The Enigmatologist (23 page)

Colonel Hollister knew Lieutenant Grant would rather stay
with the science team, cataloging the various articles of debris they excavated
from
Leadbelly’s
trailer, but it was important for
him to see the effects of his work at
The National Enquirer
. Colonel
Hollister had been to his office, seen the cubicles, the old desktop computers,
Potato Chips That Look Like John Travolta Vol. 12
wall calendars,
novelty coffee mugs shaped like alien heads or covered in middle fingers that
comprised Lieutenant Grant’s work life. He’d walked past the rows of enlisted
men who had been rejected from
Stars and Stripes
magazine for various
minor offenses, usually wanting to publish stories about celebrities and their
breasts. These young men, with their desire to exploit and belittle public
figures, were sent to Lieutenant Grant to become the writers behind
The
National Enquirer’s
greatest stories and headlines, selling the public on
the importance of cloning mermaids and convincing its readers that the ghost of
John F. Kennedy haunted a porn studio. It seemed to Colonel Hollister that
every time he walked on the beige carpet between the gray, plastic walls, the
men giggled at a recently written headline like it was an inside joke. And the
punch line was that they weren’t writing headlines or poorly edited articles to
fulfill their journalistic calling. The reason they laughed as they created absurd
stories about the sex scandals of celebrity pets and fad diets of South
American shamans was because they were serving their country by providing a
distraction, not from the monotony of hollow jobs or indifferent families, but
a distraction from the work that Colonel Hollister was doing.

And Lieutenant Grant was one of the best, although that
wasn’t his real name. Rex Grant was a pseudonym given to every editor-in-chief
of
The National Enquirer
, past and present, and the current Rex Grant
was a top graduate of the Air Force’s Psychological Warfare Academy. He had an
uncanny knack for giving the public just enough truth and just enough fiction,
causing them to draw the wrong conclusions. Anytime he needed proof of this,
Colonel Hollister went online and searched ‘conspiracy theories’, and was
pleased that he never saw his name.

The science team was packing up, getting ready to take
everything they’d found in
Leadbelly’s
trailer to Los
Alamos to study it for the next fifty years. Several of them were collapsing
the poles that held the tent over the trailer park. The plastic had already
been folded and stored.

The crowds that had left were returning. Most of them had
gone to bars or cookouts, been picked up by family or friends. The two that
stayed, an older woman in a sea foam green housecoat and a ten-year-old boy,
left alone all day with reality TV as his only entertainment, had called their
neighbors, telling them to come home.
They were angry and anxious, wanting to get into their
trailers, wondering why they were forced from them so early.

Colonel Hollister ignored the clamor and protests of the
half-drunk people in the street. They would never know what he did for them,
all the work that went into protecting them. He accepted this long ago, the
anonymous life, destined to be a small star on a large, gray wall. All that
mattered to him was that Earth was safe.

Colonel Hollister hoisted himself into the Hummer and shut
the door. The window was down, but he kept his elbow inside. Pink and blue
clouds floated in the dusk. Soon it would be dark, and Colonel Hollister would
have Al
Leadbelly
in custody and John Abernathy on
his knees with a gun to his head. It was shaping up to be a good day.

John
silently loaded the shotgun in the passenger seat. The walnut stock, buckshot
shells. The black metal reflected the fading sunlight, streaking the barrel orange.

The sheriff took a circuitous route to the interstate,
avoiding the burnt corpse of
Leadbelly’s
trailer. He
drove through town, opting for side roads and residential neighborhoods instead
of the major thoroughfares. To John, all the houses looked like Mrs. Morris’s,
dilapidated.

The sheriff turned onto Hot Springs Boulevard and nudged
John, pointing to a house. “Hey, John, guess who lives there? Rosa.”

“Really?” John tried to seem disinterested, concentrating
on loading the gun, but he glanced at her home, trying to quickly memorize
every detail. Rosa’s two-story brick home. Green shingles. A white storm door.
New concrete steps leading to a front deck supported by white columns. A large,
ceramic pot on the deck. Something grew deep inside it, but John didn’t see it.

