Black Swan Planet

by James Peters

  “A thirty-inch-long turd?” Phil said, raising one eyebrow while his hands estimated the length. “Is that possible? Wouldn’t that blow out a hemorrhoid?”

  “Oh yeah, Cam messed up his ass bad on that one. But he swore it was worth it. Said it taught the guys not to doubt him ever again. He had to get stitches from the doc after that was over.”

  Phil pulled the barber’s cape off of him and motioned for him to get out of the chair. “Another great story, Norm! Let’s give someone else a chance!”

  I sat down while Moe and Norm sat in the waiting area, thumbing through girly magazines. Moe announced that I was going to get married. Nobody understood him so I said, “Moe wanted me to tell everyone that I’m going to get married.”

  “Congratulations, Raka,” Phil said. “I didn’t know what happiness was until I got married. Then it was too late.”

  Norm gave a nodding smile as I looked around the room to gauge everyone’s reaction. How do Earth-men feel about this pairing?

  “I’m not really from around here. What should I expect from marriage?” I said.

  Phil worked his shears. “When a married man dies and goes to hell, he sees the devil himself; a horribly ugly beast with horns and huge fangs dripping blood, goat’s legs, and a spiked tail cracking in the air. The epitome of evil staring him down with his pitchfork and fire and brimstone coming from his mouth. The married man takes a long look at him and shrugs, ‘cause it’s kinda’ like being married. The devil looks disappointed and asks, ‘Did you see any single guys on the way down here?’”

  Norm cleared his throat. “Now don’t give the poor boy a bad image of marriage. It’s not so bad as long as you remember who wears the pants in the house. In my house, I wear the pants. I asked the boss, and she said it was okay because they didn’t fit her right.”

  Moe mumbled, “Now don’t let them get to you. Gina is a good girl. Besides, if you don’t marry her, she’ll kick your ass.”

  I laughed as I felt my hands shaking just a touch. “So, what do I do?”

  “First thing is you get her a ring. Did you do that?” Phil said.

  “Not yet. Henry told me about that. What will she expect?”

  “Gold and diamond. Go over to Daimer’s Jewelry Store. Tell them what you need, and they’ll take care of you. You get two rings, they go together. The one with the diamond you give her first. That’s the engagement ring. Then when you get married, you give her the other one that mates up to it. It’s going to set you back some money, so be prepared.”

  Norm cut in. “Don’t forget the most important part: the bachelor party!”

  “Bachelor party?” I said.

  “Oh yeah. One last night of fun for you and your friends before the big day.”

  “Well, I don’t really have too many friends.”

  “Nonsense. We’re your friends, and we’ll get you taken care of with a bachelor party. You just let your old buddy Norm take care of you. Did you set a date yet?”

  “To get married?” I said.

  “No, to polish your bowling ball. Of course I’m talking a date to get married. When are you doing it?”

  “Don’t know yet. I suppose in the spring.”

  “Good. A spring wedding. Let me know the date and I’ll set you up, if you know what I mean.”

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  Phil put his hand on my shoulder. “Quit squirming. I damn near cut your ear off.”

  Norm smiled. “Hey, I need to run, but you just leave it up to me. We’ll get you set up for a bachelor’s party you’ll never forget.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said quietly as he shuffled off.

  ***

  That evening, we had a dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and cornbread with iced tea. Gina had cooked it for Henry, Moe, and me, and it tasted absolutely delicious. I had a small cut on my hand from working on a radio, from running it against a metal bracket. The cut stung as it came in contact with the hot chicken grease, but I was happy and the pain was a reminder that I was alive, and enjoying the company of people that really cared for me. Entertainment had become short bursts of impossible action, explosions, superhuman feats, and unbelievable situations, each more intense and insane than the last. Nothing surprised you anymore as you had already seen everything imaginable. The effects looked perfect and timed to the nanosecond to never give your mind a chance to recover. But nonstop action became the set level, the new normal, so it failed to excite. Music became overproduced and synthetic, computer manipulated to be the perfect tempo, length, and message for your current mood, or the mood you wanted to be in. But here, on this barbarian Earth, people lived their short lives and enjoyed each other’s company. They talked, laughed, and actually lived their own lives with real fears and joys. A frown crossed my face as I realized that this would only last for another hundred years or so, then they’ll move into the digital revolution, and becomes less real, bit by bit, byte by byte. For now, I enjoyed living. Gina cleared her throat and a questioning tone from her broke my string of thought.

