FSF, January 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  "Okay,” he said. “You go right ahead."

  Little Boozy thought of something. “Hey, Ken,” he said, as if he'd just walked in and they were starting a brand-new conversation. “How far back does your property go that way?” He pointed past the shed.

  "Couple of miles,” Ken said, lying through his teeth. In fact his land ended less than three hundred yards from Michigan Avenue, and beyond that there was forest owned by some millionaire somewhere who hadn't gotten around to selling it off for second homes. The lizard-men were appearing on the millionaire's land, but Ken thought it best to keep Little Boozy vague on that fact.

  "Huh. Like out past the pond where them beavers used to be?"

  "It's not a pond anymore,” Ken said. One of Big Boozy's last excursions beyond his property line had been a mission last fall to dynamite the beaver dam that flooded a part of an old road back in the woods. Since this road was Big Boozy's preferred route to his favorite spot to shine deer, he saw the beavers as mortal enemies. Ken hoped that someday beavers would learn how to use dynamite and get annoyed at the presence of Big Boozy's shack.

  "Well, that's the place I mean,” Little Boozy said. “Is that on your land?"

  "Boozy, I'm not going to sue your dad for trespassing so he could blow up some beavers,” Ken said.

  "I ain't worried about that,” Little Boozy said.

  Suddenly fatigued by the whole conversation, Ken considered whether he could make trouble for either of the Boswells, or with any luck both, by getting the state Department of Natural Resources interested in the Boozy Beaver Massacre. It seemed like too much trouble, plus he could only imagine what would happen if the DNR ran across the lizard-men.

  "Boozy,” he said. “What are we talking about here?"

  "We're talking about your professor,” Boozy said.

  "She's not mine,” Ken said, and he must not have done a good enough job of keeping the wistful tone out of his voice, because Boozy's jaw dropped open—a sight guaranteed to provoke avarice among dentists and nausea in just about anyone else—and his eyes got squinty with malicious glee.

  "You got a thing for the professor,” he said slowly, savoring each word like a kid newly in possession of a devastating secret about his worst playground enemy.

  "Screw,” Ken said.

  "Ha,” Boozy said. “I knew it. We'll talk about this later."

  He bulldozed his way out of Ken's office, leaving Ken to curse his lack of a poker face. If only I hadn't spent my last twenty-five years at the mercy of the Veras of the world, Ken thought. I'd be stronger. I sure as hell wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of having Little Boozy Boswell gloat about me having a schoolboy crush on a physics professor.

  Who, Ken knew, would take off to Ann Arbor or wherever she came from as soon as she got her readings. He cursed himself for a sentimental fool. Then he cursed himself some more because while he was thinking about being a sentimental fool, he grew besotted by the specter of her smile at him while they were out on the lake, and whatever resolve he might have been about to muster went poof! Just like that.

  "Fara Oussemitski,” he said out loud. He liked the sound of it.

  * * * *

  It was a slow day at Mystery Hill. The only paying customer after two o'clock was Vera of the Forked Tongue, who stationed herself next to the barn and started taking some kind of reading with a sextant. After he'd satisfied himself that she wasn't going to cause any trouble, Ken whiled away the afternoon replacing the Astroturf on the seventeenth hole, where the local teenagers liked to dance out their lizard-man tea affliction. He'd lifted the new patch of Astroturf from the back porch of a cabin just beyond his property line to the south, thinking all the while that he was going to go to hell for the theft but also that life was not going to offer him many chances to perplex absentee millionaires, so what the heck.

  He was rolling a wrinkle out of the patch and cursing the teenagers, as well as cursing Little Boozy for addicting them to his interdimensional devil juice, when the possibility presented itself that the teenagers could actually talk to the lizard-men. I mean, his train of thought went, if they're in tune with something while they're on the juice, maybe they're in tune all the way. The idea made him wish he'd seen a lizard-man while he had been on his own tea-trip. Maybe they could have conversed, and Ken could have warned them to stay away from Little Boozy lest they be turned into ranch animals in a dimension not their own. Wasn't the whole point of Timothy Leary's existence to convince people that hallucinogens would put them in touch with other realities?

