I put in my two cents. “I have to say, we do have freedom of religion in America. If someone wants to join some whacky religion, there isn’t much we can do, right?”
Francis and Samantha gave the nod to my constitutional reminder.
“Then what happens to the converts?”
“They’ll become loyalists of the Kardashians, willing loyalists, and they are the ones you need to worry about. There is no telling what the converts will do to convert other humans.”
“Wait . . . These aliens have some sort of policy where they won’t force humans to convert, but the human converts will force others to convert? That . . . doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes as much sense as the followers of Jesus creating the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades,” Ralph said with a poignant snicker. “The Kardashians are dangerous, but they will only prey on your minds. The real danger will be the converts who will do anything for their false gods. And eventually, when the Kardashians are done, they will take the converts with them and depart Earth.”
“And then what?”
“And then that’s it. You’ll never hear from the Kardashians or the converts again.”
“All the converts will just go with them? Leaving everything behind?”
“The Kardashians will promise to bring them to heaven.”
When Ralph said it, it all became clear and real. Francis and Samantha stopped talking. Until that point, it was as if we were adults debating a political issue in an afternoon coffee klatch. There’s a reason why so many people believe in an afterlife, and part of the reason is a rest from the weariness of life.
“Why should we trust you?” Francis, like the rest of us, was tired, and his questions were getting sloppy. “How do we even know these Kardashians are evil? Maybe you’re the devil, and they really are prophets . . .”
I suspected Ralph would be offended, but he simply did not respond.
“Who sent you?” Francis asked with accusation.
“Francis, calm down,” Samantha said. “The truth is as Ralph said earlier, there’s nothing he can do to fully gain our trust. It is all about what he doesn’t do. And he hasn’t really done anything except talk.”
As Samantha spoke, Ralph stood up, took the scrap crusts of the pizza, and approached the windows of the Oval Office. I followed close behind. Just as Samantha was done speaking, Ralph grabbed for the drapes. I helped him.
With the drapes pulled back, everyone inside saw what was outside. At least a hundred ordinary pigeons, completely quiet and motionless, lurked right outside the Oval Office. All of their eyes pointed at us, and none of them expressed a shiver of fear when I pulled back the drapes.
“Could you help me,” Ralph said quietly, pointing to the door handle.
I opened the door. With some difficulty, he broke the soft bread into smaller pieces and tossed them to the pigeons. But the pigeons were more interested in staring at Ralph than eating his bread. Samantha looked at me, and Francis turned away. I heard Ralph whisper.
“What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward, you will understand.”
XIII
NIGHT
All of us, including Ralph, were exhausted physically and mentally, and the quality of our thinking was dwindling. Though much had been said, the president would decide the course of action.
“We are all worn down. I’m calling it a night,” I said.
This we agreed upon.
Francis found plain white sheets to cover Ralph as we slowly led him to the bowling alley, though the inadvertent ghost costume didn’t muffle Ralph’s underlying pink glow. Every area we encountered, Francis would go ahead to make sure no one was in front of us. Then, we’d escort Ralph through, carrying him to make the trip quicker. Being mostly vacant, our path through the White House was straightforward and unseen. When we arrived at the bowling alley, there were two cots set up.
“Ralph, go inside and get comfortable. I have to talk with my fellow humans,” Francis said. Ralph gave me and Samantha a warm hug, then bounced into his temporary shelter. Francis stepped outside with us and shut the door.
“I’m keeping Ralph company tonight. I need you two to get some rest.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “What is Ralph going to eat? What does he eat?” In the swarm of earlier questions, we had missed these practical matters. “How much sleep does he need? And what are you going to do with the gigantic can of soup outside?”
“Your job as guardian doesn’t start just yet. Take these.” Francis put out his hands revealing two small, pink, and seemingly identical cell phones.
He stuck out his arm to me, but as I reached to take the phone, he paused and pulled it back. “Sorry,” he said, then gave me the other phone. Despite everything, there was still a political hierarchy, and I was not at the same level as Samantha.
“This is the dedicated Ralph phone, got it? Don’t use it for anything else. The relevant phone numbers are programmed in. Samantha, you stay at the White House tonight. Use one of the guest rooms. Same for you, Markus. I’m going to get some rest and catch up on my more terrestrial work. Good night.”
He closed the door. It all felt too quick. I felt an urge to stop him, but I didn’t. I knew I’d be alone with Samantha.
Given our choice of guest rooms in the White House, I was aiming for the Lincoln Bedroom. It was Lincoln’s original office in the White House. A holograph of the Gettysburg Address, signed by Lincoln, was on the desk. I had to see it.
“I’m sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom,” Samantha said as she brushed a few hairs out of her face and smiled. “What about you?”
“Oh, I was hoping to sleep there too.”
“Well, that is quite forward of you, Dr. West. Should we get some wine?”
“I meant—” But I didn’t say what I meant. Samantha put her hand in the cup of mine.“What did you mean?” she said in my ear.