  “Raka, did you hear me? How was work today?” Gina said, and I realized she had now asked me twice.

  “Fine. The usual; I fixed a couple of radios, as well as Zenith and an Admiral television. One of them was just a bad connection at a solder joint. I boosted the reception on the Admiral by optimizing the antenna coil. The original one was designed poorly; it was receiving resonance interference from the main power circuit. The work order said the owner saw ghosts on the screen. I had to laugh at that.”

  “Sounds scary!” Gina said, with a giggle. “I hope they referred to duplicate images on the screen, not real ghosts.”

  “I figured out what they meant when I first turned it on. Never thought to call the duplicate images ghosts.”

  “Now don’t be joking about no ghosts,” Moe said. “Ain’t no laughing matter. You ain’t been scared till you see a real ghost.”

  “Real ghost?” I said.

  “Real ghosts. Momma called them spooks. They are real, you know.” Moe said. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Sorry Moe, I don’t mean that I don’t believe that you’re convinced they are real. I mean, I believe you, but I need proof.”

  “You won’t believe me until I tell you, will you?” Moe’s eyes turned downward, toward his plate of food. His tone flattened. “Fine. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “What’s he saying, son?” Henry said.

  “Ghosts are real. He’s going to tell me his story and I’ll share later, assuming that’s okay with you, Moe?”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Moe said, taking a deep breath. He closed his eyes tightly for a moment before beginning. “So when I was a boy, we visited my aunt and uncle. They lived in a little house in the hills, way back in the boonies, so far out of the way they might go weeks without laying eyes on another person. When it got dark out there, it was pitch black. I was amazed at how many stars I could see out there, I could actually see color differences in them. I thought that being out there all winter long could mess with your head. That’s what I always figured when I heard them talking about the “black thing”, that maybe it was just so dark that they felt like the blackness closed in on them.”

  “That seems reasonable,” I said.

  “Yeah, but what happened that night wasn’t reasonable,” Moe said. “My parents and little sister slept in a tiny bedroom’s double bed. I was too big, so I had to sleep on the old horsehair davenport in the parlor. When you’d walk into that parlor, the temperature dropped immediately. There were two doors in that room, one to the outside and the inky black of night, and another to the rest of the house. That second door would slam shut on its own, so they had a big cast-iron doorstop in the shape of a fat frog. That thing was heavy, too heavy for me to lift. At some point in time, somebody had painted that frog dark green, but most of the paint had rubbed off over the years. Its eyes shone. They were evil, piercing things. They had been painted br
ight yellow with a slit painted for the pupil. No matter where you were in that room, those eyes seemed to stare you down. I never thought I’d be scared of a frog but the look on his face was like he was here to swallow your soul.”

  “Night came, and I had a couple of blankets on the davenport to make a little bed. Mom, Dad, and Sis were just down the hall, and I knew that they weren’t ten feet away from me. As long as that door was open, they were just a few seconds away. It was cold in there, so I covered up like a mummy and just had my face out of the blankets when I heard this loud ‘Braaaaap’ and suddenly that door slammed shut.”

  A bead of sweat dripped from Moe’s forehead as he talked. He continued,“I jumped up from the davenport and forgot I was wrapped up in the blankets, so my arms and legs wouldn’t move right. I tripped and fell face first onto the floor, landing stomach-first on one of my shoes. That knocked the wind out of me. I heard another “Braaaaaap” and knew that frog was after me. I flopped around on the floor and in my panic, I knocked over a table that sat under the window, breaking one of the claw-foot legs off of it. I finally got out of the blankets and grabbed that table leg, swinging it at anything that might be in the room to get me. I knew that the carnivorous man-eating frog was after me and it would be me or him. Then I heard my dad yelling at me, pounding on the door, asking why I had moved the frog and blocked the door with it. You see, that frog had moved, let the door slam shut, then jumped back behind the door to hold it shut. Dad pushed as hard as he could against the door and couldn’t budge it.”

