The Book of Ralph

by Christopher Steinsvold

  Now, the reason the cover story seemed to make sense was because NASA, in 1977, had actually designed a special suit for the original bubble boy, David Vetter. This was explained to the guards. NASA’s bubble boy suit was similar to a space suit, and more importantly, it resembled Ralph’s Earth suit. In the off chance a guard might see Ralph, they’d believe Ralph was someone testing out the suit.

  All the same, the cover story did not make sense. There was no reason to have armed guards, and it was too mysterious why the secretary of defense and the national security advisor would be involved in a NASA project of a medical nature. If anyone asked, the unofficial response would be that a close friend of the president had a son suffering from the disease.

  This cover story bothered me. However, both Samantha and Francis assured me that, in the intelligence community, in this type of situation, this is how it is done.

  “The bullshittier, the better,” Francis said.

  When you want guards to take their watch seriously, you tell them a story that reeks of bullshit. Then the guards know it really is important, because they know they are being lied to. And they won’t ask questions, because they won’t want any more bullshit.

  Francis used an interesting example to argue the point: Area 51. Area 51 is a detached part of Edwards Air Force Base in Nevada, the existence of which was not even acknowledged by the U.S. government until 1995. It is notoriously claimed by conspiracy theorists to contain the remnants of a crashed alien aircraft. The main reason for the conspiracy theory, Francis confided, is because the alien aircraft rumor was the cover story leaked to the guards. Even today, the area is patrolled by guards armed with M16s, and the senior guards are still being told the same bullshit. When I asked him what was really going on there, he simply said ‘research and development.’

  Francis couldn’t resist telling me a rather ironic piece of classified information. “Area 51 does contain alien technology now,” he said, because this is where Ralph’s cylinder was ultimately taken.

  Alone, I drove north up I-270 out of DC about an hour and a half. As I approached Fort Ritchie, pavement and sunlight became scarce. It was a dark blur of dull, abandoned barracks, blank, grassy fields, and nameless dirt roads. On the side of one old building I saw a faded ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ propaganda mural from World War II. I thought of Alice Higginbotham and gripped my steering wheel tighter.

  If nowhere had a middle, this was it. I was sure Ralph would be safe.

  Approaching the small guard post, I saw a dead, fat raccoon on the side of the road, its red blood shining in my headlights. In retrospect, I’m sure it had been shot. Lieutenant Frank Barber stepped out into the light, looked at my face, looked at his clipboard, looked at Ralph’s new home in the distance and then back at me.

  “Give me your phone.”

  He meant the pink phone Francis gave me. I handed it over, he used some type of scanning device on it, and handed it back. His gaze caught mine, and I could tell he wanted to talk. Frank Barber was a quiet man, quiet because he thought all men should be quiet. He was accustomed to being sure of himself, and something had tweaked his confidence.

  “Proceed.”

  I started to drive up the thin driveway when something neon green flew down in a flash onto my windshield, covering the center of it. I floored my brakes and froze as my car skidded tight on the gravel. In my rearview mirror, I saw Lieutenant Barber rushing up.

  “Is everything . . . What the hell is that?” he asked, reaching for his sidearm.

  “Everything is all right, Lieutenant—it’s just a luna moth.”

  If you’d never seen a luna moth, you’d react the same. They are so big and green and strange, people often assume they’re not real on a first encounter. The one on my windshield was abnormally large, with a wingspan over a foot. The strangest part was the timing. Luna moths are not seen at that time of year.

  “There has been some unusual . . . animal activity in the area . . . sir.”

  Lieutenant Barber reached to remove the moth when a shrill screech blared above the car. All I saw was a flying sheet of brown feathers with talons. A beautiful bald eagle hurled itself onto the car, wingspan spread over the windshield, and snatched the delicate green moth in its feet and launched back up into the night.

  “Bald eagles don’t hunt at night,” I said, as if to argue away what just happened in front of my face. When I looked up, Lieutenant Barber was crouching for cover beside the car with his sidearm drawn. A half minute of welcomed silence passed.