“I meant . . . Yes.”
It was a silent walk to the empty White House kitchen, and I took every chance to glance at her. Any opportunity to brush my body against hers was taken. Finding the wine racks, I took an Australian Shiraz for our one-night bedroom.
I opened the door to the Lincoln Bedroom as she opened her jacket and took it off. With the door open, we walked inside, and she dropped her jacket on the floor.
I uncorked the wine and poured quickly as she snuck up behind me and touched my neck.
“Full glass?” I asked.
“Yes.”
We took our glasses to the bed and sat close. A teenage delight of anticipation warmed me, and the red wine felt like pure liquid health in my veins—a blood transfusion from Dionysus. We drank greedily and stared at each other in silence.
“This is . . . wild,” she said, licking the corner of her lips with the tip of her tongue.
I rubbed her lower back and moved closer. She rubbed my thigh.
“I mean . . . I am feeling . . . really . . . wild.”
We slammed the rest of our wine and stared at each other. She burped and laughed as I placed our glasses on the floor. I kissed her, and she whispered in my ear.
“Do whatever you want to me . . . use me.”
XIV
MORNING
I awoke the next morning with a shake.
Out the window I saw a Chinook heavy transport helicopter towing the monstrous cylinder away. High-tension towing cables, linked to the base of the helicopter, sprouted out from within the open lid of the cylinder. Multicolored tarps had been lamely connected and draped over the cylinder, but it was futile. Throughout the day, residents of America took pictures of the towed cylinder as it flew overhead, and uploaded them to social media sites. Putting all the locations of the amateur photos together, it was clearly headed west. The last photo was taken in southern Nevada.
“Hey, handsome, where’s the coffee?” Samantha said. “My God, where’s the cylinder?”
“They just towed it away,” I said, as if it were an illegally parked can.
“Francis . . . Listen, Markus . . . Things got pretty wild last night. I want you to know—”
“Don’t worry your sexy little head.”
“Wait, I want you to know that I’m not always like that . . . in bed, I mean.”
I smiled, unsure what to say. But it confirmed that Ralph’s presence, somehow, sexually excited her too. I hugged her and kissed her forehead. I wanted to stay in bed with her all day.
“What did Ralph tell you yesterday, in the Oval Office, when I was in the restroom?” Samantha smiled, and I pressed. “He told you something personal, about yourself, didn’t he?”
“He told me that he knew . . .” she started to say, but her words blurred into laughter. She pulled the white covers over her head and continued. “He knew I wanted to . . . mate with you.”
We laughed as a knock hit the door.
“Can I come in?” Francis asked.
“No,” we barked. Basic decency overrode national urgency, and Francis left. We looked at each other like naughty teenagers.
“Take it easy. I’ll fetch some coffee,” I said.
Taking my shirt from the desk revealed what I had forgotten: the holograph of the Gettysburg Address. I tried to sound like President Lincoln and read the start aloud, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Samantha applauded and smiled.
“Get the coffee, Abe, and a sewing kit for the buttons on my shirt, you animal.”
I got dressed and headed to the kitchen. I was not surprised to be intercepted by Francis. There was intensity under his tired face.
“No sleep?” I asked.
“Not much.”
“How was Ralph last night?”
“Not as much fun as Samantha.”
“It’d be nice if you kept that quiet.”
“If you can stay quiet about Ralph, I can stay quiet about you and Samantha.”
“That’s a deal . . . You learn anything interesting from Ralph?”
Francis smiled. He had learned many things and was enjoying trying to pick just one. The academic in him resurfaced, and he brightened.
“Ralph showed me his numeral system, the standard symbols his people use for numbers. It’s geometric and far less arbitrary, very different from ours,” he said, and I raised my eyebrows. “Our symbol for one, the single vertical dash, is their symbol for two.”
“So what’s their symbol for one?”
“Just a single dot, a period,” he said, then his phone rang, and he answered. It was the president, and Francis immediately walked into an empty room nearby and shut the door. I now wish I had asked about Ralph’s numerals more, but was distracted by the thought of my night with Samantha. Francis returned and snapped me out of my reverie.
“Looks as if I’m out of a job,” Francis said, smiling.
“What?”
“The president has asked me to step down, and I’ve agreed.”
“I don’t get it. This is punishment for something?”
“No, no, no,” he said. “There’s no way I can deal with this and remain the national security advisor. The president wants to keep all of this in a tight circle, and she wants me to manage the circle, so I’m stepping down.”
“But, won’t that look . . . suspicious?”
“Suspicious? What will people suspect . . . aliens? I have people monitoring major and minor news sources. Journalists and bloggers are talking about soup and art.”
“Right . . . but still . . . a big can of soup lands on the White House lawn, and suddenly the national security advisor resigns? Won’t people think that is . . . strange?”
“If Ralph’s time line is right, these aliens will be here in two more days. By then, no one will be thinking about me. So let’s talk about you. The president wanted me to double-check with you: you still want the job, being Ralph’s guardian?”
