Wading River Dogs and More

Illustration by Darryl Elliott

First thing she says, “Where were you? Meatball threw up again last night, and Billy didn’t show, no phone call or anything. I’ve had it with him, I am definitely reading him the riot act. Get the mop, now that you’re here, and use some of that wintergreen too, the place stinks. Who’s going to come in, with a stink like that?” I say, huffed up because of “Where were you?” like she’s accusing me: “Excuse me, Susan? Do you have any idea how long it takes to get to the shop now with the em-effin traffic?” Susan doesn’t like me to use language in the presence of the animals, she’s funny that way, but when I’m in a bad mood sometimes, it’s hard not to use a little language. The traffic has always been bad, it was bad when I was a kid, but hey, I’m sorry, this is a whole new ball of wax bad. I mean, it’s the em-effin LIE out here these days, from all the tourists and government people and scientists coming to see the alien. Our little windy uphill-downhill roads on the North Shore just can’t handle the cars and charter buses. I mean, I had to sit at Echo Avenue and Miller Place Road for half an hour because of the backup all the way to 25A. And there didn’t even used to be a light there. I timed it: half an hour to go one lousy block. People are on their way to Shoreham, though the cops won’t let you near it, not even near enough to use your binoculars, unless you have a VIP pass, or else people are on their way to Brookhaven Labs, where there are shows now like Epcot telling the public about the alien. Forget the East End, no one goes there anymore. It’s one detour after another. From all the car fumes, sitting in that god-awful traffic, I came down with one of the worst headaches I ever had, that’s the reason I’m in a mood today. I hate headaches more than colds or fevers. With me, a headache works its way into the center of the head and stays there all day.

Anyhow, after I say em-effin to Susan, I quiet down and behave myself. I know that if I give her any more lip than the em-effin, she’ll give me ten times over and in spades. When she starts, you want to take cover. Susan’s only five-two and I bet she doesn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten, but don’t anybody mess with her. Even her kids don’t give her lip, and little Barry’s in the eighth grade already and getting those adolescent zits on his face. I used to call him Barry-um, after the enema. Susan told me to stop, because he was calling himself that in school. But that was when he was in the fourth grade. He used to play with me then, but as a teenager he’s ashamed of me. That’s natural. Teenagers are ashamed of everything including themselves. My point, anyhow, is this: Ain’t many eighth-graders who don’t give their mother lip. Boys in particular.

So there I am mopping up after Meatball—poor thing, Meatball has his tail between his legs—when a guy comes in, and you can tell he’s a scientist from his bad posture and the way he squints at everything. He makes a face because of the smell. Well, excuse me, Jack, but what do you expect a pet shop to smell like, even when we use wintergreen, Alpine freshener, and cedar chips? “Can you tell me how to get to Oscar’s German Deli?” he asks. I tell him, while I’m mopping, that it used to be at the post office shopping center but now it’s in that new mall where the peach farm was, on 25A after Rocky Point, but the peach farm isn’t there anymore because they sold out and moved to Florida. A lot of people around here are doing that, moving to Florida, but it’s not for me. The man doesn’t know what I’m talking about. He says, “Is that a parrot?” Daisy’s making a racket because she’s excited. She always gets excited when I use the mop. Susan thinks she was abused as a kid parrot, but I can’t imagine anybody hauling off and hitting a bird with a mop, can you? On the other hand, it’s true there are a lot of crummy people in the world. Look at those Schmidts and what they did to their own little daughter, on the front page last week and in the eleven o’clock news. It was really disgusting. I must have read the story in Newsday ten times, and it made my stomach knot up and my hands sweat so bad, I don’t even know what I had for supper.

“It’s a parrot,” I say. “I didn’t know they were so loud,” says the man. “That’s how they talk,” I say. The man says: “It would drive me up the wall.” I shrug, meaning: Different strokes for different folks. “If he’s talking, what’s he saying?” asks the man then. You can tell he likes the parrot even though it would drive him up the wall if he had it in his house. People take to parrots, I think it’s because parrots have more dog or cat in them than bird. “It’s a she,” I say as I wring out the mop head, “and she’s saying a lot of things at the same time. First, she’s saying that I’m using the mop again. Susan—that’s the owner—thinks that someone bopped Daisy with a mop once. That’s Susan’s theory.” The scientist smiles. I smile too and go on: “Me, I think that Daisy’s just interested in the mop. Parrots are intelligent. They have the most IQ of all the birds. I read that somewhere, it might have been in an encyclopedia. Crows are intelligent, too, I grant you that, but they don’t even come a close second. Some people think crows are smarter than parrots, but that’s because they know zip about parrots. So my opinion is, Daisy here is just interested in the way the mop works, you know, with this handle when you squeeze it out? When I do that, she crooks her head and looks.” She is crooking her head and looking right now, to show the man what I mean. Sometimes I think parrots understand every word we’re saying.

I go on: “What else is she saying? That she wants a little excitement. She’s telling us to let her out of the cage for a while, but we can’t do that on account of the customers.” “Oh, does she bite?” asks the scientist, looking at Daisy, respectful and interested. Daisy’s looking back, but it’s hard to say if she’s interested in the scientist. “Bite? Not exactly. She nips a little,” I say, “but parrots have these strong beaks on them, so a nip for them might be a bite for you, it might even draw blood, and Susan doesn’t want lawsuits. Susan’s careful about the shop. It’s got to pay for her kids’ college and she doesn’t want anything happening, if you know what I mean.”

“What else is Daisy saying?” asks the scientist with another smile. He’s amused with me, but I don’t mind. Not everyone amused with me means harm, I’ve learned that. I used to get huffed and hurt a lot, when I was younger, because I’m so sensitive, like I have radar. This guy squints and there’s a nervous twitch sometimes under his left eye, but he doesn’t mean any harm. If he meant harm, I’d know it by now. “Daisy’s saying that you’re a stranger,” I say, “and not even from around here on the Island but out of state. Parrots have good ears, you know, they can pick up all kinds of things about you from your voice.” “Well, she’s right,” says the scientist, “I’m from Washington, DC.” “Oh,” I say, “I bet you’re one of those alien people. I figured that.” He nods but with tired disgust, like someone who has to work on a weekend when everyone else gets to go to the beach. He says with a sigh, “Yes, I’m one of those alien people.” “Some say it’s green like peas,” I say. “And others that it’s green like spinach. So which is it, peas or spinach? I mean, if that’s not classified.” There was an argument about this subject at the bar only yesterday. It lasted more than an hour. I was keeping track of the time, because I knew it would be a long argument. The scientist says, frowning, as if he never considered the kind of green it was before: “I don’t know. Maybe more peas than spinach.” “No kidding,” I say.

