1. Me And Buzz And The Alien Abduction
He got the cops to call me instead of his Maw. She had said
if he was arrested one more time that he would have to sleep in the town dump ‘cause
she was washing her hands of him. Buzz knew she’d never do that but still - he
didn’t want to take the chance, so I get woken by a call a 3.22 in the morning.
I kid you not.
The cop at the desk looks at me as if I’m just as stupid
as Buzz.
“He’s in the back and I think you know where to go.”
The truth is, I did know where to go – over the years,
me and Buzz both had cooling off time in the room at the back. It was never for
anything serious but then that’s what happens in small towns, the cops throw
you in the back room to keep you out of the road of your Maw and Paw.
Buzz’s face was deep purple, I mean deep grape purple by
the time I got to the room and there was some cowboy counting: ‘1001..‘1002’...’1003’....
I need to tell you at this point that Buzz was hand-standing against the wall
and he was betting with the other kids in the jail that he could stay up the
longest.
“Another ten seconds and you’re the champion of Duchess
County jail,” shouted the cowboy. Who would have thought then - that that would
be the exact second when Buzz passed out? I mean he just lay there all dead to
the world. I looked at the cowboy who looked at the other kids in the cell he’d
been betting with.
“Act of God,” called the cowboy.
“What cha sayin’?” said the skinny little kid with bad
skin.
“I’m sayin’, it’s an act of God.”
“And?” asked the mean kid with the tattoos. “And I want
you to think real careful before you answer.”
Then the mean kid punched his
palm with his fist followed by a real evil smile. I always wondered were these
kids born with evil mean smiles or did they practice hard at it?
Buzz was coming around to opening his eyes as the cowboy
was handing back the green stuff to the other kids.By the time Buzz could stand, the rest of the kids had
been released. He stuck his arm around my neck and I carried him out of the cop
store.
Buzz didn’t want to go home, not yet, leastways not
until he got a story together that his Maw would believe. She was like the
secret police or somethin’, I mean that woman could smell a lie at spittin’
distance with her eyes closed – and boy did Buzz’s Maw know how to spit. When
she was younger, she’d been the Tri-county spittin’ Champion. There were cups
on her smoking table and she was real proud of them.
Every birthday party whether she was asked or not, she
would chew some baccy then spit the whole caboodle across the room into a vase which
was always sat next to her Grandma’s urn.
The back wall had brown stains where she’d been practisin’.
When she got the baccy in the vase she’d give a chuckle then spit the rest of
her goo into the fire, and after it sizzled she’d declare it the best birthday party
ever.
You can kinda see where Buzz got his craziness from?
But I’m floatin’ away from the story here – so where
were we? Oh, yeh, so Buzz comes back to my place and I asks him: "What was you in for this time?”
“It’s a long story,” he says to me. It always is.
So I sit down knowin’ I’m gonna regret askin’ but I can’t
help myself but before I can ask him for more, he’s already started the story...
“You remember, Becky Weiss?” asks Buzz.
I think I do but I ain’t sure, so I just kinda shrug my
shoulder.
“Yeh, you do. She was the red headed kid who claimed she’d
been abducted by aliens.”
Then I remembered that Becky Weiss. She got pregnant at
15 and told everyone the father was a creature from Saturn who took her against
her will in the middle of the night. When the kid was born it was the spittin’
image of Frank Dunbar from the farm down by the lake, I think her story kinda
fell apart at that point.
She’s got 5 kids now, claims the man from Saturn visits
her every full moon and every year she gets pregnant. Well I met her tonight
and guess what, she was askin’ ‘bout you.”
"Me?” Jeez until five minutes ago I could even remember
who Becky Weiss was.
“Yeh, she asked what had happened to my cute bud.”
The blood shot straight through the top of my head.
“She didn’t?”
“Did too. Anyhoo, that ain’t the story. When I first see
her, she’s carrying some groceries and they spill over onto the sidewalk. So I
stop and I help a lady in distress. Then I sees who it is, well I saw that tattoo
of Jimmy Carter on the back of her neck first and I knew it was her.”
“Becky?” I said.
"Buzz? Is that really you?”
So Buzz tells me that he and Becky got quickly to
talking ‘bout things and what had happened to her since her first alien
abduction; nothing much, apparently, ‘cept for the other alien abductions. You
gotta wonder if Becky was a prize in some lottery for aliens? I mean, these space
creatures travel way across the Milky Way just to meet Becky Weiss?
Yep, it’s got me puzzlin’ as well, bro’. I ain’t
questionin’ anythin’, just wonderin’ that’s all.
“So we’re talking and there’s nothin’ else you understand,
just talking,” says Buzz.
“I hear ya,” I say.
"Then there’s a knocking on the window of Becky’s place.”
“So what?” I ask.
“She says that it might be the alien comin’ a callin’.
Now I don’t know about you but I ain’t one to be abducted by no alien.”
“So what did you do?”
Jeez this story was starting to get excitin’, ‘though I’d
never tell Buzz that.
“Well I just punched the alien straight in the face, no
whys or wherefores, you understand don’t cha?"
I nodded my head that I did but I don’t think I really
did.
“So....,” and I knew I was gonna regret asking, “what
happened next?”
Then Buzz got real upset and said that the alien had
called the cops because of the fact that the spaceman had been hit straight in
his antenna.
"I didn’t know aliens could call the cops,” I said,
genuinely.
And apparently neither did Buzz.
Now here’s the thing, it was only years later when I was
attending the funeral of Becky Andrews (once known as Becky Weiss) that I found
out that some of the boys of the town used to dress up as aliens to have their
own sweet way with Becky. You hear what I’m sayin’, don’t cha?
