Mr. Spaceman Read online

  I say, “You are in touch only with partial truths in this matter, Mr. Jared, though I appreciate your efforts to be of assistance.”

  “I’m having trouble focusing my eyes,” Hudson says.

  “Hi, my name is Desi.” I read this for him with what I hope is a bright and cheery voice, following the example of my wife, as the man named Trey drifts past again pumping his hand oddly in the air before him and saying a word over and over that I have not heard: “Ka-ching.”

  Hudson draws up to full height, taller than me by a full head.

  “Would you like some sausage balls?” I ask him. “They are Tennessee Pride.” But I realize he is about to snap fully awake.

  “Citrus! Over here!” Jared lifts his plate of pecan ball as if to entice her and Hudson looks at the young man, trying hard to think clearly. Jared sighs loudly and puts his plate down and moves off toward his girlfriend. And two more visitors appear at the far end of the table, side by side, a young man and a young woman, perhaps a little older than Jared, showing an Asian heritage in their faces.

  The young man says, “Have I forgotten that it’s Tet?”

  “I don’t think so,” says the young woman. “This is food I don’t recognize.”

  They both bend near the cheese straws, studying them carefully.

  “What the fuck is this?” Hudson has begun a slow revolution and I can hear in his voice a fully restored clarity of mind. I missed the moment of his snap, and he clearly missed an initial glimpse of his host Desi the Spaceman. His back is to me. I reach to pull my stylish wide-brimmed black felt hat lower over my face, but it is not on my head. I am, instead, dressed for my wife Edna Bradshaw’s welcome party.

  “I should have rented a goddamn car,” Hudson says aloud, though clearly addressing only himself, and he is coming back around, looking at the young Asian couple, who are motionless before the sausage balls, and then at the full spread of the table, and now his eyes fall on me and he draws back. Suddenly he is wading through deep and muddy waters.

  “Hi,” I say. “My name is Desi. I am a friendly guy.”

  “A friendly guy? A fucking friendly guy? You got nothing to do with ‘guys’ from what I can see.” Hudson suddenly staggers a little at the import of this. “Oh man.”

  “I understand your concern, Mr. Hudson,” I say.

  “You look like … I’m not going to say it. I will not say it. Is this an abduction? Is that what this is?”

  “You are on a spacecraft,” I say. “But not to worry.”

  “Of all the goddamn times, Wilhelmina. Of all the mother-fucking times for you to pack your bag and grab the Lexus. And I had to go off and shoot some craps, didn’t I. Like it’d turn my luck around. Even if it meant riding the fucking bus.” Hudson has first addressed a person named “Wilhelmina” and then has begun speaking to himself, though he is still in my presence and is mostly looking at me. I attribute this phenomenon—which I have observed often in years of interviews—to the properties of spoken words. The words yearn to reach out directly to this or that soul but in the process of coming into being, they take on the finite properties that make them what they are, a limitation they themselves recognize and then try to ignore by conjuring up the ears of others who cannot hear or inner parts of the self that are oblivious to reason.

  And at this moment Edna arrives. Viola is still on her arm. On her other arm is an elderly man, ARTHUR, with a great, upstanding shock of white hair and his outer arm is thrown around the shoulder of a stocky man with a footprint of shining baldness but long gray sideburns and a ponytail, and this is HANK, who has his own arm thrown around Arthur, and Edna says, “Viola and I have found Arthur, and he’d already found Hank. Hank’s the driver of the bus, but he also happens to be Arthur’s brother from a past life. Isn’t that a coincidence, Desi?”

  Viola says, “What’s happening to us?”

  “Your husband and Mr. Hank have not quite yet come to their senses,” I explain. “This impression of theirs will pass.”

  “We’re brothers,” Arthur says.

  “I’m younger in this life, but I was the older brother before,” Hank says, squeezing hard at Arthur’s shoulder and shaking him so that I hear a rattling sound from his mouth.

  “I don’t remember that,” Arthur says.

  “Trust me, little buddy,” Hank says.

  “Are you people crazy?” Hudson suddenly cries. “What are you talking about? We’ve all been kidnapped onto a fucking spaceship.”