I’m pleased with myself, because I learned something important today, almost like finding money. I’ll tell Joe this evening. Joe will be impressed that I found out something about the alien that he doesn’t know. Joe’s nuts about the alien, reads whatever he can find on the subject and talks about it until you wish he’d stop. I say to myself: You never can tell, Marty my boy, when you’re going to learn something useful. Even while you’re mopping up puke from a stupid Dalmatian—and they don’t come any stupider than Meatball, that’s why we call him Meatball, but even so he’s not a bad dog and, frankly, I have to confess I like him better than most. Meatball’s comfortable company, he knows how to be quiet, which is one of your most important things in a dog. Anyhow, to get back to what I was saying, even while you’re mopping up puke in a pet shop you can learn something useful if you keep your ears open.

The scientist laughs. He has a thin, hardly noticeable laugh, more like a polite cough than a laugh. “You know, you could probably help us,” he says. He is heading for the door now, I guess to ask at another shop where Oscar’s German Deli is, but he isn’t going to have any better luck, believe me. It’s hard to give directions around here. There are no major roads. “We could use someone who understands the talk of other species,” the scientist says, his hand on the door. “Anytime,” I say, though I’m not a hundred percent sure what he means by other species. Does he mean the alien? Scientists don’t think the way we do, they think technical, so the words they use may seem like normal words to us but mean things totally different. But I’m always ready to help people out, it’s in my nature. If you ask me to help you, I put down what I’m doing right away. I was always like that, too. Not that I get much chance these days to do any helping out in Wading River, except with animals, of course. The guy leaves, and that’s the end of our conversation.

Susan says, “Marty, use more wintergreen. I can still smell it.” I pour the rest of the bottle in the mop water. I use so much of the em-effin stuff, it burns my throat and makes me sneeze. I sneeze twelve times, my nose running like a faucet. I count the sneezes, out loud. Susan says, “Will you please stop that?” One thing about a good string of sneezes, it helps your headache. It must clear some of the garbage out.

When I get home, Mrs. Piscopo has something to say to me. She taps on her dining room window after I park and as I walk up the side path past the scrub pines, that’s how she lets me know. It’s always three sharp taps. She must use a key or a piece of metal. Someday the glass will break, she taps so hard. So I go see what it’s about instead of going upstairs to my room and making my supper. “Marty,” she says when I come in, “there’s a telegram for you.” “Yeah?” I say, like I get telegrams every other day. Actually, I don’t think I ever got a telegram once in my life. I’m trying to think who it could be, but I can’t think of a soul. I’m thinking: It’s not a death, because I don’t have any family. Maybe it’s some kind of good news. Maybe my luck will change. Mrs. Piscopo hands the telegram to me, and sure enough, I see through the little window in the orange envelope that it says Martin Bogaty. My heart does a funny beat. They even spelled my name right, which doesn’t happen a lot, I can tell you. People spell it all kinds of ways: Buggaty, Bogatti, Bogarti, once Big Gotti. I open the envelope since it’s mine to open. I never read one of these before, so it takes me a little time to figure out how it works. Mrs. Piscopo is impatient because she’s nosy. She stands so close, I can smell her bathroom powder.

There’s a lot of numbers and letters at the top of the telegram that don’t make any sense. Finally I get to the words of the main message and piece them out. “Holy,” I say when I read it. “Holy” is what I say when I’m really astounded. “What is it?” says Mrs. Piscopo. You can’t blame her for being interested, all she does all day is watch television, make soup, and knit sweaters for her grandchildren, who have yellow skin and live on the other side of the world. “It says here I just won two million dollars in a sweepstakes. See, there’s my name and there’s the two million. Can you believe that?” I count the zeros again to make sure. “Don’t believe it,” says Mrs. Piscopo. “The same thing happened to my brother-in-law. It’s just one of those advertisements to get you to buy real estate in a swamp.” “With two million dollars, I could buy all the swamp I wanted,”

I say. “Read the fine print,” says Mrs. Piscopo, annoyed with me. “You’ll see there’s a catch somewhere, there always is. People don’t give you money for no reason, Marty.” I’m afraid she’s right about that, because no one ever gave me money for no reason and I don’t expect them to, but the telegram doesn’t have any fine print that I can see, not even on the back, it just says I have to call an 800 number and go to some seminar thing at a Holiday Inn. I’m glad I didn’t show a lot of excitement, because if I had, Mrs. Piscopo would be laughing at me now, and it’s been a hard day. There’s something heartless about her laugh, and it makes her look like a turtle too. I had a dream once about her: she was a turtle in a bowl, laughing.

I put the telegram in my pocket and start to go, but she tells me I have to clean the leaves out of the gutter on the front of the house because when it rained two days ago, she saw the water pouring again from the middle of the roof. I know better than to say, “Come on, can’t I do it tomorrow, Mrs. Piscopo? I’m beat.” I go get the ladder even though I’m beat and my head hurts. If I don’t help every time she says, and first thing, she’ll up the rent on me again, she’s like that, and if she ups the rent again, that’ll start cutting into my beer money, which I don’t want to happen. I remember how rough it was at the Andersons’. I once went for three months there, I kid you not, without a beer because I had to budget. What a long winter that was. I marked off the days like I was in prison. I was so thirsty for a beer, a beer was all I could think about, an ice-cold Michelob. Michelob’s my favorite. Beer gives you a gut, I know, but I say, so what, I don’t have to worry about my waistline. It’s not like I’m going to get into a bathing suit and go to the beach. It’s not like I’m going to a ball.

So, even though it’s getting dark, I climb up with a bucket and spend twenty minutes clearing wet leaves out of the front gutter. Some of them are half rotten, black and slimy. If Mrs. Piscopo got one of those mesh shields installed that kept out the leaves—you can buy them in aluminum or plastic—I wouldn’t have to do this at all, but she won’t pay a cent for anything more than she absolutely has to, like a lot of old people.

After supper I go to the bar to tell Joe about the alien being more like peas than spinach. I’m looking forward to that. I also bring along my telegram, so he can explain to me what the catch is in the two million dollars. Wading River has other bars—there’s an Irish bar on North Country Road just before you get to the state park, there’s Jerry’s at the bottom of the hill between the music store and the laundry, and there’s that fancy new one on 25A for rich fags—but I only go to this one. When you go to the same bar, you get to know all the people and all their jokes. I guess bars are like churches in that way. If you stay where everybody knows you, nobody gives you a hard time. Or almost nobody—I groan when I walk in, because, speaking of giving hard times, Dave is there, but I guess I should have expected it: this hasn’t been a great day. Dave sees me and says, “Hey, everybody, it’s Dog Man.” “How you doing, Dave?” I say and take my usual seat at the end near the ice machine. Dave is my only real enemy. I’ve never done anything to him, but that’s the way some people are, they can’t stand the sight of you and there’s nothing you can do about it. But I’ve learned this: If you don’t show how much you mind, people like Dave get off your case after a while. They get bored with it.