  Moe’s fingers twitched in the air as he talked.

  “That’s when I felt the black thing come over me. I was surrounded by a wave of cold air; it seemed to enwrap me and suck the life from me. I felt a terror so primal and deep that my heart tried to explode from my chest. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn‘t think, all I could do panic. It was a ghost, no doubt about it.”

  I could see true terror in Moe’s face. I patted the top of his hand and asked, “What happened next?”

  “Dad finally got the door open. He held a candle and I struck out, swinging that claw-foot table leg like a baseball bat at the one point of light I could see, which sent the candle sailing into the curtains, catching them on fire. My aunt and uncle didn’t have running water in the house, just a pump out back. My dad ran and grabbed the chamber pot that they had filled, prior to going to bed, and flung its nasty contents on the burning curtains, or mostly so, because quite a large portion of the liquid hit me in the face, stinging my eyes. I couldn’t see. I spun around again with the table leg and caught my dad in the small of the back, which snapped the table leg in two, sending the end of it into the window. Well, more precisely, through the window. A rush of cold air fanned the flames and finally, Mom came running in holding a blanket in her widespread arms. But in Dad’s pain, he flung his left arm backward and popped Mom right in the face, bloodying her nose, and causing her to spout off a string of profanity that would make a sailor blush. My little sister ran in and asked, ‘Why are the curtains on fire?’ while my parents writhed in agony. Finally, my uncle ran in, saw what was happening, and came back in a moment with a bucket of water. He got the fire mostly out and then threw the rest of the curtains out the front door.”

  “Oh my,” I said, visualizing the scene.

  “When everything finally calmed down, we looked for that frog. You want to know where we found it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Outside, on the front porch, staring at the front door, like it was ready to bite anyone that escaped. Everybody swore they hadn’t moved it. Just remembering it gives me the chills. In fact, I need to step outside and catch my breath for a minute.”

  “Go ahead, Moe,” I said.

  Henry and Gina stared at me, motioning with their arms, their mouths agape, asking in unison, “What did he tell you?”

  “Just your standard man-eating cast-iron haunted-frog ghost story with domestic battery, fire, and throwing of human waste.”

  “Sounds like a Tuesday to me,” Gina said.

  “Just in my world,” I said.

  A few days later I had bought a ring at the jewelry store and tried to figure out how to give it to Gina. She came to the hardware store and brought me a boxed lunch, and having expected her, I had set up a little surprise for her. I had recorded a message using the dust cameras and the recording function from the guard’s uniform and fed that signal into one of the televisions. I had recorded a message in the format of a newscast of the day. When Gina came in, I acted pre-occupied and told her I needed to finish up a repair. I turned on a Philco and said, “Tell me if you see an image.”

  Gina watched as the television screen blinked on, and smiled when recognized me on the screen.

  “This just in! Breaking news from a local hardware store, where a man is in the act of proposing to his girlfriend.”

  Gina turned to see me, kneeling before her, ring in hand. “Would you consider becoming my wife?”

  “Oh, Raka! I thought you’d never ask!”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes, Raka, that is a yes! Now kiss me, you dolt!”

  Chapter 12

  Illegal Alien

  Excerpt from Dictaphone transcription, Personal recordings of Major R. J. Friend.

  RJF: “Okay, sorry about that. I think I have the recording going now. Yes, yes, now the light is on. Please, madam, would you start over from the beginning?”

  MR: “Yes. As I was saying, I have evidence of an alien living right here, among us.”

  RJF: “An alien, ma’am? Do you mean an illegal alien?”

  MR: “Well, I guess he’s illegal. I doubt the police know about him. If so, I guess they would have taken him in by now.”

