Earth Man (15 page)

             
Phil took Danny out in the woods for an expedition, although this time they were not hunting or killing anything. Phil wanted to scout out Christmas trees, but that was really just an excuse to walk around and drink beer. The trees had shifted color since the last time Danny had seen them. The last time they’d been out there Danny had felt like a murderous intruder, stalking his prey. Now Danny felt a sense of calm and peace, a sense of quite solitude within the greenery that felt almost as nice as home. Almost, but not quite.

“
Sure is beautiful up here in the winter. Monica used to hate it.” Phil said.

“
Have you talked to her recently?” Danny asked.

“
Oh yeah. Dennis is moving out now, finally. She came by yesterday to see him, help him pack his stuff.”

“
How’d that go?”

Phil raised
an eyebrow as he drank his beer.

“
How do you think? I don’t think Monica liked white people all that much before I left her for a white girl. Linda could pull her out of the mouth of a shark, stitch her legs back on and give her a heart like the wizard of motherfuckin’ Oz and she’d still hate her.” 

Danny couldn
’t help but smile. He’d known Monica for years, but Phil’s stories of her made her seem like a mythical Bigfoot bitch of an ex-wife.

             
Suddenly a large male fox darted out from behind a large stump, its fur more white than orange. It froze and Danny and Phil did the same. Instead of sniffing the air, the fox just glared at them as if daring them to move, threatening them with its golden brown eyes. Danny exhaled slowly and the fox, as if hearing his breath, turned and darted away without a second glance. Both men looked at each other and then continued walking on the beaten trail through the forest.

“
How are you doing Danny? You’ve been pretty shitty since that thing almost killed you.” Phil asked.

“
Exactly like you’d expect when you almost die. Twice.” Danny sighed.

“
These powers are amazing but I don’t know what to do with them. How do I find these monsters and can I even beat them? In my head I saw worlds full of life, alien beings in the billions, consumed by those disgusting alien things. How can the speed of a beaver stop that?”

“
Maybe we need another hunting trip.” Phil said sarcastically.

“
I didn’t want to hunt the first time, Phil! I need to figure out a way to make this work for me and my family. I need to start pulling my weight, making some money so Helen doesn’t have to work so hard.”

“
And so you can pay Linda for babysitting,” Phil said jokingly.

The truth was that Danny was scared. The initial rush of power and importa
nce had faded and now he was looking at the truth; there were horrible monsters out there that could destroy him and his family. The fate of the Earth and all the people living on it were now his responsibility. That was a great weight to bear and he doubted there was anyone who could understand that. There was no one else who had seen what he’d seen and he knew there was no one who could ever really understand.

“
But in all seriousness, I think I know who can help.” Phil said.

“
Who?” Danny asked.

“
Monica.”

“
Your ex-wife!?”

“
Yeah. She was bragging about her new life in Eureka, living the L.A. lifestyle, bragging about all the famous black entertainers she gets to meet. Apparently she’s dating this big shot talent agent for the Conan Jones Show. I guess he’s a talent agent, I don’t know what you call that shit. Either way, I’ll ask her for a favour.”

“
You’d do that for me?”

“
It will be a whole lot like making a deal with the devil, but why not? It pays a bit of money, somewhere between three hundred to a couple thousand.”

“
You think she’d do it though?”

“
Listen bro, if I beg her for something she is going to gloat over it forever. She’ll do it, with a big shit-eating grin. And what will I lose? A bit of pride? Pride’s overrated. Our boy is all grown up anyway, so I don’t really have much to lose.”

Danny was speechless, so instead he wrapped his arms around his larger friend and hugged him tight.

“Alright easy,” Phil said awkwardly.

“
Me. On TV.” Danny said, letting his friend go.

“
You’ve already been on TV and all over the internet. Now it’s time to cash in, right?”

The two men each took a new
beer, twisted the bottles open and banged them together; the bubbles foamed up and over their hands. They didn’t care. For the first time in weeks, Danny cracked a smile.

Conan Jones took the stage and the audience went wild. As Phil had promised it had been easy enough to get Danny a spot on the show. He heard the crowd cheer from backstage as the wild-haired Iri
shman took the microphone dramatically, giving them all his trademarked ‘jazz-hands’.

“
Ello, Ello, Ello my lovely audience! You are all looking mmmm-marvelous today!”

Danny was beginning to sweat.
Freshly shaven and with his first real haircut in ages, he looked good, his new short military style crew cut suited his face. He’d worn a great suit, gray with a black shirt and blue tie. There were other guests in the room with him but they were all regular people, the movie stars had a private room. One guy sat with a dog that occasionally danced around him. He turned on the TV in the room to see the show live, it made him feel better seeing the comedian rather just hear him through the walls. There is he was in Hollywood, California and it was just as bizarre as he’d expected.

“
I’ve decided to stop drinking. I know, I know, they’ll revoke my citizenship back home. But I’ve got no choice. No choice. I’m tired of waking up hung over in my car doin’ ninety on the freeway.”

The cheering crowd seemed to vibrate the
walls and the comedian, a true professional, continued the jokes rolling to keep the momentum.

“
Another election coming up here the U.S. Crazy place, this United States. Seems like every year the candidates get dumber and dumber, don’t they? Compare Reagan to Bush, or Al Gore to JFK. At this rate, in twenty years they’ll be voting for dogs. Speaking of which, we’ve got the internet sensation, Caddie the Dancing Dog on the show tonight.”

Once again the studio reverberated with the sound of applause.