“Marty,” says Joe, clapping me on the shoulder. “Joe,” I say, clapping him back. We always start off that way. “What’s new?” says Joe. There’s a lot new. He can probably see it written on my shit-eating grin of a face and that’s why he’s asking. “Well, you’ll never guess,” I say, wanting him to guess a little. Joe is one of the few people who treat me like a regular person. I think he’s a great guy, in case you haven’t figured that out. Actually, all the Joes I’ve known are good guys. Probably a coincidence. Carl puts a Michelob in front of me, because that’s what I always have, a Michelob and a pretzel with extra salt. I take a slug. It’s good. “One of those alien people came to the shop today, a scientist,” I say, because I can’t wait for Joe to guess, this is just too neat to hold on to. “You don’t say,” says Joe. “Yes, and I asked him, you know, about the color, whether it was peas or spinach, remember, when we were arguing? And the scientist said it was more like peas.” But Joe’s not really listening. I can’t believe it. The news about the alien doesn’t grab him, he just says, “No kidding.” He’s got something else on his mind. What a disappointment. It turns out that the Rangers lost and he’s bothered also because of Jim Ahern’s new contract. I don’t even know who Jim Ahern is. Joe and Vinny start talking about the Stanley Cup, and they’re both dissatisfied but for different reasons. This evening’s going to be a bummer like the day was, I can see that. I don’t follow the Rangers myself, I like football better. Hockey is too fast for me. You blink, and you don’t know where the em-effin ball is. Where’s the fun in that? Football takes its time, and if you miss anything, they play it back in slo-mo and at a lot of different angles.

Dave comes over and starts in. “So Dog Man’s all excited about the green space man,” he says, at my shoulder, and gets confidential or pretend-confidential. “You know what I think, Dog Man? You ought to go over there to Shoreham and have a heart-to-heart with him. I really do. Because you two have a lot in common, you and the alien. No, really. What do you have in common? You both like to talk, and no one can understand you.” Dave laughs at his joke, and a couple of other guys laugh with him. I know they’re laughing not because the joke is funny but because they don’t want to get on Dave’s shit list. He carries a gun, even though he doesn’t have a permit. You can see it sometimes when he stretches. It’s under his sweater, just above the belt. And he has that long mean-looking scar on his forehead, too, that goes up into his hair. No one in his right mind would want to get into a fight with Dave, not even Joe, who was in the Marines and is plenty tough. Joe doesn’t take anything from anybody. But I can see I’d better keep the sweepstakes business to myself tonight. If Dave gets on to that, he won’t let go of it.

I move over to Doc, who’s hunched up at a table. “How’s it going, Doc?” I say. He holds up a finger. Doc’s always sick. For a while we were sure he was going to die, he was in the hospital for two months and had surgery a dozen times at least, but he keeps coming back somehow, even though he’s all hunched over now. We call him Doc because he’s seen more doctors than all the rest of us put together. “I ran into one of those alien people,” I say, “and asked him about the color. I don’t know if you were here when we were arguing about how green, whether it was peas or spinach.” But I see the pained look on Doc’s face, like he has gas, so I stop, say I’m sorry, get up, and leave him be. I go over to Howie, who’s complaining about his wife and his car, and listen to him complain for a while. He likes it when you listen. I have another Michelob, then another after that, and try Joe again. Maybe he’s finished talking about the Stanley Cup. I don’t understand it. I mean, we have hockey every year, don’t we, but an alien from outer space is something really unusual. Or am I crazy? It never happened before in history, did it, at least not that we know of. I suppose an alien could have landed in the mountains somewhere and no one noticed. We have no idea where he’s from, but some are saying it could be a whole different galaxy. Galaxies are one hell of a ways farther away than solar systems. Ed was trying to explain it to me, it’s astronomy. Not that I really know anything about it. It’s true that there’s been no news in the papers about the alien for more than a year now. Unless the scientists are holding something back, but I don’t think so. They look so discouraged whenever they’re on television. There’s no communication yet, and the alien won’t let them touch him too much, so they can’t run a lot of tests like they do in the hospital. So maybe that’s the reason: people are tired of not hearing any news. The way I think: America’s the kind of country where everything has to be new. If it’s not new, forget it.

Dave latches on to me again. “Dog Man,” he says, “tell us about the alien.” “I don’t know anything you don’t know, Dave,” I say. “Aw, come on,” says Dave. “You were talking to some scientist, weren’t you? I heard you.” “A guy came into the pet shop today,” I say, wishing I could be somewhere else. “He was trying to find Oscar’s German Deli.” Dave breaks up at that, and I start boiling inside, I can’t help it. I feel like punching him, but if I take a swing, he’ll kill me. I understand that he wants me to take a swing, so he can kill me. People like that are always looking for an excuse to kill you. “Dog Man,” Dave says, “you’re so fuckin’ funny, I swear you ought to be on the Leno show.” “It’s the truth,” I say, feeling so stupid, I could sink into the ground. Dave makes you feel like an idiot no matter what you say. It’s that look he has on his face. I say: “He really did want to find Oscar’s German Deli.” “Yeah,” says Dave, “and he asked for a hot dog, didn’t he?” A lot of hee-hawing at hot dog. “Wading River Dogs and More is running a hot-dog sale,” says Dave. And then he says to me: “Do you charge extra for the bun? You put mustard on your dogs? Do you, Dog Man?”

Joe takes me by the arm and says, “Here, Marty, I wanted to show you something.” He’s saving my ass, that’s what he’s doing, because I’m so boiling now, I’m within an inch of hauling off and punching Dave no matter what. I don’t like it when people make fun of the pet store. We do an okay business, and it’s Susan’s bread and butter. If she doesn’t pay me much, it’s because she can’t afford to. Anyway, it’s not like I’m that employable. “You just reminded me,” Joe says, taking me away from Dave, so I won’t be killed. I have trouble listening to him for a while, but then I realize he’s talking about the alien. “Look at this,” he says, taking out a piece of paper. It’s a clipping. Joe is always carrying around clippings from papers and magazines and showing them to people. That’s one of the things I like about him. “It’s from Scientific American,” he says. “What does it say?” I say, looking at the clipping, because there’s no way I’m going to be able to read something from the Scientific American, you need a college degree for that. Joe has a college degree. He gets more and more interested as he talks. “They think the reason the alien picked Shoreham,” he says, pointing at a photograph in the clipping, “is because of that huge heat cone overlooking the water. They think it might have reminded him of something from home. If you think about it, it’s a very conspicuous feature from the sky, that structure, and being on the shore of the Sound like that too.” The best look I ever got of the cone was when I was fishing once with the Andersons. Even before the alien, when it was going to be a nuclear power plant but didn’t make it because LILCO couldn’t put together an evacuation plan to get people off the Island in case of a meltdown, even then you couldn’t really get much of a view of the cone from the land side. They always had all these high fences up while they were building it, because of the demonstrators. I look at the photograph and have to admit that it does seem a little alien. I never thought of it that way before. As Joe talks, I imagine a lot of green aliens all living inside a giant cone like bees. They’re cozy and singing. Maybe our alien misses that. I guess I would too.