  “Please, Mr. Hudson,” Edna says, though very sweetly. “You shouldn’t use those words. There are ladies present.”

  Hudson violently shakes his head, trying to snap himself once more. But there are no more snaps available to him. This is real. He looks at Edna and then at Viola and then at me and he forces his voice into a carefully modulated tone. “You’re right. Though not because of the ladies. I have the full rich range of the English language at my command. I am a graduate of Harvard Law. No matter what the stress, I do not need to go back to the fucking streets.” He stops and growls at the sudden reappearance of this word, even in the midst of his declaration of independence from it.

  I have no power of telepathy with this man, but he is a well-educated man, a self-aware man, and I feel certain he is contemplating the odd way that the words of his planet can seem to take on a kind of sentience, a will. The words are the independent entities in this place, not the speaker. Though this is not true of me. I am not a natural breeding place for words. I am unable even to express these very thoughts to Hudson in this moment, though I am sure if I could he would be put at ease, a bond would be forged between us like the bond between Hank and Arthur, a bond, by the way, that is even now dissolving, for Hank seems to have snapped and is examining his arm around this narrow-shouldered, white-haired stranger beside him.

  “What the fuck?” Hank says.

  Hudson snorts a short, ironic laugh, though it is a further mystery of the words of this world that Hank’s form of fuck has a soft, almost affectionate edge to it, quite different in mood from Hudson’s.

  Hank withdraws his arm and then he looks at me and he recoils.

  And a great and ravenous crunching begins down the table and then a loud cry of “I adore carrots!” I look and there is a supplementary “I adore them!” and both declarations are remarkably clear, given the bulge of carrots in the cheeks of the speaker, a slender woman with eyes quite attractively large for her species and knockers to rival even Edna’s. She stuffs more carrot curls into her mouth with both hands. Her name is MISTY.

  Just beyond her, the couple with Asian heritage have turned and are riveted by the sight of Misty’s mouth, the carrots crowding in, the churning of the puffed cheeks. I see their name tags now. She is MARY. And he carries, overtly, a form of this group’s governing word on his own chest: LUCKY.

  “Yo. Desi.” This is Hudson’s voice. “Listen up.”

  A man has just arrived behind Misty. He puts his arms around her and instantly cups her breasts in his hands. She does not respond to this at all, except to address him. “Digger baby. Carrots.”

  “Misty wisty,” Digger says in a tiny child’s voice, though he is a big man, as tall as Hudson. He has a heritage from a Caucasian race but his skin is quite dark. I recognize this as the effect of prolonged exposure to this planet’s star. He says, “Want to play in the dark with your wildcatter’s big old Rotary Drill?”

  Misty can stuff no more carrots into her mouth. She lowers her face a little and tries to chew, seeming not even to consider Digger’s dream-state proposition.

  “Desi,” Hudson says.

  My attention is still caught by Digger’s hands—he is even DIGGER on his name tag. His hands squeeze now at Misty’s Full Figured Pride and Joy. Clearly she recognized those hands instantly, for she did not look over her shoulder to identify him. I think about my wife Edna Bradshaw, whether she would know her husband Desi from simply the touch of my hands on her knockers.

  “Mister Spaceman,�
� Hudson says.

  I turn to Hudson now and I observe, “Of course she would. There are eight fingers on each hand.”

  “Say what?”

  This makes me stop. My observation was not intended for Hudson. “How interesting,” I say. “Perhaps words with their own wills do breed now within me.” I stop again. “Even that was not intended for you. Or that. Or that. Or that.”

  I cease all my words, breathless with discovery.

  “I demand to know what you have in mind for us,” Hudson says.

  And a gunshot rings out.

  “Jesus,” Hudson cries and Viola screams and I reach toward Edna to pull her to me, to shield her, and I will shield Viola, too, recognizing the sound from my years of study of this planet, and Hudson is grabbing at Hank and Arthur, who are nearest to him, and he says, pressing them toward the floor, “Down. Quick.” And my hands are on Edna’s shoulders and she is quiet, turning her head to look toward the sound, and I pull at her and Viola trails with her, but now, as Arthur and Hank sink down with Hudson, I can see across the Reception Hall, and before the bus stands a woman with her arm straight up, and the pistol, still smoking, is in her hand, pointing toward the ceiling. She has a puzzled look on her face.

