Larry Goes To Space (3 page)

Larry asked the burning question. “What about the other one of you I saw in the spaceship hatch? It had a big bushy tail and you don’t.” He hoped the question wasn’t politically incorrect on his home planet or that Scooter hadn’t lost his tail in some bizarre industrial accident.

Scooter looked a bit bleary eyed. “Female. Females have the bigger tails.” He pointed at his chest. “And boobs.”

Larry looked at the little translator. He wondered where it had learned its English. Just at that moment, the little machine sounded more like Doug Rickenhauser than a professional narrator.

Scooter shook his head. “She spends more time brushing and fluffing that thing than she does grooming her ears.”

Ears over boobs? Larry wasn’t sure what standard of attraction was at work. Maybe it was a species thing and maybe Scooter had some kind of fetish for ears. He realized that was the issue. Alien attractiveness among monsters was just a bit more extreme than he had given voice to before. Humans generally liked other humans. Of course, there were always fellows like his cousin Kenny who raised sheep. He didn’t raise sheep because they were more financially viable, but because Kenny liked sheep. He really, really, really liked sheep. Mutton and wool — not so much.

Larry had determined years ago after considerable thought that he was attracted to short, brown-haired women with freckles, even though Nancy was a tall skinny blond. He knew that Latinos were usually attracted to Latinas. Texans were usually attracted to other Texans. Artists were attracted to other people with artistic sensibilities. Sometimes opposites attract, just as there were some variations and strangeness, like Kenny, but it was mostly people attracted to people. Humans generally weren’t attracted to carp, just as carp weren’t attracted to kangaroos, and kangaroos weren’t attracted to prickly pear cacti.

He took a long pull from his second beer and looked at the DVD cover. He didn’t think one and a half beers would give him beer-goggles so bad as to hit on a predator at closing time. If he looked at the creature with an objective eye, it wasn’t so repellant that he couldn’t shoot a game of pool or share a drink with either one of them as long as they controlled their urges and didn’t try to impregnate him or eat him. At least, that was the same standard he used when playing pool with the Rickenhauser brothers.

Then it hit him. That was exactly what worried Scooter and his species about humans.

Yes, we all know about those aliens, and the probe, heh, yes, the probe. Let’s talk about the probe. I mean, what are they looking for?
(Ellroy Elkayem and Jesse Alexander,
Eight Legged Freaks
, 2002 film)

CHAPTER THREE

LARRY started to say something to Scooter, but the little creature’s head drooped. The alien was snoring gently.

He stood over Scooter and stared down at the fox-like face. Draining his beer, he decided Scooter was a pretty good little guy for a vegetarian. Not that Larry met very many vegetarians in Kansas farm country. They would be as out of place as a turd in an omelet, a neo-Nazi in the synagogue, or a rabbit at a wolves convention.

Now, that female alien he’d seen was a different story. She had the look of a real little betty and a foxy strawberry blonde, to boot. Larry shook his head; maybe he was getting too old for two beers. He was letting his mind wander. Thinking about sex with extraterrestrial aliens was exactly like macadamia nut cookies and chocolate milk. It might sound tasty, but it probably wasn’t good for you.

Larry sat back down with a thump. Maybe that was his definition of a sentient being, having the ability to agree to a little probing or to dissent against it. Anything less was less than agreeable. Children were not mature enough to consent to sex. Certainly, his relatives who were children weren’t smart enough to give consent to anything more difficult than when to go potty. Cousin Kenny’s sheep certainly couldn’t give consent. Betty might or might not be mentally capable of agreeing to a good probing. For that matter, did Scooter or Betty even do any probing beyond the occasional alien abduction?

His thoughts were interrupted as a car crunched to a stop on his gravel drive. The day was early enough for him to be in his fields or out in the barn. Everyone knew that. Whoever was dropping by wasn’t looking for him. Ol’ Bucky wasn’t around to bark at his visitor, so he pushed himself to his feet, realizing he should have had lunch before he downed two beers.

He reached the front door, banging through the screen, letting it shut behind him before Nancy got to the top of the steps. She was as beautiful as she always was. Natural blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and lush warm lips. Larry shook his head, knowing for certain that he shouldn’t have had that second beer without at least slapping a bologna sandwich together.

She was pretty enough for a good roll in the sack, though she didn’t even pretend to like him anymore. That was all right with Larry. He could put up with a little hostility if — as Scooter said — it led to him “getting some of that”. Of course, since their divorce Nancy never let much of that get loose. Not with Larry anyway, although he wasn’t too sure that the television station manager wasn’t “getting down” with her.