“Of course, I’m sure the cats will do everything they can to oppose the dog candidates, but that’s American politics for you, folks!”

Two men with ear pieces entered the waiting room, one in a suit, the other dressed in k
hakis and a t-shirt. The man in the t-shirt ushered the owner of Caddie the Dancing Dog toward the stage, while the man in the suit just looked around the room, his intense eyes studying everyone until they landed on Danny. The man said nothing, but Danny could tell there was a flicker of recognition in the man’s face. The man in the t-shirt worked for the show, the logo on his shirt identified him, but the man in the suit was obviously a stranger.

             
The second guest after the dancing dog was a mildly famous actress from a daytime sitcom about werewolves called Wolves of Passion. He’d never heard of it, but he was sure at some point Raymond had mentioned it to him. The actress was a fake redhead and Danny wondered what Helen would think of her back at home, watching on TV. The man in the suit was still watching him, occasionally turning his head slightly while he listened to something in his ear piece. The rigid, formal body language and the perfect black suit made Danny think of secret government organizations and Men in Black conspiracies.

‘
There couldn’t actually be Men in Black,’ Danny thought, but then again he never thought there could ever be real aliens, either. Or living planets. The five hundred dollars they were paying him for his appearance didn’t seem worth it, even though he’d gotten a free airline ticket which he managed to cash in too, using his own powers to fly. His air travel speed was increasing every time he flew. He had reached a point where he didn’t even need to duplicate a bird’s ability, the energy inside him allowed him to simply think himself into the air. Although he had no way of tracking his own speed, he guessed that he was moving at least two hundred miles an hour.

It was too late for him now, but Danny suddenly realized going to the United States had been a dangerous
mistake. Sneaking in had made it even worse. He had no way of knowing what Americans had thought of the video, or what information their government had about the Growth. They could know everything or nothing at all. Or worse, they might even believe
he
was an alien. After all he was one of a kind now and there was no other like him on Earth. When the man in the khakis ushered him forward, Danny gave the man in the suit a dirty look and walked past him.

             
The crowd gave a modest applause as Danny took a seat between Conan and his co-host, the incredibly huge man with an even bigger beard, Freddie Mack.

“
Danny Boyle, ladies and gentleman! A good strong Irish name!” said Conan as they shook hands.

The band
played bagpipe sounds and Danny tried not to grimace at their upbeat version of Danny Boy. He sat down in the sticky leather chair and waited for the crowd to stop cheering for their host.

“
You’re the son of the famous motorcycle stunt man, aren’t you? Ronnie Boyle, the Canadian Evel Knievel?”

“
Uh yeah. Yes sir.” Danny replied shyly.

“
Now that you’ve got your fifteen minutes, how does it feel?” asked Freddie in his deep baritone voice.

“
Well uh, actually I never even noticed. Not until today anyway.”

“
Well now you’re in front of the whole world and I’ll tell you, there’s one question we’ve all got on our minds.” Conan said very quietly. “Let’s roll the clip first, then we’ll get to it. Alright?”

Danny merely nodded and the screen behind him began to show th
e footage taken from the police cruiser that arrived at the scene, cut with footage taken from someone’s cell phone.

Sitting there in the hot seat, the crowd in front of him, Danny did his best to keep his eyes on the screen.
Watching it unfold from the outside, seeing the black blurry, distorted creature he’d fought, Danny realized how incredibly stupid he’d been to go on television. There was no way he could talk about it, not to some talk show host and a crowd of people who thought a dancing dog was the epitome of entertainment. A few people in the crowd let out a gasp as he seemed to magically defeat the creature, then somehow take to the air to escape. When it was over, the crowd murmured and whispered their theories. The eyes of a hundred people locked on Danny, full of distrust and suspicion.

With a wave of his hand, Conan silenced the crowd and then very carefully he leaned closer to Danny.
The entire stage seemed suddenly too small and everyone seemed to be right close to him, looking at him in shock and horror at what they’d seen.

“
Tell me Mr. Boyle, Danny, was this a bit of magic on your part? Perhaps a set-up?”

Danny looked around, not sure what he meant.
He thought he was breathing too fast through his nose and he rubbed it quickly, the cameras moving in closer to him.

“
What do you mean?”

“
Was it faked? A publicity stunt? I mean if it was, bravo good sir, it worked. But I mean that creature couldn’t have been real.”

The crowd egged t
heir leader on and he waved his hand at them for silence.

“
Well the body speaks for itself. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“
The body disappeared.” Freddie said casually. “Poof, there it is!” Freddie raised his hands over his head as his large belly jiggled with his laughter.

“
Right, right! Very convenient. Are you Canadians pulling our leg here? Having a laugh at the world, so to speak?” Conan asked.

“
No.” Danny said angrily. “No of course not. I was hurt pretty bad.”

“
Yet you’ve got no scars to show for it.” Conan said, leaning back in his chair. The grin on his face made Danny want to punch his teeth in.

“
I heal.”

“
I guess so.” Conan said. The host leaned forward again this time his smile disappeared. Danny could feel the anger rising in his face, burning in his cheeks, but he kept his mouth shut. He’d spent months recuperating from his injuries, it was insulting that this slick talk show host believed it was all some kind of gimmick for attention.

“
Your father died doing a publicity stunt, didn’t he?”

A so-called fan
from the crowd shouted out at the mention of Danny’s father.

“
My father was never in my life, this has nothing to do with him. I know about as much about him as you do.” Danny replied.