At the store the next day, Mr. Oliver comes in and tells us that Roger has worms again. Susan gives him the medicine he needs, tells him he really should keep Roger out of the neighbors’ garbage, which she’s told him before, and then they stand and talk for almost an hour about the vet in Sound Beach who’s being investigated by the state. My opinion is that people like that ought to be put in jail with the key thrown away, after the things that vet did to the dogs, operating on them when he didn’t have to, just for the money so he could have a new driveway put in, but I don’t say anything, I’m still huffed over last evening and Dave. It takes me a while to get over things. I’m too sensitive for my own good, I know that. It’s a big problem and getting worse as I get older, and I should probably go see a psychologist about it. They say there are ways a person can desensitize himself.

Who should come in then but the scientist from yesterday, the squinty one who was looking for Oscar’s German Deli. My first thought is that he decided to buy Daisy after all even though she’ll drive him up the wall. People are drawn to parrots, I’ve seen that many times. But no, the scientist comes up to me instead and introduces himself. “I’m Bill Pfeiffer,” he says and holds out his hand. We shake hands. “I’m Martin Bogaty,” I say, as if no problem, scientists introduce themselves to me every other day. I’m glad I didn’t let my mouth fall open. “Well, it’s probably a silly idea, but all the sensible ideas haven’t worked,” says Bill Pfeiffer. He explains: “I was talking to some of my colleagues about this pet store and how you went on, Martin, about what animals are saying, and they suggested, seriously, that we give you a shot at the alien. And why not?” I nod, as if I understand what he’s talking about. Susan comes over, and the scientist turns and introduces himself to her. He gives her his card too. She’s suspicious at first, ready to be tough and angry, because this is a little strange and going on in her shop, but after a while she starts smiling. Mr. Oliver has come over, behind her, and is listening carefully. Before I know it, they’re all three of them smiling and talking. “I think it’s a great idea, Professor Pfeiffer,” Mr. Oliver says. “Marty will be thrilled,” Susan says, as if I’m not standing right there but somewhere else. “It’s an opportunity for him, too,” she says. Finally it begins to dawn on me: I’m going to get to see the alien, actually see him with my own two eyes. And not only that, but they’re going to let me talk to him. “Holy,” I say. I’ve never been so astounded in my life. Joe will have to sit down when he hears this one. Unless they make the whole thing classified and I’m not allowed to tell him. “What do I wear?” I say to Professor Bill Pfeiffer. “Just wear what you’re wearing,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder almost the way Joe does.

I have some trouble sleeping that night. They’re going to pick me up in the morning, at the house, in a special government car. I lie on my back and listen to the wind blowing, and in addition to the wind noise, Mrs. Piscopo has her television on downstairs. You can hear the television laughter. It’s not like those people are having a good time or that they even think some joke is funny, it’s just television laughter, that’s all it is, cold and mechanical. I’m thinking how lonely it is for an old woman to sit by herself in a living room with the television on and that cold laughter going in and going out like seawater at the beach. It’s probably the Leno show she has on. I never watch it. I watched it once, and that was it. I don’t like the way they make fun of people. From thinking of the Leno show and about how lonely it is to be an old woman, I start thinking about myself. It must be after midnight, and I’m still not at all sleepy. Meeting this alien will be the most important thing that ever happened to me. It’s a more important thing even than going to the White House to meet the President and the First Lady. I mean, we have a lot of presidents, we get a new one every four years unless he’s reelected, but tell me this, how many aliens do we have? Only one in the whole history of the world. You see my point. So I’m worried, afraid I’ll say something I shouldn’t, because sometimes I can be awfully dense, it’s in my nature. I remember the time I was in school, in the tenth grade, and the whole class was laughing at me, just roaring with laughter, because I said something I shouldn’t have to the teacher, and to this day I swear I don’t know what it was. Mrs. Black made me go to the principal’s office, but he didn’t explain to me what I said. He just sighed and said, “Marty again.” That’s when I decided to stop going. I didn’t see any percentage in being laughed at like that day after day. It didn’t matter if I didn’t graduate, I wasn’t going to be getting a good job anyway. I’m not stupid, I know what the score is. Even when I was in the tenth grade, I knew what the score was.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I know, it’s morning and I’m sitting up in bed because someone’s knocking at the door. It’s Mrs. Piscopo. I can tell her knock, I’ve heard it so often. She says, “Marty, there’s a car here for you.” “Thank you, Mrs. Piscopo,” I say. “Don’t keep them waiting, Marty,” she says, impatient, breathing on the other side of the door. “I won’t,” I say back, “but I got to go to the bathroom.” The fact is, I also have to wait a few minutes for my hard-on to go down before I can get into my pants. One of the good things about being over the hill physically is that you have less problems of that kind with your dick. When I was in the eighth or ninth grade, Jesus, I had hard-ons all the time and practically everywhere. It got so embarrassing that I wanted to stay home. Except that it wasn’t a real home I had, the kind with parents and your own room and a door you could close, so I couldn’t. One time, I’ll never forget it, I was called to the blackboard and wasn’t able to go, even though the teacher repeated my name twice. I guess she thought I was day-dreaming or something. I don’t have much of a problem anymore with my dick, particularly since I’ve learned to stay away from X-rated stuff and keep my eyes off women’s bodies, even when it’s summer and they aren’t wearing a whole lot. When you’re a person like me, you have to learn to be realistic, otherwise, Jack, you’re in major trouble. Just like I know that I’m not going to ever have a really good job or be a professional football player or walk on the moon, I also know that I’m not going to ever have a woman of my own. And that’s all right. I mean, it’s important to know your limitations and who you are. It saves a person a lot of grief.