Something kept Nancy from being fired because she sucked at being a reporter, and she couldn’t read a teleprompter without mispronouncing every other word. Somewhere around here, he had a recording of her on the air trying to read a report about the Shi-ite. Apparently, no one had ever told her it wasn’t pronounced that way.

He stood blocking her access to the house.

She’d argued in the divorce that the house and farm were half hers, but the judge agreed with Larry that the house and land had been in his family since before the dust bowl, so she didn’t get a dime of it. Since, she left Larry, the judge had informed her that she didn’t deserve any alimony either. Whatever she was looking for in his house, he wasn’t planning on letting her have it … unless he could work out an exchange for a little post-marital probing.

“Why aren’t you out there with your precious cows?” She tried to sidle around him, but he hung his arms across the doorframe, casually blocking her entrance and view into the living room.

“The cattle are doing fine. What do you want, Nancy?”

“I left some clothes in the back bedroom closet. I just want to grab that green dress.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Did so.”

“Jeez Louise, Nancy. You hauled a dozen boxes of clothes and shoes out of here already. Remember, we both double checked the last time when I caught you trying to sneak off with my great-grandma’s pearl necklace.”

“I wasn’t sneaking off with it. I just wanted to see it in sunlight.”

“Oh, right. I get confused thinking that the window provides as much direct sunlight as I get on the porch’s front steps.”

“You’re a nasty man for thinking so evil of me, Larry.”

“So what is it this time, Nancy? Are the television station’s paychecks late again? Sorry, but I don’t have anything left to pawn except for my DVD player and it is already such old technology that it wouldn’t be worth the gas to haul it to the pawnshop.”

“I told you, I was just looking for a dress I left behind. I need that green dress. I get the chance to fill in as an on-scene reporter when Jacob Joshua goes on vacation next week. That dress is perfect.”

“You already took the green dress.”

“No, I didn’t. You don’t want me to succeed, do you? I’ll be famous one day, you’ll see and then you’ll be sorry you let me go.”

“Let you go? Hell, Nancy. You left me and I couldn’t run fast enough to catch you when you left. Look, I do want you to be famous. I promise I will do everything I can to make you famous, but that dress won’t help.”

“Why not?”

“Your station shoots its on-scene reports in the studio, right?” Larry knew — and everybody this side of Chanute knew — that Nancy’s station was more on screen than on-scene. “What color is the green screen you shoot in front of?”

Nancy started to speak, but clamped her mouth shut. “Well, maybe a red one would look better anyway.”

“You took your red one.” Larry knew both the red and the green dress were in the back closet. So were a plethora of other clothes that she hadn’t been able to squeeze into the ninety percent of the front bedroom closet she’d claimed as hers. Still, he didn’t have any intention of giving them up easily anymore than Nancy had given up anything easy in the bedroom.

“Get out of my way and let me go look.”

Larry shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I … um, it isn’t a good time for visitors. The place is a mess.”

“I’m not a visitor, you idiot. I’ve seen your mess — you have company, don’t you? Don’t lie to me!”

“So someone came to visit. So what?” Larry didn’t think calling an alien visitor a “someone” was a lie, not that he had any problem lying to Nancy, or anyone else for that matter. It’s just that it was always easier to keep track of the truth when trying not to tell someone something you didn’t want them to know, unless they gave you time to write down your lies. Nancy was good at lies — telling them and catching other people at them. Sticking as close to the truth would be best.

Besides, Nancy wouldn’t let it go if she found out he had a space alien passed out in the overstuffed living room chair. It would hit the news faster than a macho athlete claiming to really be a woman and pregnant by a female movie starlet claiming to really be a man. Once Scooter and his friends hit the news, the media circus, UFO nuts, religious fanatics, and government agents would tromp his cattle pasture grass down so fast it wouldn’t ever grow back.

It might actually make Nancy famous to break the story, but it wouldn’t be so good for Scooter to become personally involved in some government vivisection program. Knowing what the government was like these days that would be the most likely outcome. Probing was one thing, but being cut up and dissected into little pieces was something Larry planned to avoid if at all possible.

“Who have you got in there, Larry?” She stomped her foot, giving her shoulder length blond hair a flip. Back when they were in high school, that little flipping-her-hair move always gave Larry’s heart a little flip. Now the only thing it caused to flip was his middle finger.

“No. It isn’t anybody you know. It’s a … a guy I met recently. He was interested in, um, how we raise cattle and I was showing him around the place. He goes by Scooter.”

“Bullshit, Larry.”

