I was sitting there with my fists crammed into my eyes and tears running down my face, and Caulder was practically lying on the table. We couldn't stop.

  After what had to have been several minutes, Smitty folded his hands and put them in his lap, a fairly definite indication that he was tired of us. I became very contrite and sobered right up. Caulder was a little bit slower on the uptake, but finally it was very quiet in the room. Smitty picked up the pencil again and leaned forward to write.

  “Sorry,” Caulder said. “I can tell you think we're nuts…”

  For a fraction of a second, just a shade of a moment, Smitty froze.

  “…but we really don't mean to be a pain.”

  Smitty blinked a couple of times, and then he went back to work on the problem, while I was still sitting there, trying to figure out why I felt like lightning had just struck. Of course I missed half of the explanation.

  “Wait,” I said, and I put my hand on Smitty's arm.

  He put the pencil down, shoved himself away from the table, got up, and left the room.

  I looked at Caulder, then I stared at Smitty's chair, then I turned around and looked at the door. He was actually gone. He'd just suspended operations and left.

  “Did I do something?” I asked Caulder.

  “Come on,” he said philosophically. He started gathering things up. “I'll help you with this stuff at home. Let's go.”

  We let ourselves out quietly.

  “You touched him,” Caulder said, answering my question. “I should have warned you—nobody's allowed to do that. Not even his parents.” I was humiliated. Completely. “Not your fault,” Caulder commented, breathing out a tiny cloud of steam.

  I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at my feet.

  Caulder turned around a looked at me. “What?” he said. “I told you it wasn't your fault.”

  “No,” I said, suddenly breathless. “Something just happened in there.”

  “Yeah,” Caulder said. “We acted like a couple of idiots.”

  “Not that,” I told him. “Something—look. Why did he leave the room?”

  Caulder made an exasperated little sound. “I told you; he doesn't allow touching.”

  “Okay, and why did he put his hands in his lap? When we were laughing?”

  “Because we were being obnoxious.”

  “And when you apologized—when you said, 'I can tell you think we're nuts'—he, like, just suddenly stopped for a second, like you'd shocked him.”

  “So?” Caulder said, but he was thinking now too.

  “So, aren't those reactions? He was reacting to us. We didn't realize it at the time—but we responded to it, just the way we would have responded to anybody else. It was almost like a conversation. Don't you get it?”

  Caulder blinked. “I'm starting to.” He was breathing a little faster.

  “Maybe he's getting used to us or something. Or maybe we're just finally seeing what's always been there.”

  “No,” Caulder said, looking back at Smitty's house. “Not what's always been there.” Then he stuffed his hands into his pockets and buried his chin in the collar of his jacket. He blinked again. “Why now?” he asked, looking at me. “It's gotta just be that we're trying too hard. We're seeing what we want to see.”

  “You really think that?” I asked him impatiently.

  “Ginny,” he said. “I don't know how to think anything else.” He shook his head. “What if—no. I just don't know how to think anything else. Come on. I'm freezing.” He started to walk. I wanted to kick him, but instead, I fell in beside him, hissing. “If something has actually changed,” he went on very carefully, “then we're bound to see more of it. We've just got to stay objective, but stay aware. Okay? Objective, but aware.”

  “Fine,” I said, more than a little disappointed in his sense of drama.

  He stopped at the bottom of my walk, waiting for me to go up first. Then he followed me, still looking very thoughtful. “If what you say turns out to be true…” he said as he climbed up the porch steps and reached past me for the doorknob, “…the universe has just reeled on its axis.”

  Suddenly he grinned at me and pushed the front door open. “Okay, you guys,” he yelled. “We can hear you breathing in there. I hope you've gotten some serious work done.”

  Of course they hadn't.

  chapter 4

  September was half gone, and our street was going up in flames. It was strange—where I come from, trees are mostly green, and then they turn brown; after that, the leaves come off and it rains a little bit. That's when you have to start wearing long-sleeved T-shirts in the evening. But here, the nights go chill, and then the trees turn themselves inside out, gold and russet and scarlet all mixed with fading green, like something out of Through the Looking-Glass.

  Charlie loved it, of course. His sense of security is anchored in more abstract things than the colors of leaves. And I have to admit, I thought it was beautiful too—in an unsettling kind of way.

  I retreated to the house, but kept bumping into corners and bookcases that stuck out in places where I didn't expect them. The good old couches and piano and dining room furniture were there, but they seemed strangely disjointed in
their new, raw rooms. All of the softening things, the pictures and the little homey stuff—all the evidence that real human beings were living and breathing in this space—were still packed away in boxes and crates, stacked against one wall of the den.

  Sometimes I would suddenly remember how the afternoon sunlight used to lie on the floor of the hall just outside my old room, and I'd feel a terrible longing for home.

  While nights were chilly, the days were warm, sometimes hot. My parents were making headway on the studio, but it was slow going. When Paul called one night, the sound of his voice was like an echo of a dream.

  In the morning, I'd look at myself in the mirror and wonder. It was the same face, the same dark eyes and unrepentant hair, but the feelings were not familiar, and the face seemed a little like a mask. I needed some romance, maybe, to take my mind off things and put a little color in the face. The people at school were nice and everything, but nobody'd asked me out yet. It made me a little sad, thinking about the stuff we used to do back home. Maybe these people were thinking Caulder and I were a serious item. Maybe that could explain why nobody was calling.

  It was in front of the mirror one morning that I finally decided, Hally or no Hally, I was going to go ahead and have a crush on Pete Zabriski. Actually, it hadn't bothered me at all, what she'd said about him; I've always believed you can get a lot more emotional mileage out of a love-from-afar kind of a relationship than the real flesh-and-blood kind. I mean, if you never get close to anybody, you don't have to be disappointed in them. And real relationships can get so messy, especially when the other person wants to put more into them than you do. Or vice versa.

  No, a hopeless heartthrob was perfect for me.

  Evidently, Caulder was of my ilk. Every day, I had Hally on one side, asking little leading questions, making wistful observations— hints, all of them—and Caulder on the other not wanting to talk about it. I was getting very impatient with him, and you can believe I didn't exactly hide that fact.