  Ken willed himself to be rational. Then he reasoned that the only way to find out what went through the teenagers’ heads while they were tea-tripping was to ask them, which made him an accessory after the fact in Little Boozy's substantial contribution to the delinquency of local minors and thereby put his livelihood and freedom to walk the streets in jeopardy.

  On the other hand, if there was any kernel of truth in this deranged idea, it might keep Fara around a bit longer. His heart did a little flip at the thought.

  It was a desperate time. Ken went looking for Jamie and found her sneaking a cigarette behind the barn. “Huh. Some things never change, I guess,” he said.

  "Shit,” Jamie said. “Don't tell my parents, Ken.” Her worry, however, did not provoke her to such a drastic action as extinguishing the cigarette.

  "Your personal relationship with cancer isn't my business,” Ken said. “I'm here to ask you a crazy question."

  "Ken, if you hit on me, my dad is going to kick your ass."

  For just a second, Ken had the feeling that he wasn't quite free of the lizard-man tea. “What do you take me for?"

  "You weren't going to hit on me? Shit.” Jamie flung her cigarette to the ground and stomped on it.

  Teenagers, Ken thought. He was glad he didn't have kids.

  "Jamie,” he said, “you are the loveliest piece of untouchable jailbait in all of the Irish Hills, kiddo. Now tell me something: you ever join in with all of the kids who drink up Boozy's juice?"

  "What if I did?"

  "If you did, I have a question."

  "What if I didn't?"

  "Then I still have a question, but I need to ask it to someone else. Either way, I need your help."

  "You can't make me do anything just because you caught me smoking. I'll tell my dad you hit on me."

  "Okay, and then he'll kick my ass. Fine. You don't want to tell me, that's fine. Who should I talk to?"

  * * * *

  Armed with the name and location of one Travis Ludwig, Ken coaxed the F-150 to life and roared off to a bait shop way the hell off the other side of the lake. He found a kid matching Travis's description counting leaf worms into plastic containers that had once held chip dip. It being midafternoon, when all of the fish in the local lakes were hiding out, Ken figured that his conversation with Travis would be uninhibited by the presence of customers.

  "You Travis Ludwig?” he asked.

  Travis nodded. “Don't make me lose count."

  Ken waited until Travis had finished the container he was working on. “You know Jamie, who works over at my place?"

  "What's your place?"

  "Mystery Hill."

  Travis looked up at him. “That's your place? Your minigolf course sucks, man. And the whole gravity thing is a total scam. I can't believe the cops don't shut you down."

  For the second time in less than an hour, Ken blessed the good fortune that had made him childless. “We're getting off on the wrong foot here, kid. Do you know Jamie?"

  Travis sucked on his lip ring. “Yeah."

  "Okay. She asked me to ask you about a little something you might get from Little Boozy Boswell."

  Smelling profit, Travis brightened. “Sure, man. What do you need?"

  "I need to know about the juice. You know where it comes from?"

  "You just said Boozy. I know all about entrapment, man.” Travis turned away and started counting worms again. Ken waited with superhuman patience u
ntil the magic number of twenty was achieved.

  "Okay, Travis. I'll cut this short. What do you know about the lizard-men?"

  With exaggerated care, Travis filled the plastic container with dirt and pressed the lid down, working his thumbs around its circumference as if he'd been specially warned about the perils of escaping leaf worms. When he was done, he put the container on top of its stack in the cooler, next to the Home-Made Ham Salad Sandwiches.

  "I know exactly shit about lizard-men,” he said, but he wouldn't look Ken in the eye.

  "Travis,” Ken said. “I am here because of a woman. You understand that if I can't count on you to help me out a little, the consequences to my emotional well-being might result in you being a little gimpy the next time you want to dance around on my seventeenth green."

  "You threatening me?” Before Ken could answer, Travis whipped a butterfly knife out of his pocket and started to do something complicated with it. Ken took a step forward and snapped Travis's head back with a straight right to the nose. The butterfly knife fluttered out of Travis's hand into a box full of cigarette cartons. Travis himself fluttered down to the floor, holding his nose. On the way down he banged into a wire display, bringing down a rain of bobbers and sinkers on his head.