“That’s out behind the barn. You remember which pasture the bulls use, right?”

“Don’t lie to me, Larry. You aren’t telling me everything.”

“You don’t tell me everything either. Remember? We’re divorced and I don’t have to tell, so there.”

“I do too tell you everything.”

“Do not.”

“Do, too — when you ask politely.”

“Who was the last guy you gave a blowjob to, Nancy? It’s been so long that I know it wasn’t me. Besides, I put great-grandma’s pearl necklace in a safe deposit box at the bank.”

Whether Nancy had had enough verbal banter or the news that the necklace was out of reach mattered, she stomped back down the porch steps, climbed into her beat up old four-door sedan, and spun the tires hard enough they threw gravel halfway to the old root cellar door.

Larry sighed. He’d hoped to convince Nancy to swap a few bucks or some of her old clothes for a bit of post-marital coitus the next time she’d come around, but having Scooter passed out from whatever he sniffed up his nose kind of put the damper on his plans. Nancy might have agreed to participate in a little bed sheet mambo, but climbing into the house through Larry’s bedroom window just to avoid going through the living room was a bit much for her big city sensibilities.

Once the dust cloud from Nancy’s car passed by old lady Simpkins place, he went back into the living room. According to the clock on the wall, Larry had a lot of time left to get things done around the place before sundown. He shook his head knowing he was done working for the day. His head felt a little muzzy from the two beers.

He had out of town guests, really far out of town. And the clock hadn’t worked anyway since Grandpa threw it at the television the last time the Chiefs lost a football game. So, not going back to work was the first order of business. Getting another beer was second.

Unfortunately, the refrigerator wasn’t feeling cooperative and was out of beers. It offered him a variety of long-since fermented beverages like milk, tomato juice, and even a small can of prune juice that Larry didn’t even realize he owned, but no beer. His fridge was obstinate that way. They liked each other well enough that the fridge never thought about quitting and Larry never thought about replacing it. Still, it never seemed to have what Larry wanted, when he wanted it.

He peeked back in the living room at Scooter. The little beastie was snoozing comfortably, sort of. Larry lifted Scooter’s legs up and pushed the ottoman closer to the chair. The little alien dropped his medi-pen onto the floor, letting it slip through uncontrolled fingers, exactly like Larry’s beer bottles usually fell to the floor after a long hot day and a short cold six-pack. He hoped the pen didn’t leak like a half-empty beer normally did.

Not that Larry was worried about the twenty-year-old carpet. It’d been scrounged from the Racine’s Bar and Girls backroom when Racine remodeled. It already smelled like beer and still showed the deep dimples from where Racine’s pool table sat, or would show the dimples if Larry hadn’t strategically placed his furniture over them. The arrangement made the carpet happy as it was tad bit vain and wasn’t a fan of dimples, though it never noticed its own smell, always blaming the bad odor on Ol’ Bucky.

Larry put Scooter’s medi-pen on the ottoman at the alien’s feet, hoping the little fox-like thing wasn’t allergic to dog hair. The ottoman used to be cloth covered, but now the little footstool had more dog hair on it than Ol’ Bucky did. The ottoman was normally the dog’s personal domain. Ol’ Bucky had outgrown it at seven months. Now the dog just draped himself over the ottoman, settling down on his chest and stomach with all four feet hanging down.

The ottoman was a good place for Ol’ Bucky since once he was comfortably splayed out, Larry could spin the ottoman around. That way, when Ol’ Bucky started in on his nightly methane generation, his gas release port was pointed away from Larry’s spot in his favorite recliner. Scooter didn’t seem to be generating methane, so Larry let him lie.

Larry had politely showed Scooter around and answered lots of questions. Yet he had a few questions of his own.

Who or what was the Tetra?

Why did the Tetra pass over Earth?

Why were Scooter and Betty here if they had decided Earth wasn’t worth even a roadside rest area?

Could he see the inside of their spaceships?

What kind of drives did they have?

How had they beaten the speed of light?

Had they beaten the speed of light?

When could they get to the probing?

And was Betty going to be there when they started probing?

Questions were a little like athlete’s foot. One little itch led to another and pretty soon you’re into full-on trench foot. Larry was knee deep in questions.

Larry leaned over and gave Scooter a gentle shake to wake him. Either the alien was fast asleep, passed out on his inhalant, or completely overdosed on the drug. If it was a human, Larry would’ve known whether to let it alone or dial 911. He knew enough to let sleeping dogs lie, especially Ol’ Bucky, who had a tendency to bite when startled awake. Larry was at a loss to know what to do about snoring aliens in his living room.