  “You weren’t about to shoot a bald eagle, were you?” I asked with a smile.

  “Negative, sir,” he said, rubbing his bald head with the palm of his hand.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. That will be all.”

  But the lieutenant stayed.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  I made a minor calculation in my head and sighed.

  “No. Permission not granted . . . Good night, Lieutenant.”

  “. . . Good night, sir.”

  I rolled up my window and proceeded up the driveway, slowly. It was rude as hell to dismiss the lieutenant’s desire to talk, but I was too afraid of any questions he might ask. After what happened with Alice Higginbotham, I had to avoid situations where I’d risk revealing information about Ralph.

  As I pulled closer to Ralph’s place, I saw a dozen or so birds on the roof, mostly crows. Judging from the bouncing movements, silhouetted against the moon, the birds were having sex.

  More captivating than the birds were the sounds emanating from Ralph’s new home. When I turned off the ignition, I stopped to listen. Rhythmic muffled yells and moans burst through the walls to fill the air so loudly I feared Lieutenant Barber might hear.

  I assumed Ralph was watching pornography at maximum volume—the woman’s voice was obviously amplified. As I walked closer to the entrance, I heard another voice, a quieter one, syncopated with the female’s pulsing moans of pleasure.

  The other voice was Ralph’s. The couple’s outbursts were not all incoherent moans. Words were being spoken, but I couldn’t understand them. I proceeded to the front door with a slow caution.

  I was ten paces from the door when it cracked open. Illumination behind the door drew a skinny rectangle of light outside, and from a shadow I knew something was moving behind the door. Two wild raccoons were on their way out. They scampered by me casually onto the soft grass and into the darkness.

  Inside, my eardrums were pounded by the sounds of sex amplified throughout the house, and I was surprised to see four white rabbits in the center of the room not mating. An empty bag of Doritos lay nearby.

  “C’est bon. C’est bon. Oui. Oui. C’est bon,” she screamed repeatedly. “Oh, oui. Oui. Vas-y, ne t’arrêtes pas, continue. . . Oh, oui, oh, c’est bon. . .”

  When the French woman finally exploded, she and Ralph spoke softly to one another for a few minutes while I waited downstairs. I scared the rabbits outside and then cleared my throat loudly to let Ralph know I had arrived. After another minute, Ralph bounced downstairs to meet me, chipper as ever.

  “Salut, Markus,” Ralph said, greeting me with the accent of a native Frenchman.

  “What was all that about?”

  “Oh, I’m sure I shouldn’t tell.”

  “Ralph, I’m your guardian. You shouldn’t keep secrets from me.”

  “Yes, of course, but one shouldn’t kiss and tell, isn’t that right?”

  “I think we can make an exception, under the circumstances.”

  “Well, that was my new friend Stéphanie. I was teaching her how to have phone sex.”

  “Why was it so loud?” I asked, somehow managing to ignore every other question raised by Ralph’s statement.

  “I hooked the speakerphone up to the stereo system. I find it much more erotic this way, don’t you?”

  “I . . . How do you even know her?”

  “We met online last night
in a chat room for lonely people. I like her.”

  “I hate to ask,” I said, hating myself, “but she does not know you’re an alien, right?”

  “No. I told her I was a secret agent. She didn’t believe me, but I had to tell her something. She just laughed when I told her that. She has such a great laugh. You should hear it. You want to talk to her? Let’s call her back.”

  “My French is trés terrible.”

  “It’s okay, she speaks English too. She’s really good.”

  “No. Ralph, really, I’m not talking to her. I’m just trying to understand—who is she?”

  “Oh, she’s a nice Parisian, unhappily married. Stéphanie really needed a friend. It was sad . . . a smart and sexy-sounding French woman who doesn’t know much about sex. We chatted online, then on the phone, and the next thing I know, she’s putting a courgette in her trou du cul. I think she’s Catholic.”