  I let go of Edna and I slip past her and glide quickly across the space. We can move very speedily when we wish, we who are the primary species from my planet, though I do not want to alarm this woman. I near her and she is compact, with a sharply tailored woman’s suit in Power Red for the Career Woman on the Go, and I calculate that if she panics from my very rapid approach and the look of me, then only I would be in peril from the next discharge of the weapon, and I find that preferable to further unaimed panic shots. I also need quickly to make a single, clear public statement to all these visitors, for I strongly suspect that this sudden noise has instantly snapped the rest of them out of their befuddled states.

  And I am before her and she has lowered the pistol and is pointing it at the center of my chest, though she does not seem clearly to understand that she is doing this. Her eyes are wide upon my face. This is not unexpected. Her hand is unsteady. Her purse is open and lying at her feet. “Well then,” I say. “I see by your name tag that you are CLAUDIA.”

  Technically, she is clearheaded now, but there is too much for her to take in, all of a sudden. “Your name tag,” I repeat, feeling this would be a comforting thing for her to observe. She does look down at the tag on her lapel. As she does, my hand goes out and enfolds hers.

  “I suspect you do not even know you are holding this,” I say and I gently disengage the pistol from her hand, and she yields the thing readily.

  “Where am I?” she asks. “What are you?”

  “These are relevant questions,” I say. “Your fellow visitors are seeking the same answers.”

  And I turn now and I suddenly understand a figure of speech I have always found distasteful. All eyes are on me. I could never overcome my impulse to visualize that literally. But now I understand. I feel these eyes as separate, palpable points of pressure. These eyes, most of them wide with fear, are on me, and I am a nervous wreck. In this moment I find the always elusive words of this planet even more difficult to shape in my mouth.

  “Hi,” I say. “My name is Desi. I am a friendly guy. There is a Kind of Hush All Over the World Tonight. I Would Like to Teach the World to Sing. I Would Like to Buy the World a Coke.”

  “But tonight we only have Presbyterian Punch,” Edna says. All eyes are now on her. I am glad. I have many complex things to explain, but I am hearing my words as if I were hovering in my space vessel high above them and I were hearing them from below, through our machines. Edna is continuing. “For those of you who don’t know, that’s lime sherbert and ginger ale. But Desi can get you some Cokes if any of y’all prefer.”

  Edna pauses, probably only for a breath, and I appreciate her efforts to make up for my inarticulateness, but this is my responsibility, and I say, “This is my wife Edna Bradshaw.” She waves to everyone and their eyes return to me. “We are a happy couple. Only Her Hairdresser Knows for Sure.”

  Edna laughs. “Oh Desi, you spaceman.” Then she addresses our visitors. “I was a hairdresser when we met. He’s such a kidder.”

  “Your Love Has Put Me at the Top of the World,” I say to Edna, and I realize that it is from a true feeling that has just come over me.

  But the man named Digger cries, “What do you want from us?”

  This is not where my head is at. I realize that Digger’s question is on the minds of all the others, more than the topic of my relationship with Edna Bradshaw, though I think the fact of my marriage should offer some reassurance to them. I focus on the question of Mr. Digger. I say, “I want only to speak with you. I want you to be my guests for a brief time and you can tell me about your life on this planet.”

  Now Viola’s voice quavers up, though I cannot see her. “Are you going to hurt us?”

  Edna says, “Desi wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s the sweetest, gentlest man—well, as he’d put it, male of a primary species—in the whole universe.”

  There is a long moment of silence. Then Hudson calls out, “What if we don’t want any part of this?”

  “You do not have to speak with me,” I say.

  “What if we want to go back to Earth right now?” he says.

  This is a touchy point, since I have brought a diverse group of visitors here all at once. I struggle to find the right words. They must go back as a group, but I do not wish for any of them to feel incarcerated.

  Edna once again steps in. She says, “I understand y’all were going to the casinos in Lake Charles to gamble. Well, my Desi happens to be the smartest man I’ve ever known. If you just stay and visit with us for a little while, I bet he can teach you how to win big. Y’all have found your luck in him.”