There’s not much to see on the way to the Shoreham power plant, which Professor Pfeiffer told me has been turned into a laboratory to study the alien. It’s early and misty, and the men in the car don’t say much. They’re not rude, they’re just quiet. I wish Professor Pfeiffer was with us, but he’s not. “There’s not a lot of traffic here now,” I say. We’re on Wading River Road. One of the men grunts, so I talk about the traffic problem because of the alien. “Those people must be really pissed off,” I say, “to come here in a tour bus and not get to see the alien. All they get to see, from what I hear, is a five-minute videotape at Brookhaven, and the color’s no good.” “Yeah,” says the man who grunted. He has a nice voice. The other man is just driving. I figure they must be military or in the secret service, to be so quiet, even when someone’s talking, and to have such broad shoulders. I wonder if they’re carrying guns too. They probably are. “Do you think I’ll have to take an oath of secrecy?” I say. The men don’t say anything, and I guess that means I will have to take an oath. I don’t mind. Loose Ups sink ships. We come to the gate, and the guard at the gate lets us pass. He looks bored. As for me, I’m getting so excited, I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin. We pass some gray buildings, make a turn, and then I see the Sound and the huge cone. The car stops in front of a building, and we get out. This is so dramatic, it seems to me that I’m in a movie. Bruce Willis could be playing me. I love Bruce Willis. The first movie I saw him in was Die Hard. I saw it four times.

They take me down a hall to a room where a cheerful guy has me sign a paper and gives me a glossy orange badge to wear, then they take me farther down the hall to a big office where we sit and wait a while and then are allowed to go in. A man gets up from his desk. He’s tired-look-ing, tired not only because it’s early in the morning but because he has a lot of responsibility and all kinds of worries on his mind, like Susan. “I’m Robert,” he says, but doesn’t come over to shake my hand. “I’m Martin Bogaty,” I say, but he says, “I know who you are.” It’s not rude, he doesn’t mean it that way, but it’s not friendly, either. Robert is Mr. Business. But hey, I can understand that. After all, what could be more important than the alien? For the first time the thought comes to me, and it’s not a comfortable thought either, that maybe they’re expecting me to do something with the alien that they can’t do. And I’m thinking: Jesus, I hope they won’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t work out. I particularly hope Professor Pfeiffer won’t be too disappointed, because it was his idea. I mean, I’m no good at all with your foreign languages. We had a couple weeks of French in the tenth grade, and I couldn’t get any of it to stick in my head, not even Hello, how are you today. Professor Pfeiffer himself comes in, and I’m glad to see him. “Hi, Marty,” he says and shakes my hand. “Hi, Professor Pfeiffer,” I say. He says: “You can call me Bill.” I nod, like it’s no big deal, I have a lot of friends who are scientists and I call them by their first names. “Okay,” he says, rubbing his hands, “let’s take you to see the alien.” “Now?” I say. “Sure,” he says, “why not? And would you like a cup of coffee?” “Coffee, you mean when I see the alien?” “The alien doesn’t mind coffee,” says Professor Pfeiffer, “he drinks it himself sometimes.” “In that case, all right,” I say, “and I’d like a little milk in mine, if that’s okay.” Then suddenly it hits me: I just learned something new about the alien, something I’ve never heard before anywhere, not from the television or Joe or anyone else: the alien drinks coffee. Son of a gun. And I’m thinking: If he drinks coffee, how alien can he be?

Robert tells me that I have to report to him and that I’ll be wearing a something-something monitor for the sessions. It’s like James Bond getting his instructions at the beginning of the movie. Professor Pfeiffer, Bill, takes me down some stairs and down another hall, a smaller but wider one, and a girlish Oriental woman in a labcoat joins us and takes us to a room with a lot of bottles. She tells me to take my shirt off so she can put the monitor on me. She attaches a lot of different-colored wires to my head and chest, and they pinch but not too much, so I don’t complain. I don’t understand why they have to see what my heart and brain and liver are doing while I’m talking to the alien, because it’s the alien that’s important, not Martin Bogaty, but Professor Pfeiffer sees my question even though I don’t say anything and he explains that all information is important, because in science you never know ahead of time what’s important and what isn’t. Or something like that. It sounds deep, and I’m impressed that he’s taking the trouble to talk to me like this, because it’s not necessary, I mean, I’ll do whatever they tell me to do. So when I’m all hooked up, we go to the alien.

The alien’s in a room you have to go through two special doors to get to. The doors make a swooshing noise and remind me of a bank vault. The place smells like old broccoli, and I see a guy sitting at a table. At first I think it’s a guard killing time, but then I realize, from the color, that it’s no guard, it’s the alien himself. He’s just sitting there, on a chair, like a regular person. The first thing I think is that they got the color all wrong: it’s not peas or spinach, there’s blue in it and a funny sheen, and not only that, the green isn’t exactly the same green everywhere. I can’t tell whether it’s his clothes or his body. Maybe he’s wearing a tight-fitting suit. “Pleased to meet you,” I say, because it’s the only thing to say that enters my head. The alien turns to look at me, and I think: gorilla, dog, tiger, but nobler than any of them. A big head. A row of eyes instead of two eyes. There’s something very independent about him, you can feel that in his row of eyes. Independent but not proud, or at least not proud in a bad way. Proud in a good way. The scientists are keeping him here like an animal in a cage, but he doesn’t think of himself at all like an animal. I bet he could leave anytime he liked. And it turns out later that I’m right. “I’m Martin Bogaty,” I say, not sure whether or not I should put out my hand. They’ve told me the alien doesn’t like to be touched too much. So I give a little wave instead and put my hand back. The alien opens his mouth, it’s a really wide, deep mouth and doesn’t seem to have any teeth in it, and he starts talking. The voice is coming from him but not the usual place a voice tomes from. I can’t decide whether it’s higher up or lower down. It’s like he’s talking in stereo. The talking picks up speed a little, as he gets into the swing of it. He’s actually saying a whole lot now, though of course I don’t know a blessed word of his language. The reason I know it’s a whole lot is that he’s so earnest about what he’s saying, I can tell from the one big eyebrow that goes across his forehead over all the eyes, it’s bunched up earnestly. To be polite, I pull up a chair and listen. Behind me I hear Professor Pfeiffer start and gasp, like he’s caught by surprise, and then he mutters something to another scientist. “First time, amazing,” I think that’s what he muttered. I’m not sure, but it makes me feel good. Maybe I’ll be of use to these scientists after all. Wouldn’t that be great. Then they might invite me back. I start talking too after a while, so that the alien doesn’t have to keep up the conversation by himself, but they tap me on the shoulder and give me the sign to leave, so I get up and say to the alien, “Nice meeting you, it’s been really interesting,” and leave.