  Amid the swarming ludicrousness of the situation, my conscience hung on the idea of Ralph having phone sex with a married woman. I dodged my masculine curiosity—which wanted to know how he could seduce a woman so quickly. As Ralph’s terrestrial guardian, moral instruction seemed more appropriate.

  “Ralph, you really shouldn’t be . . . facilitating that sort of thing.”

  “Facilitating?” he asked.

  “She’s married, Ralph.”

  “Oh dear,” Ralph said. “I hadn’t really thought of it like that.”

  “Like what exactly?” I said, wanting to be sure Ralph understood.

  “Like, she was cheating on her husband,” he said, sounding guilty. “I don’t want to break up her marriage.”

  “No, you don’t,” I said. “Even though it was only over the telephone, I know her husband would be angry. You must realize this.”

  My concern for Ralph exposing his alien identity had metamorphosed into a concern for saving an anonymous marriage across the Atlantic Ocean. For a moment, I thought I had made my point.

  “But I was trying to help her. I think you’re wrong, Markus. Her husband wouldn’t be mad.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m an alien with no penis.”

  XX

  INTERVIEW

  Ralph had an inhuman capacity to gain pleasure from other’s pleasure and was constantly interested in giving pleasure. Lost in my own head, I wondered how pleasurable life was on Ralph’s planet. Certainly, human life had become more pleasurable over the centuries, so a more advanced life-form would experience even more pleasure, on average.

  I recalled how he described his home planet in the Oval Office—no violence and no competition for resources. Perhaps he was overidealizing his home planet; being homesick could do that. But his planet sounded suspiciously like heaven. For a quick second, I laughed nervously, wondering if Ralph was some outrageous angel. The thought flickered in my mind and distanced me from him.

  “You don’t think I’m a bad person, do you?” Ralph asked, holding my hand.

  I didn’t answer. Flustered, I decided to drop the conversation about Stéphanie.

  I returned to another matter, more immediately practical.

  “Why were there raccoons in here?” I asked.

  “I fed them. I would have fed the possums too, but they got scared.”

  “We’re doing all this to protect you . . . Raccoons can be dangerous.”

  “They live here. I don’t mind. I like them. Can I get a golden retriever?”

  “I’ll ask Francis,” I said insincerely.

  “Markus,” Ralph started, changing his tone, “you look banged up. Are you okay? Did Samantha hurt you?”

  “I’m okay, thanks. I got into a fight last night at a bar.”

  “Violence?” he said, shaking a bit. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. I was drunk. I don’t really remember . . .” I started and then, surprising myself, decided to say something personal. It had been on my mind ever since I met Ralph. I knew I’d tell him, eventually.

  “Ralph, there’s something I want you to know—”

  “About your fight? I don’t want to hear it. Don’t try to impress me with your barbaric ways of violence.”

  “No, not that. It’s about me.”

  “Then don’t worry. You can tell me. I like you,” he said.

  “. . . I’ve always had a fear of aliens,” I blurted. “Not just a fear, a phobia. Since I was a kid, I’ve had nightmares, painful nightmares, about aliens . . .”

  Ralph went silent for a moment.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

  “No, not you.”

  “Do you like me?”

  “. . . Yes,” I said and Ralph laughed at me.

  “This fear of yours . . . It is important,” Ralph said, sounding serious. “We are very lucky to have met. This is a good sign.”

  “. . . Well, yes, it has importance. I mean, it has affected me since childhood. I’m still somewhat afraid of the dark because of it, and . . . It isn’t easy to say that.”

  “Yes, of course. Of course it is important to you, but I mean, it is important for reasons that may go beyond you.”

  The downstairs half of the barracks was bare. The only thing that stood out was the empty bag of Doritos on the carpet Ralph had been feeding the raccoons with. Ralph did not eat Doritos. The carpenters must have left a bag behind.

  “Come upstairs to the attic with me. The downstairs is uneventful.”