  A murmur ripples through the hall at this. I can feel each of my visitors’ quest for LUCK come upon me, like their eyes, as points of insistent pressure on my body. I do not know if I can do what Edna says, but I feel a surge of belief in the room, a belief that is burrowing now into me in a dozen places. After all the years of my work on this planet, this is a new thing.

  “Is that true? Can you teach us?” This is the voice of the man named Trey.

  And I answer, “Do not be afraid. Follow me, pardners.”

  3

  There are certain powers that I have. One is to make these creatures sleep. My vessel is large and has many rooms. Each of my guests is dreaming now in a sweetly shadowed space. I have placed Claudia’s pistol in the Hall of Objects. It is late and I am very weary. But I sit before my console surrounded by darkness. I would sing now for myself, using my voice for its true purpose, but unspoken words from this planet cling to the roof of my mouth, my tongue, the inner surfaces of my cheeks, and they block the way. I hum instead. Another of the powers that I possess is the power to listen. To set a visitor from this planet speaking and to provide the delicate balance of light and shadow and ozone and hum of silence and nibble of sleep so that the visitor will open and find a voice to tell of the welter of things inside, to tell of the things that I intently hope will add up to the essence of the creatures of this place. And though I have no telepathy with my visitors, after they have spoken, I have the power to recall their voices and bring them inside me, to become the speakers. And I do this so that I might listen for the hidden music—a very difficult task, since the instrument of these voices is plucked only on the thin strings of words—but I listen very closely to the voices, straining to hear in them the song of the ethos, so that I may know.

  For I must know. To do what I have been given to do, I must know. My hand goes to the console, to play the directive once more. But I have wearied of that. It no longer lifts me up. I wish the cup to pass from me. Let some other spaceman drink of this place. I lift my hands to crack my knuckles. But they prove to be uncrackable, for I have gone all stiff-fingered. I am not just weary at the thought of this thing I must do, I am afraid. On
the eve of this planet’s new millennium, on the division of light and dark that they call the thirty-first of December, at the end of the revolution of their planet around their star that they have reckoned to be the two thousandth from the birth of a mysterious and influential figure in their history, on that evening, which fast approaches, I have been charged to find an appropriately public place and to make my vessel visible and then to descend from it in my true self and thus reveal to all the inhabitants of this planet this great and fundamental truth of the cosmos.

  The console is dark. I wish to close my eyes. But I am humming my way into a reprise. Ah, reprise: the familiar thread of music taken up once again. Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun. Set ’em up again, Barkeep. These are the Times of Your Life. I am in a nostalgic mood. Already words are piling up in me. But instead of my own imperfect, word-bedraggled voice, it is a voice that exists beyond me that I seek. Perhaps it is the influence of Whiplash Willie Jones, but I am drawn once more back to my early days hovering over this planet, late in the sixth decade of this century. There was a woman who visited from a dark hilltop in the state of Virginia. I spoke with her in the time of deep shadows on our vessel. The two others of my species were sleeping. But I was awake. I was very young. And Minnie was awake. She was very old, by the standards of the primary species of this planet. She had arrived that morning and she had no fear of us, from the first moments. I found her in the corridor. She was standing still, her eyes closed, her head tilted slightly. I asked her what she was doing. She said that she was listening for the engines of our craft.

  I think of her and I know she has gone from this life and I draw a quivering breath and my fingers wave before me, slowly, as if they are under water, like an anemone. I pass one of these grieving hands over the console and her voice comes forth and I put her inside me.

  I am Minnie Butterworth. Papa would let me go off some days, just to walk and think and dream. He knew I took things hard. He wanted me to marry, but I was trying to feel right inside myself first. Still, why should he have paid me any mind? That wasn’t an era when you’d indulge a girl-child like that. Still isn’t, but it was even worse then. Papa was a good man. Mama was dead, but my older sister, Maidie, took care of most of the daily things. She and her husband, John, lived with us. John was a fisherman with Papa and they worked Kitty Hawk Bay and Albemarle Sound, staying away from the big boats out on the ocean. They were strong men and they had courage, but they weren’t fools. The Atlantic up and down the Outer Banks was a widowmaker. They didn’t want to die.