Professor Gentry leaned over to
Leadbelly
,
said, “John just found out he slept with an alien last night.”

“Hey, John,” the sheriff said, “I hope you don’t have
asteroids on your rocket. I don’t think we got any radioactive penicillin in
town.”

“You know, man, it might be worse than that,”
Leadbelly
said. “Hey, John, I
gotta
a telescope, man. We could check to see if there’s any rings around Uranus.”

“You know,” Professor Gentry said, “Uranus is a gas
giant.”

The men in the car were significantly older than John, but
they laughed and joked, having discovered a way to temporarily return to their
adolescence.

“Whatever,” John said. They didn’t understand what his
night with Rosa had meant, that it was the first time in his life that he’d
known the tranquility that can be gifted from someone, and that he could give
it back.

The sheriff looked at
Leadbelly
in the rearview mirror. “So, Al, I went by your place this morning, saw all
that blood. Gave me quite a scare.”

“Sorry about that, man. I needed to throw some people off
my trail.”

“Where’d you get all that blood?”

“One thing you learn working Vegas, man, is how to put on
a show.”

“Yeah, that Hollister fella seemed pretty steamed you were
dead.”

“Man, that kid I beat up the other night, he said
Hollister’d
been looking for me for years. I guess he
finally caught up to me, man.”

“Hey, I
gotta
ask you,” Sheriff
Masters said, “what was it like working for Elvis? I mean, was it all drugs and
women? And why the hell are you wearing that jumpsuit? You look like a goddamn
shiny peacock.”

“Oh, this? It was the only thing I had time to pack.
Besides, man, it has a special purpose.”

“Yeah, what’s that? Does it call the
mothership
?”
The sheriff laughed, slapping the steering wheel.

“Something like that, man,”
Leadbelly
said. “Being an Elvis body double was fun as hell. There were twelve of us.
Man, there were nights when Elvis was too messed up to perform. He’d get drunk
or high, and we’d take turns doing his shows for him. Man, a couple of us would
travel with him. One stayed in Memphis in case he was needed at Graceland. A
couple stayed in Vegas to do his nightly show. But that was just the first
year. Man, after that, we didn’t really see him much. He’d always disappear for
a couple of weeks. When he’d be away, we’d do everything, man, concerts,
interviews, run to and from the cars and hotels. But towards the end, man, he
stopped traveling. Just hid out in his hotel room, drinking, popping pills.

“Man, there was one night I was about to go on for him.
This was back in ’74. I was going over the set list with the band and, man,
Elvis came out with a pistol in each hand saying, ‘I’m the King. And the King’s
gonna
get him some aliens. I know one a
y’all’s
an alien, man. Now fess up or I’ll start shooting.
T.K.O.B., baby!’ Man, Colonel Tom Parker had to run in with Elvis’s security
and tackle him before he could shoot anyone. They wrestled the guns away from
him. Elvis stood up and kicked at us, then got in one of his karate stances and
said, ‘Don’t mess with the King, man. Hot damn tamale, I need a sandwich.’
Then, man, he collapsed right in front of us. Fell flat on his face.”

Sheriff Masters started laughing, slapping the steering
wheel. “Holy shit! That’s funny. Why did he think one of you was an alien?”
Leadbelly
began tapping his foot.

“Because he is one,” John said, surprised they hadn’t
figured out
Leadbelly’s
secret. “How do you think
he’s stayed so young?”

“You put me in the back with an alien?” Professor Gentry
scooted all the way against the door, as far away from
Leadbelly
as possible. “Are you crazy? You know what he’ll do to me?”

“Man, don’t worry. I’ll save the brain sucking till we get
to Santa Fe.”
Leadbelly
winked at John.

“You’re joking, right?” Professor Gentry put his head
between the front seats. “He’s just joking, right? He’s just joking?”

“Hey,
Leadbelly
,” the sheriff
said. “Where were you when Elvis died?”

“I was in Memphis, man. All us body doubles were. He
wanted us all there for some reason. Maybe ‘cause he had just announced a
vacation, or something. I was downstairs shooting pool when his girlfriend
found him. Man, that’s why people thought they saw Elvis at the funeral. It was
one of us.”