They take me to a special room with a lot of tiny lights and dials and start asking me questions. Robert is there and in charge. He has a fierce gleam in his eyes, as if he’s a chief of police and I committed some terrible crime like murdering a child or robbing a bank. I have the odd thought that he doesn’t have enough eyes to show me what he’s feeling. His questions come out fast and hard and are filled with scientific words. He’s angry with himself for using the scientific words with me, he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help using them because he’s so impatient. I find out his last name, by the way, because it’s on his badge as he faces me and I have time to put the letters together: Zinkhof. What a name, it’s worse even than Bogaty. If I was named Zinkhof, I guess I’d do the same thing that he does, just tell people I was Robert and leave it at that.

Robert and another two scientists or government guys ask me what my impressions were and how I felt and what I noticed and what I thought strange and what I thought wasn’t strange and if I was afraid and why not if I wasn’t. I do my best to cooperate, I say everything in as much detail as I can, but I keep having the feeling that they’re not satisfied with my answers. Maybe I should have been more observant. I do miss things, I don’t deny it. Then Professor Pfeiffer pipes up, he says in a loud voice, not at all like his usual voice, “This is a breakthrough, Marty is communicating, damn it.” “Yes, yes, but what is being communicated?” says Robert. “Let’s just go with it, Bob,” says Professor Pfeiffer. You can see he’s angry with Mr. Business but has to keep it in, because Mr. Business is the boss here. Professor Pfeiffer says: “We’ll find out. But let’s go with it, it’s working. When something’s working, you have to go with it. You know that, Bob.” I’m not sure what it is that’s working or how I’m communicating, I mean, they didn’t even give me a chance to talk that much, basically I just listened. They move off and talk among themselves, like football players after too many downs. Robert half-growls his words, and he’s on the other side of the room, but I can hear “IQ” and I know he means me. One of the scientists shakes his head and says something about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, and since I know about that story, I have the weird thought, like a picture, that what Robert really wants to do is open me up with a knife and look inside.

Things get less tense when Robert leaves. Professor Pfeiffer comes over and tells me that they want me to talk to the alien not only tomorrow and the day after tomorrow but regularly, and a lot. The scientists with him say the same thing and nod and smile at me, as if I’m their best friend. “He’s paying attention to you, Marty,” Professor Pfeiffer says. “He’s never done that before. For a year he just kept looking around, no matter what we did, as if he was waiting for something. We don’t know what this means, Marty, but we’re very excited, I can tell you.” “That’s great, Professor Pfeiffer, I mean Bill,” I say. “The only thing is, you know, I do have a job and Susan needs me at the store.” “Don’t worry about that,” he says, his twitch twitching. “We have money. We’ll work something out. Maybe you can work there half-time. I’ll talk to Susan.” I don’t know what to think. My head’s spinning from everything that’s happened. I’m not used to so much stuff going on and so many people talking to me at once and things changing so quickly and dramatically. I mean, think about it, it’s been only two days, and you could write a book about this already. The title of the book might be Marty and the Alien: My Impressions. My whole life seems to be going in a direction I never dreamed of, and fast, like there’s no stopping it, a truck on a hill without a driver. That must be why I’m a little numb. There’s one thing I want to know, it’s on my mind. “Bill?” I say. “Yes, Marty?” “Why does the alien smell that way, like broccoli?” He looks at me, he doesn’t understand. “You think he smells like broccoli?” “Old broccoli,” I say. “When you get it in the refrigerator at the end of the summer, you have to use baking soda and a scrub brush.” “I don’t know,” says Professor Pfeiffer, “but we’ll make a note of it.” And even as he says that, three scientists behind him are making a note of it, all of them, on their clipboards: broccoli.

So my new life begins, and I notice that I’m walking different, as if I’m rich or important, though I’m neither. I’m under an oath of secrecy, Robert insisted on that, so I can’t tell Joe anything but I will someday, just him and me over some ice-cold Michelob, and once a week the Oriental lady does medical tests on me and writes down numbers, as if she’s a doctor. Maybe she is a doctor, even though she seems so young. I think she’s cute, but keep it to myself. That kind of oath of secrecy is second nature to me. Susan is very proud of me, as if I was her son. All kinds of people come to our store to see me, and while I’m working she talks about me to them, tells them that I’m part of the research team even though I never finished high school, stuff like that. We sold twelve puppies, ten kittens, four hamsters, two turtles, and a ferret in one day. I never saw Susan so happy, she’s a different person, with this success. She put an ad in the local paper, which she never did before because it was so expensive, and clipped out the ad when it was printed. We have copies of it all over the store. It says, at the top, WADING RIVER DOGS AND MORE, and, in the lower right corner: “On our staff is Martin Bogaty, Alien Expert.” I must read it fifty times a day before I go home. It’s not true, of course, there’s no staff, just me and Susan, and also I’m no expert, but the newspapers always dress up the truth a little, so why can’t we, for the store? Mrs. Piscopo is scared of me, I think. She takes a step back and blinks every time she sees me. And not once, since the alien thing began, has she asked me to clip the hedge or clean the windows. I eat my supper in peace and quiet.

The alien chatters away when he sees me, and I forget about all the monitors and scientists and chatter back. I tell him about my day, about the animals, about Meatball. I tell him about what I read in the newspapers yesterday or saw on television. Sometimes I make notes, to remember to tell him. He doesn’t have a television set or even a radio. I think that’s wrong of the scientists but don’t say anything. I mean, this is their show and I’m only a guest here. I tell the alien jokes but complicated things, too, for example, why I go fishing with people even though I don’t like to go fishing. I tell him what I think about our world and where the human race is going if they don’t watch out. Sometimes his row of eyes seem to get softer, like he wants to tell me something but doesn’t know how. The problem is more than the difference between our two languages. I’m no good at languages, as I said, but I’ve learned to pick certain words out of his chatter, like twee. I don’t know what twee means, but it seems to be a comment added on about something he just said. Like you might say, “I’m feeling lousy today,” and then step back and say, “I complain a lot, don’t I?” That’s what twee does, it steps back and comments. When I tell Robert and the scientists things like this, my observations, they roll their eyes, and even though they’re being polite, I know what they’re thinking: His IQ. They’re more interested in what the monitors say, in the numbers. I don’t mind, I’m having the time of my life. Dave doesn’t rile me anymore, and you’ll never guess, but perhaps you will: Professor Pfeiffer, Bill, bought Daisy! “Is she driving you up the wall?” I ask. “She is, she is,” he says. “I’ll have to get ear plugs. That squawk goes right through you.” But you can see he’s crazy about her. They say that having a pet lowers your blood pressure and makes you live longer. It does that and more. I know from first-hand experience, I’ve seen lots of cases from working at the store. I had a dog myself once, but she got distemper after only two years and had to be put down. I still get choked up when I think about it. I realized then that I was too sensitive to have a dog. Meatball is my dog, when I’m at work. He doesn’t lift his head in the morning when he sees me, and his face looks sad, but his tail thumps.