  RJF: “Where do you think he’s from, Ma’am?”

  MR: “Another planet.”

  RJF: “Uh. Ma’am, can you start with your name first?”

  MR: “Yes. My name is Mary Roush. I’m a nurse at County Memorial Hospital.”

  RJF: “Thank you, Mrs. Roush.”

  MR: “Oh, I’m not married, but I am seeing a fellow, Bill is his name. He’s the one that first told me to keep an eye on this guy.”

  RJF: “This alien from another planet, can you describe him?”

  MR: “Yes, he’s about six feet tall, probably a little shy of two hundred pounds. Not bad looking; dark hair with a bit of wave. He looks to be about twenty-five years old.”

  RJF: “He sounds like a regular Joe. Anything unusual about him? Green skin, antenna, gills, etc?”

  MR: “No, he looks human.”

  RJF: “Okay, so why did this Bill tell you to watch him?”

  MR: “The alien took his old girlfriend from him.”

  RJF: “That makes him from another planet? If so, there’s probably some guy somewhere that thinks I’m an alien.”

  MR: “No, of course not.”

  RJF: “Then what makes you think he’s an alien, Ms. Roush?”

  MR: “I heard him admit it.”

  RJF: “He admitted he was from another planet?”

  MR: “Yes, he did.”

  RJF: “Did he tell you this?”

  MR: “No. He told one of my patients. Lyle was his name. Lyle was dying from cancer, and Raka told him that he was from another planet.”

  RJF: “Raka?”

  MR: “Raka Varoule. That’s his name, silly. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  RJF: “I don’t think so, Ma’am.”

  MR: “Sorry. Anyway, I was coming back from my round and I peeked in to see Raka and Lyle talking. I waited outside until they were done. I couldn’t help but overhear them when I put my stethoscope up against the door.”

  RJF: “So you ‘accidentally’ heard this conversation?”

  MR: “Yes, quite accidentally.”

  RJF: “What was said, Ma’am?”

  MR: “Raka told Lyle about a Galactic Empire, and how he escaped from it. They are much more advanced than we are, and Lyle recognized that they would be a
threat to us. Lyle made Raka promise to protect us from the Empire.”

  RJF: “So what you are saying is that there is a man, an alien that looks exactly like a man, from a Galactic Empire that is living among us. He admitted all of this to a man on his death-bed, and was asked to protect us from the Empire?”

  MR: “Yes. That’s what I know.”

  RJF: “Ma’am, you do realize that you have called Project Bluebook. We’ve been tasked with documenting accounts of Unidentified Flying Objects. Is there anything in your story about a flying object?”

  MR: “No.”

  RJF: “Then why have you called me, Ma’am?”

  MR: “Everyone knows the UFOs are from another planet. I have evidence of one of their occupants, living in our town.”

  RJF: “And he’s six feet tall, maybe two hundred pounds, dark hair, speaks English and took your boyfriend’s ex?”

  MR: “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

  RJF: “Don’t worry Ma’am. I’ll send my best team out there to take care of this situation.”

  MR: “Oh, thank you, Major!”

  RJF: “It will be handled appropriately. No need for you to follow up on this. We have a team for cases just like this.”

  MR: “Thank you!”

  RJF: “Thank you for calling, Ms. Roush. Goodbye.”

  MR: “Goodbye!”

  RJF: “Ms. Henson, please transcribe and file under ‘crazies’.”

  End of transcription.

  Chapter 13

  Primate Dancer

  Gina had one rule for my bachelor party: “No dancing girls.” I assured her that we would abide by that rule, and made Moe and Norm swear to it. I didn’t know what to expect and promised myself that I’d stay in control, as best as I could. I looked forward to a good time but remained apprehensive all the same. Moe and Norm planned to “kidnap” me and promised I’d be back the following afternoon. Night had fallen when they picked me up, and I had to step over a metal cooler filled with adult beverages, as I got into the back seat of Norm’s old Buick. I caught my leg on it, muttering, “Son of a bitch!”