“Yes.”
“OK. We’re going to find Ralph a place to live. It will be in the middle of nowhere. Your job, for now, is enrichment.”
“Enrichment? You mean, what zookeepers do to keep the animals from getting bored?”
“Precisely.”
XV
RELEASE
Francis had fabricated a simple press release for the White House. It was an elegant piece of misinformation about the cylinder, released the day of Ralph’s arrival, but I didn’t see it until the following day, January 29. It distracted the public enough in the short term, but would cause problems as time went on.
The press release in full:
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
January 28, 2022
For Immediate Release
Statement by the President on the Occasion of
International Creativity Month
The White House teamed up with a well-known but secretive European street artist to give the American people a hearty January surprise while bringing awareness to International Creativity Month. Our friend prefers to remain anonymous (but feel free to guess), and we thank him for his outstanding participation.
The press release requires some remarks.
First, January really is International Creativity Month, and the public had no problem believing the cylinder was a piece of art. Also . . . I can’t resist mentioning that January is National Soup Month—I learned this from Ralph.
Second, the release fit with the theory that Banksy, the famous international street artist, created the cylinder. With his typically surprising, and illegal, public displays of art, Banksy was an easy target of speculation. And, since Banksy’s actual identity is still a mystery, it was impossible to deny he was responsible.
Third, January 28, the day the cylinder arrived, is the birthday of Claes Oldenburg, another international artist. For many years later, experts in the art world would enjoy correcting those who thought Warhol was the dominant inspiration by informing them it was obviously a tribute to Claes Oldenburg.
Claes Oldenburg is internationally known for making gargantuan statues of everyday objects: a ninety-six-foot-tall baseball bat, standing on edge, in Chicago; a forty-foot-tall ice-cream cone, seemingly dropped upside down on the roof of a building, in Cologne, Germany; a fifty-nine-foot-high needle with thread in Milan, Italy; the forty-five-foot-tall clothespin at City Hall in Philadelphia; a forty-one-foot-tall trowel in the Pepsico Sculpture Garden of Purchase, New York (and another one in the Netherlands); a fifty-foot-high handsaw sticking in the Earth in Tokyo; a giant blue pickax stuck in the Earth in Kassel, Germany; near eighteen-foot-high shuttlecocks in Kansas City; and a variety of other everyday objects, each scaled upward to hundreds of times the normal size, sprinkled around the Earth.
Fourth, the release never actually mentions the cylinder and is short on details. When one deceives, it is best to do so minimally. With less lies, there are less ways to be found out.
But not everyone was satisfied with the press release.
XVI
INQUIRY
I left without saying ‘good-bye’ to Ralph, expecting to see him again soon.
At home, something unusual happened and it scared me. My home phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Hi. Is this Dr. Markus West?”
I did not recognize the voice. She sounded young and worn out.
“Yes.”
“Hi, Dr. West, I’m Alice Higginbotham from the New York Times, and I was hoping I could ask you some questions. Is this a good time?”
I petrified. I took a moment to put on my game face . . . and remembered I never had one. As a grown man, I was fully capable of making an excuse and hanging up, but the questioning voice of a young woman awakened my professorial manner.
“What is this in reference to?”
“I’d like to ask you some questions about your experience at the White House yesterday.”
I paused and said the worst thin
g possible.
“How did you know I was at the White House?”
There was a pause, and I heard the worst thing possible.
“I won’t reveal my sources, Dr. West.”
“Your sources . . .”
“It is a matter of journalistic integrity not to reveal one’s sources, Dr. West, and I would bring shame upon myself and the historic integrity of the New York Times should I disobey this essential rule of journalism.”
Alice Higginbotham was a pot-smoking college student and an intern for the Arts Section of the New York Times. Of course, I didn’t know this, and right then, it felt as if she was Woodward and Bernstein. She wasn’t even majoring in journalism. She studied art history at NYU. She didn’t know I was at the White House, but when I asked her how she knew, she knew.
Her bosses at the New York Times had been trying to get a quote from anyone who was at the White House the previous day. When they failed, they kicked the job down to her. Spunky, persistent, and thorough, she compiled a list of everyone working for the White House, searched for any number she could find, and called them. When that led nowhere, she called me out of sheer desperation—she thought that maybe, because of my involvement with the lunar advertisement, I might be involved with the cylinder. She gave everyone the same leading line she gave me.
“What exactly do you want to know?” I said.
“Are you familiar with the press release from yesterday regarding International Creativity Month?”
“I read it.”
“Why won’t the White House reveal the identity of the European street artist responsible for the . . . large can of soup . . . in front of the White House, I mean.”
“Well, you know how these artists are; they don’t want to look too connected to the establishment and government and whatnot.”
“Do you know the identity of the artist?”
“. . . I believe that’s classified.”
“Classified?” she asked, slowed by her own surprise. “Why would it be classified?”
The Book of Ralph Page 9