John watched the road ahead as they left town, the spaces
between buildings and homes growing, then empty desert. The sheriff turned onto
Highway 281 off of County Road 23. Pink and orange colored the sky to their
right. To their left, blackness sucked daylight, leaving only small, bright
specks. A few stars showed, while the rest waited for the sun to leave the sky.
The highway narrowed into a
shoulderless
, two-lane
road, cutting through the small family ranches and dead grass. They passed an
old, red pick-up driven by a man with a white beard, wearing faded overalls. He
tipped his hat as they passed. John nodded back. And there was only the car,
the men riding inside.

And the journal.

When John first read it, part of him hoped it was a hoax,
like the photo, and he could return to Denver and gawk at a blank crossword.
Another part of him longed for it to be authentic, the part that spent his
allowance on comic books and had lunchroom debates over which was a better
super power for seeing women naked, x-ray vision or invisibility. He trembled
with elation and terror. This was not a tiny alteration, like getting a
haircut, but a cataclysm that would affect every aspect of his life. John
rubbed his hand, the skin that had split and then smoothly sealed, the final
proof that the book, its cracked, leather spine, was real. But John had found
something else in
Leadbelly’s
trailer, a connection
between John and
Leadbelly
that extended beyond
family.

“We need to talk about the photos you took,” John said,
turning to
Leadbelly
.

“Man, I always knew I’d be the one explaining that to
you.”

“You photographed everything. Why?”

“Well, you see, when a man and a woman like each other,
not forever, man, but for one night, and the man finds out that the woman likes
to make home movies…”

“What?”

“They go back to the man’s place, and one thing leads to
another, and the man winds up taking some pictures of the woman naked, bouncing
on a Pogo Ball.”

“What the fuck are you…”

“Sometimes raspberry syrup’s involved.”

“I’m talking about these.” John slipped the pictures from
the book and flung them at
Leadbelly
. The photos flew
to the back seat, landing on
Leadbelly’s
shimmering
suit.

“I guess this means those pictures
of Wanda and me burned up. That’s too bad, man. That Wanda was one cool chick.”
Leadbelly
peeled the pictures from his suit, shuffled
and sorted them.

“Why do you have those pictures of
me?”

“Don’t worry, man, all your
questions will be answered soon. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

“You have them because…Wait. What?”

A bright flash. Glass reflecting the setting sun.
Something clogged the thin highway ahead of them. John pulled the binoculars
from the glove box. Two military Humvees blocked the highway. Two more waited
in the culverts on either side of the road. Colonel Hollister stood between the
two parked Humvees, watching John’s Saturn sedan drive toward him through a
pair of binoculars.

“It’s the Air Force.”

“They’re behind us, too. Coming fast,” Sheriff Masters
said, looking in his rearview mirror. “Everybody, buckle up.”

Sheriff Masters jerked the car off the highway, crashing
through a small iron gate onto a dirt road leading into an empty field, putting
a big dent in the front of the car. The Humvees followed. The sheriff yanked
the wheel, leaving the road, driving into empty desert. A dirt cloud trailed
them, obscuring the field behind the car, but through the dust, Humvee
headlights shone, following close.

Leadbelly
started pressing sequins on his
oversized belt.

“What’re you doing?” John asked.

“Calling for help.”

The car bounced over small mounds and burrows. John
pressed his forearm against the roof of the car, trying to protect his head as
his body jerked.

Lights to their right. The Humvees that blocked the road
angled to cut them off.

A Humvee bumped them from behind. They lurched forward and
the Saturn’s back wheels left the earth, then bounced hard against it. The
Humvee bumped them again. John braced himself, readying for another knock. But
it never came. The headlights disappeared into the dust clouds, as the vehicles
behind them slowed down.

Colonel Hollister had parked in
the open field in front of them. Their headlights punctured the Saturn’s
windshield, blinding the men inside. Instinctively, Sheriff Masters slammed on
the brakes. The car skidded, sending a cloud of dust into the cool desert air.
John shielded his eyes from the high-beams and he saw soldiers, protected by
open doors and parked vehicles, aiming their rifles at the stationary sedan.