Susan takes me aside one day and says, “Marty, you’re making quite a bit of money now from the government.” “Well, I don’t know how much,” I say. “I’m not doing it for the money anyway.” “I bet you’re not even cashing those checks,” she says. She’s right, they’re sitting on my dresser at home, in a row. I have seven checks. It’s amazing how you can’t hide anything from Susan. I think it’s because she’s a mother. I guess if mothers can’t figure things out, they’re lost, because kids won’t tell you anything, particularly when they’re Barry’s age. “We’re going to open an account for you at the bank,” she says. I make a face. “Don’t make a face,” she says. “And not only that, we’re going to buy a CD for you.” “I don’t need a CD,” I say, “I don’t have any of that equipment at home anyway.” I don’t partly because I can’t read the instructions, the print’s so small and the words are too technical. “Not that kind of CD, Marty,” she says, smiling. The smile would insult me if it wasn’t Susan. “I’m talking about a certificate of deposit. If your money just sits in the bank, it doesn’t do anything.” “I’d rather not, Susan,” I say. I can’t think of anything more boring than going into a bank. And people look at you like you’re a piece of garbage or a freak. Thank you but no thanks. “You have to do it, Marty,” Susan says. “You have to think about your old age. What are you going to do when you get old and can’t work anymore?” “I’ll go to a home,” I say, thinking of Larry all shriveled up in his bed at the end of the hall but still cracking jokes and cackling though he has tubes in his throat and nose. “And who’s going to pay for the home?” says Susan, holding me with her stern eyes. “I don’t know,” I say, squirming. Susan’s right, I suppose. I don’t understand these things, but from the steadiness of her voice you can tell it makes sense, what she’s saying. I guess if you don’t have the money when you get old, they throw you in the trash like a homeless person. “What do I have to wear, for the bank?” I say. “Just wear something clean, you’ll be all right,” she says, and gives my hand a squeeze. I’m touched because of this, very touched, in fact I’m so touched that I don’t say much for the rest of the day and not much for the day after that. What Susan has said to me, you understand, with this bank and CD conversation, is that I’m part of her family now and she’s part of mine. We’re no longer just employer and employee. I can’t believe that my life is turning out so good, at this late stage. I guess I owe it to Professor Pfeiffer and the alien. We go to the bank the next Friday and sign all the papers they give us. The manager shakes my hand at the end. “I read about you in the papers, Mr. Bogaty,” he says, pronouncing my name almost right. I notice how respectful he is. “Thank you,” I say, feeling numb. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being a celebrity. The people at the bank let me keep the pen.

All good things come to an end, and this is no exception. It happened because I put my hand on the alien’s knee. Or at least that triggered it. This is how it happened. I’m talking to the alien one day, and he’s talking in that hiccuping rhythm he gets, only it’s much worse than usual. I’m not sure of the reason for the hiccuping, but I think it’s because something’s bothering him and he’s afraid that if he talks about it, actually puts it in his alien words, it might get worse or it might hear and come after him, that kind of thing, the way we do with our superstitions, you know, spitting or crossing ourselves when we say certain things. But at the same time he’s being brave and not letting his fear get the better of him. So he puts it in words anyway, but the part of him that’s afraid is causing the hiccuping. “Take it easy,” I say, and put my hand on his knee, because we’ve spent quite a bit of time together and are not like strangers. He stops and looks at me with surprise, the way Meatball does sometimes, and all his eyes blink together. Then two extremely weird things happen, one right after the other. First, he says his first human word ever, “Easy,” and it comes out perfectly clear, even clearer than a parrot talking though still in stereo. And then, before the scientists can do anything, the alien changes color, he turns blue. It takes about a second. From a bluish green he goes to a greenish blue and then to a deep blue-blue that maybe has a little purple or brown in it. I also notice that the broccoli smell is replaced by a different smell, something herbal and lemony. The alien reaches out and touches my head, and the next thing I know, he pulls on my head a little and then we have our two heads together, skull to skull. I’m touched, I think that this is his way of saying that we’re friends. You see it in old movies sometimes, when the Indian and the cowboy make a deal after they’ve been enemies. You know, blood brothers. Maybe the alien appreciates that I understand about his fear although it’s only a guess on my part. Robert runs in, yelling, and all the scientists are yelling, I’m not sure why, but I realize that the alien is leaving us now. That’s why they’re upset, because so much government money has gone into this and he’s leaving. He floats up to the ceiling, goes through the ceiling, and disappears, does it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it is to him.

Robert says something like “Interatomic!” in a shout. I say, “Holy.” Maybe I say it more than once. Professor Pfeiffer says, “Did you see that? Did you see that?” as if we’re at a baseball game and someone just hit it out of the park with a big crack. Sometimes you can tell the ball is going out of the park just from the sound of that crack. Robert runs up to me and hoists me into the air by my shirt, tearing it a little. “What did you do?” he says, foam at the corners of his mouth. Now I remember that I wasn’t supposed to touch the alien. I start to apologize. We’re all excited and say stupid things, I guess. There’s a lot of running around. They run upstairs to see if the alien’s there. But the alien isn’t anyplace in the building. You don’t have to be a genius to figure that one out. The alien’s gone home, like E.T.

That’s when the questions begin, and they’re still going on, although it’s been a year now since the alien went through the ceiling. I’m asked the questions over and over, and I try my best to answer, but no one likes my answers. At one point it was practically around the clock, then ten hours a day. Finally I put my foot down, and it’s four hours now. It’s stressful. “What did the alien say to you?” That’s one question. He didn’t say anything, really, not in so many words. “What did they come to tell us? What do they want of us?” That’s another question. Even the President of the United States himself came and helped out with the questioning. I guess they thought that if I was holding something back, I wouldn’t when I saw the President himself. I was so impressed, it was hard for me to open my mouth to talk. To see someone you’ve seen only on television or on the cover of Newsweek, it’s weird. The President is a regular person. I even smelled his cologne. He looks shorter in real life, and older and more tired, but he’s so dynamic and handsome up close that if he told you to jump into a burning building for the good of the country, you’d do it right away without asking one question. “What do they want from us, Marty?” he asked, putting his hand on my knee the way I did to the alien. This is what I said, and what they don’t like: “It’s not like that, sir.” I said “sir” because I didn’t know how to address him. Someone later told me I should have said, “Mr. President,” everyone knows that. Well, everyone may know that, but when the President of the United States walks into the room, pulls up a chair next to you, and puts his hand on your knee, you might not be thinking so straight, IQ or no IQ. “It’s not like that, sir,” I said. “The alien wasn’t part of any them, he was here just for himself, and he didn’t want to say anything to us, he just wanted to say something to someone and I guess he picked me.”