  With my guidance, Ralph floated and bounced himself up the refurbished stairs. He proudly introduced me to his entertainment center: an all-access satellite television, stereo system, and a PC with DSL Internet access running through the old phone lines. He put on some hip-hop music and began jumping and twisting.

  “Just put your hands in the attic and wave them like you’re apathetic,” Ralph rapped.

  “We’re not dancing tonight, Ralph,” I said as I turned off the stereo. “Tonight, we are going to watch television like normal people do, to enrich their lives. And we’re going to discuss ways to keep you busy.”

  “I must say, I have seen thousands of hours of your television. I get the basic idea.”

  “I’m sure, but tonight, the president is doing a live interview on TV. We should watch.”

  “Cindy will be on the TV? She’s so dreamy.”

  “You’re on a first-name basis with the president? When did you speak with her?”

  “She visited me in the bowling alley. We didn’t bowl or anything . . . I suppose she needed to see me with her eyes. I like to look at her eyes.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Oh, you would have been bored. It was mostly the sort of things we talked about in the Oval Office the other day.”

  “Okay, but what about the Kardashians?”

  “There’s too much uncertainty right now, but she agrees with the most important thing.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She won’t preemptively attack the Kardashians when they come, and Samantha agreed. Strangely, Francis kept suggesting a preemptive attack, but I was just being the Kardashians’ lawyer.”

  “You were being what? The Kardashians’ lawyer? What are you talking about?”

  “Ha,” Ralph shouted, delighted by his own verbal mix-up. “Oh dear, I mean Francis, he was just playing devil’s advocate. Ha. What a boner. Please forgive and forget. Oh dear, in any case, your females are much more rational when it comes to applying violence. I believe we are all very lucky.”

  Relieved, I turned on the television, and we waited for the president’s interview to begin. Ralph moved over to his computer and began to type. It was difficult for him to type with his Earth mittens.

  “Darn human keyboard,” he groaned. I could tell from his hand motions he wanted to take his mittens off.

  “The interview will start any minute.”

  “One second. I’m just updating my Facebook status.”

  “You’re on Facebook?”

  “Of course,” he said, “aren’t
you?”

  I was still surprised with how familiar Ralph was with our Internet. I was naïve.

  “I would very much enjoy a Cray supercomputer. Do you think that can happen?”

  “They’re very expensive.”

  “Money is no problem,” Ralph said, strangely casual. I was inclined to ask him exactly what he meant, but the interview started.

  The Oval Office looked nothing like it did two days prior when Ralph arrived. In fact, it looked its usual stately self. Even the wine stain on the carpet had vanished.

  Gwen Ifill was interviewing. After a simple exchange of pleasantries, the two pant-suited women sat down across from each other on couches. On the table in front of them lay refreshments: A plain glass of water for Gwen Ifill, and for the president, a glass of Diet Coke with lemon.

  “Madame President, I have many questions for you, but I am compelled to start with the most recent. In an article today in the New York Times, Markus West was quoted saying the Secret Service was surprised when the gigantic can of chicken noodle soup showed up on East Executive Avenue,” she said, pointing. “Is that true?”

  “I think it is safe to say that no matter how much you prepare for a 400-foot-tall can of soup to float down near the White House, it will always be surprising,” the president said, causing Gwen Ifill to smile. “There was indeed some miscommunication and misunderstanding which Dr. West keenly picked up on, but overall, the situation was under control. There were no real surprises.”

  The president’s response was perfect. With a few words, she defused any malevolent curiosity into the subject, and as a perfect coda to her great lie, she casually took a drink of Diet Coke.

  “I’m impressed with how efficiently she yields a falsehood,” Ralph said.

  “I have a few more questions on the subject, and my friends in the art world would kill me if I didn’t ask you,” Ifill started with a small smile, “Madame President, who is the artist?”

  The president smiled and took one last sip from her soda. Ifill smiled expectantly, but within seconds, her interest and tone shifted.