  Ken stood looking down at him. He felt bad. “Kid,” he said, “I shouldn't have hit you. But don't ever pull a knife on somebody when you don't know what you're doing with it."

  "You broke my nose,” Travis said through his cupped hands.

  "Nah,” Ken said. “I didn't hit you that hard.” He found the knife and put it in his pocket.

  "That's mine,” Travis said.

  "You can pick it up at the bottom of the lake. Now tell me about the lizard-men. You see them when you're on the juice?"

  Travis moved his hands far enough from his face to see that he was only bleeding from one nostril, and not very much. He wiped his fingers on his shirt and said, “Yeah."

  "You talk to them?"

  "It's not really talking.” Travis shrugged. “More like singing."

  "So I've noticed,” Ken said, thinking of his seventeenth green. “So what's it like?"

  "I don't know,” Travis said. “It's cool."

  Ken was on the verge of socking him in the nose again when the front door banged open and admitted a fat, sunburned fisherman. “You carry chubs?” he wanted to know.

  "We're all out,” Ken said, hauling Travis to his feet.

  "Damn.” The fisherman wandered to the back of the store to consult Field & Stream.

  "We're not out of chubs,” Travis said. The rattle of the aerator that kept the chubs and minnows alive in an aluminum tub kept the fisherman from hearing.

  "Travis,” Ken said. “Tell me what the lizard-men say."

  Again Travis shrugged. “It's sort of an invitation, I guess,” Travis said. “But it's not like they're real. That's just the trip."

  Good, Ken thought. Perfect. Exactly what I want you to believe.

  "How do you think you might take them up on the invitation?"

  "You're an asshole,” Travis said.

  "What I am is a desperate man, Travis,” Ken said. “Do I have to repeat myself?"

  The fisherman was meanwhile sticking a package of beef jerky in the pocket of his vest. Travis didn't notice, but Ken did. “Buddy,” he said, “you need to put that back and get out."

  "I'll pay for it,” the fisherman said. He looked annoyed, and Ken thought, what is it with people? Catch kids smoking, they want to cry rape. Catch grown men stealing beef jerky, they act like you're an IRS auditor.

  "What would you say if I told you that aliens use gravity to communicate with our dimension?” he asked the fisherman.

  Wordlessly, and with bomb-squad care, the fisherman put the beef jerky on the counter and left, never taking his eyes off Ken.

  "Now,” Ken said. “We're alone again. Do I have to repeat my question?"

  Travis thought hard. “Actually, yeah. I kind of forgot what it was. What did you say about gravity?"

  "Ask your science teacher,” Ken said. Out of the blue he was riding a wave of crazed elation, the kind of delirious pride that comes from knowing something that nobody else in the world knew—only in this case Fara knew, so it was only the two of them. That made it even better. They shared this knowledge. Ken imagined sitting on the patio of a Wamplers Lake cabin with Fara, sharing a bottle of wine and reminiscing about the time they'd discovered alien life in other dimensions. Those were the days, huh?

  He shook himself out of it. “Do you think you could actually go there?” he asked Travis ... who, predictably, shrugged again.

  "That's what they say,” he said.

  "Anybody you know done it?"

  "No.” Travis shook his head. “You have to be in a group to ... what, make it work."

  "Make what work?"

  "The singing."

  Ah. That, Ken thought, explained why he hadn't gotten an invitation the night out at Little Boozy's.

  "So when all of you get zonked on lizard-man tea and go dancing around on my seventeenth green, you talk to the lizard-men and they invite you for a visit."

  Travis's face went slack. “Lizard-man tea?"

  "Yeah, kid.” Lord save me, Ken thought. I should not be enjoying this nearly so much. “What do you think Boozy makes that stuff from?"

  One hand up as if to ward off Ken's words, or Ken himself, Travis went back around behind the counter. “I'm gonna puke,” he said. But he didn't puke. He started counting mealworms again, slow and steady, one through twenty. Ken stood watching him until he'd finished one little tub. Then he decided that, having taken one fairly drastic action in assaulting a teenager, he might as well take one more.