They can’t accept that because, they say, why would an intelligent being travel all those light-years from another galaxy just to talk to one person? Contact, they say, and I hear the word “contact” all the time now, isn’t between two people, it’s between two civilizations. Well, they’re smarter than I am, that goes without saying, and what they say sounds sensible and right. Except in the case of our green alien who turned blue and left, excuse me, it’s wrong. I’m as sure of that as I’m sitting here. They laugh at me, and it’s not a friendly laugh. “Why you?” they ask. “Why did the alien cross all those light-years to talk to you, just you? Are you an expert in anything? Do you hold any key to the secret of life or the human race? Are you wise, virtuous, the bearer of any special insight? You’re just a worker at a pet store. You clean cages, you give the dogs baths for fleas, you mop the floor.”

I have two answers to this, one I tell them and one I keep to myself and will forever, because it’s not the kind of thing that can be said in public, it’s too embarrassing. The answer I give them goes like this. Sometimes a family comes into the store because their dog is old and sick, and maybe the vet has told them that it doesn’t have much longer. Dogs get blind and full of tumors and they start making messes again, when they’re ten or fifteen years old. So the family comes to our store to buy a puppy that will replace the old dog, when it dies, maybe the same breed, so their kid will still have a pet. As if the death doesn’t take place, you see. Like getting a new washing machine. And I’ve seen it more than once that the kid—I remember a little blonde girl in particular, with pigtails—makes a sour face and says something like “I don’t want a dog, I want our dog!” And the parents say something like “But Biff will leave us soon.” You get the idea, anyway. I don’t know why the alien came here and why he left, but it seems possible to me that he came to talk to one person and not to a whole civilization. It isn’t that way in the movies, I know, but it’s still possible. Real life isn’t always like the movies.

When they ask me, “But why you? Why Martin Bogaty?” I shrug, keeping the second answer to myself. But here’s the second answer. It goes like this. Early on, I saw that the alien wasn’t a he or a she. I’m not talking about whether it had a dick or not. I mean, no one knew that anyway, because the alien’s anatomy was all different and they could only check him from a distance. I’m saying “he” and “him,” but I knew that the alien wasn’t a male ahen. How did I know this? It’s hard to explain. Let me say first that saying it wasn’t a male or female doesn’t mean it was neuter either, like a dog you neuter. It’s not a matter, really, of what sex the ahen was. This is about something else. What I’m getting at is that the reason I knew that the alien wasn’t a he or she is because I saw that the alien was a lot like me. Dave was right when he made that joke about the ahen and me having a lot in common. We had more in common than anybody guessed, and I think that was the reason the alien liked me and finally turned color and left, because he had made contact with someone like himself, and that was the reason he came in the first place.

I think I was thirteen or fourteen when I figured it out, about myself, that I wasn’t going to be a man who went on dates, pot married, and had children. It might have been earlier. There was a party, and a girl at the party was talking to me, and at one point she said something hke “But you won’t have that problem, Marty.” The subject had to do with the troubles men and women had with each other. The girl’s parents were getting a divorce, I think. They hated each other like poison. The girl was very sophisticated about it. I don’t know where she is now, or even if she remembers my name and saw me in the papers. Anyway, I understood what she meant by my not having that problem. She wasn’t talking about being a fag or anything like that, or about being put in an institution, she meant that people who are like me simply aren’t going to be part of that part of life. In the circus, for example, some of the circus people aren’t in any of the rings, they’re on the sides where there are no lights, or they’re in the back. The guy who sweeps up after the elephant with a big broom, for example. Some people may laugh when they see that, but they don’t care who the guy is. They don’t talk about him. What is there to talk about? I’m not part of the main action. I’m sort of a bystander or watcher. And that’s what the alien was, or is, wherever he is now. Maybe, at his home, when all the aliens nest together in their huge heat cones and hum together warm and comfortably like bees, maybe he has to stand outside and watch. It’s not really a sad thing, though. It’s an interesting thing, in a way, not to belong. When you’re outside looking in, you see a different world than they see. Look how I used to play with Barry before he got zits. I wasn’t his father or uncle, but I wasn’t another kid either. That’s why I could see things about him that no one else could see, and he knew it. So my theory is, the alien wanted to communicate with someone like himself, that was the kind of “contact” he was looking for, and I guess it was important enough for him to cross all those light-years to find it, though if you can float through ceilings, maybe crossing light-years is not such a problem.

Professor Pfeiffer comes into the store. He says, “Marty, Susan.” Right away, we know something’s wrong. He holds up a hand and smiles a sad smile. “I’m leaving,” he says. “It’s been nice knowing you.” “Where are you going, Bill?” Susan asks. I keep on cleaning the gerbil tunnel that goes in the front window, but I’m listening while I’m cleaning. “Back to Washington,” he says. “They’re closing down the lab at Shoreham.” “Too bad,” says Susan. “We’ll miss you.” “Me too,” says Professor Pfeiffer, squinting. “But I have a good souvenir. Daisy.” “How’s she doing?” asks Susan. “She was cranky for a while, I don’t know why, but I think she’s settling down. I got a new cage for her, and a new cover. And, Marty, you’ll hke to hear this. I bought an old-fashioned mop and bucket for her. When Daisy behaves, I take it out and mop the floor and wring the mop out. She loves that.” “Marty’s been under a cloud,” says Susan, as if I’m not there. “I think it’s because of all the questioning. He says they ask the same things over and over and yell at him.” “That’ll stop too,” says Professor Pfeiffer. “The whole thing is closing down, and about time.” “It was such a disappointment,” says Susan. “We never even learned where the alien came from.” The scientist nods, as if to say: No use crying over spilt milk. He comes over to me. “So,” he says, “aren’t you going to say goodbye to me, Marty?” “I hope you’re not angry,” I say. “Why should I be angry?” he says, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Didn’t I cost you your job?” I say. “Heavens no,” he says. “What gave you that idea? I still have a job. You mean, the Shoreham Project? I’ll tell you the truth, Marty, I never did like the way it was run.” He means Robert. “They didn’t even let the alien watch television,” I say. “There you are,” he says, making a joke out of it. “I would have left too.” He holds out his hand, and I get up and shake it. I can tell, from his eyes, though he only has two to express things, and two isn’t very much, that he’s not laughing at me anymore, not even a little, inside. I notice, too, how pale his skin is. I guess I miss that other skin that wasn’t peas or spinach. “Goodbye, Bill,” I say, and the way we hold hands, so friendly and equal, it reminds me a little of the strangest moment of all in the whole story, but also the most natural, if that makes any sense, the skulls touching, mine and the alien’s, which now seems like an incredible dream.