  "Travis,” he said. “You got any?"

  * * * *

  Three hours later, he said to Fara, “I think I have something figured out."

  He had taken her to dinner at the Zukey Lake Tavern, which was a long drive from the Irish Hills but worth it both for the company and for the distance it put between them and Little Boozy, of whom Ken was at that moment ready to believe the worst. Also they'd driven past the speedway at Brooklyn, which was where Ken discovered to his perplexity that Fara was a NASCAR fan. And not just the kind of fan who put a #8 sticker in the rear window of her car, oh no. She talked his ear off, unbidden, about the complexities of a recent race at Pocono during the course of which Mark Martin would have won had he not forgotten that Turn 3 was slippery because of a crash thirty laps previous ... and so on, and so on. Ken lost track. He wasn't into sports. But he was very into Fara, the way she lit up when she talked about something that interested her. He'd never known a woman who could suddenly luminesce when talking about either string theory or stock-car racing.

  "Anyway,” she said when she'd run out of steam on the NASCAR topic, “what did you figure out?"

  "I think I figured out how we can get Boozy off our backs and still win you your Nobel Prize,” he said.

  "Boozy?” She looked puzzled. “What's Boozy got to do with anything?"

  This was one of those moments when the only way out was straight through. “He saw us back by the pond,” Ken said. “I didn't want to tell you, but ... well, here's the thing. He's been making the lizard-men into a kind of drink."

  "Drink?”

  "Yeah, it's....” Hm, Ken thought. How to do this. Okay. “Little Boozy Boswell comes from a long line of bootleggers. Don't ask me how this happened, but one day his old man...."

  "Big Boozy,” Fara submitted, just to let him know she was still following.

  "Right,” I said. “Big Boozy ran over a lizard-man and thought it was a turtle or something, and he cooked it. He's kind of crazy. So they ate the soup, and the way Little Boozy tells it, there's no trip like it. Not ‘shrooms, peyote, nothing."

  Fara cocked her head to the side. “Ken Kassarjian,” she said, “just how much do you know about trips?"

  "Relaying information, darling,” Ken said. “I am purely a conduit her
e."

  "Darling,” she commented, and sipped her drink.

  It took the very last of Ken's self-control to not pursue that comment. “So the kids who have been tearing up my minigolf course say that you can talk to the lizard-men if you're, you know,” he said, “in tune. But you need more than one person to do it."

  "How do the kids get it?” As she said it, Fara's entire upper body quaked in a shiver that had to be exaggerated for effect. “I mean, is Boozy—Little Boozy—?"

  "Yeah, he is,” I said.

  "That son of a bitch,” Fara said.

  "Agreed. So tell me again how this gravity thing works."

  Fara pursed her lips. She had one of those perfect Cupid's-bow mouths, designed to be pursed at the transparent ruses of inferior beings such as men. “Ken, you are playing dumb. Do you think women go for that?"

  "I think I am at the Zukey Lake Tavern with a marvelous girl who is going to make her own decisions,” Ken said. “And perhaps that is as far as it should go."

  "Mm hm,” Fara said, and absently spun the stud in her lip. Their dinners arrived, and Ken tore into his chicken fried steak while Fara—here, Ken thought, was his riposte to her infuriatingly accurate insights into his own personality—went to great lengths to pretend that she wasn't picking around her Caesar salad because she didn't like it.

  "Gravity,” Ken said, just to see if it would work.

  "You asshole,” she said. “You know the whole thing. I already explained it to you."

  Ken sighed. “I can see I'm going to have to do all the hard work here,” he said. “Okay. Gravity fluctuations are really communications from another brane. Brane?"

  "Right."

  "Right. So my place is one of the ones where the communications come through, which is why Little Boozy has all of these roadkill lizard-men, and God knows where else or how else he's gotten them, to make his tea."

  "Right."

  "And the kids say that the lizard-men are inviting them somewhere."

  "Right. What?"

  "Yeah, that's what this kid says. But it only works in groups.” Ken caught himself waving his fork around with a piece of steak still attached and shedding bits of batter. He set it on his plate. “This is the good part. If they can come through, maybe we can, too. Maybe my place—"