Just so’s you know, Buzz told his Maw he’d fallen asleep
at my place and she seemed happy with that.
2. Me And London Jimmy And Cuthbert
So there‘s me and London Jimmy strolling down the Kings
Road and he says he’s just seen The Who.
“Where?” I ask him. ‘Cause I’m thinking he must mean he’s
seen them at one of this city’s fine rock ‘n’ roll venues – you know, like the
O2 or Hammersmith Palais.“No...no...you’ve missed them,” Jimmy tells me. “They
must have disappeared into a shop”.
“Like Tesco?” I ask him my friend, sarcastically.
“Don’t be stupid. Do you see a Tesco?” He asks me.
“So you’re telling me, you’ve just seen The Who, all of
them out shopping together?”
“And your problem is?” He sneers back.
"All of them?”
“All of them.”
“Including Keith Moon?” I ask, drawing him into a trap.
“Including Keith Moon,” he assures me.
“But he’s dead,” I say with a ‘that’s one to me, stick that in your pipe and smoke it’ kind of
look, “And so’s the bass player,” I add with a final flourish.
London Jimmy continues walking up Kings Road ahead of me
and I’m ‘oh, ho’, he must be in a
huff. Then he stops, looks around and says...
“You are a tit and a Scottish tit at that.”
Then he disappears into a shop where he’s probably
pursuing The Who.
Okay, me and London Jimmy have had our sticky moments
but we’ve had some of life’s great adventures, as well.
One fine summer’s day, me and London Jimmy were heading
down to a pub at London Bridge to me meet some TV punter or other – Steve
someone - as London Jimmy wants to tell him a few of our stories,
and believe me we’ve got more than a few to tell.
Me and LJ are the first in this rather Dickensian pub, I
have a rather cheeky wee Italian beer and he has a Skittle’s Vodka – now you’re
sitting there thinking ‘what’s a Skittle’s Vodka’ and I would have to tell you
that it’s Skittle sweeties and vodka. Now if you don’t mind, can I get on with
the story?
So this “Media Guy” - yes I did just make rabbit signs
with my fingers. This “Media Guy” fails to show but instead in walks this
rather charming and minging wee man by the name of Cuthbert, something we find
out after we’ve bought him his third Skittle’s Vodka. Curiosity had gotten the
better of him and he asked what London Jimmy was imbibing (that’s the way
Cuthbert talks).
And the end of a quite charming and yet heavy session
Cuthbert, London Jimmy and myself retire to Cuthbert’s set of apartments just
off Zampa road.
Turns out that Cuthbert is both an alien and a Millwall
supporter. Yeh, you heard me right, a Millwall supporter. It seems that he’s
been here for years waiting on the mother ship to take him back home and while
he was waiting, he thought he would take in a game of footie to while away the
hours. He is an official member of the Neil Harris fan club.
Apparently Cuthbert has been here, on earth, for a good
wee while and has known all the great and the good. For instance, when Millwall
first started up as a bona fida football club in 1885, Cuthbert was there
watching all the early footie matches. It was at one of those games that he met
the great writer Robert Louis Stevenson (or Scottish Bob as Cuthbert called
him) – Cuthbert swears that it was him who gave Scottish Bob the idea of
writing Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde – on account of Cuthbert’s temper.
It was apparently Cuthbert’s temper that got him into
trouble more than once. In 1888, when Millwall were having a particularly bad
season Cuthbert found himself walking around the East End with a good drink in
him. Aliens aren’t that good at drinking apparently and well, he would wake up
in the morning covered in blood and with surgical equipment beside him.
“You get drunk a few times and they start calling you
Jack the Ripper”
London Jimmy said it sounded better than Cuthbert the
Ripper and we all had to agree.
So where is all this going to end with Cuthbert?
Well Cuthbert says he’s staying on in Earth until
Millwall win the FA Cup.
We’ll see.
3. The Mystery At Victory Mansions
From the top of Victory
Mansions, it was said that you could see the whole of the world and a few miles
beyond that. Mr Edward Shrew was the owner of the highest room in the building
and would sometimes charge a penny to any passer-by who wanted to see the ends
of the Earth.
On a clear evening it was
also the place to watch the heavens move across the sky and for that Mr Edward
Shrew charged any interested parties two pennies for the pleasure.
Edward would push his
clients through the smallest window in his attic and would then tell them to
hold on for dear life. Three of his passers-by had slid off the roof at
different times, one killing another passer-by below.
Mr Shrew used to tell the
local policeman that the bodies belonged to unhappy souls who had jumped
because they couldn’t take it anymore.
Mr Edward Shrew always took
precautions, in that he measured the width of a client’s backside in order to
establish if they were small enough to fit through the window. On one occasion,
Mrs Petigrew had lied about her size and had been well and truly stuck in the
window for several days. While up there, she had been hit by rain, snow and on
the Tuesday night, some lightning which left her with a permanent bald patch.
From that time on, Mr Shrew measured everyone.
It was on one particular
bank holiday Wednesday that Professor Grand paid Mr Shrew his two pennies,
Grand had his backside approved for size and then he was pushed on to the roof.
Professor Grand was the leading light in the country on shiny things in the
sky. If ever a person had a question on shiny things in the sky, Professor
Grand was your man. And it was on that Wednesday evening that Professor Grand
did something very unusual. He shouted out for the very first time in his life.
You see Professor Grand had
seen something peculiar in the sky and it had surprised him. It was a shiny
thing (of which he knew everything) but it was a shiny thing that blinked and
winked.
“Werry, werry, strange,”
said Professor Grand. “Werry strange, indeed.”
When Professor Grand was
back on the safety of the street, he sent a messenger around to each of his
esteemed colleagues, to arrange a meeting in order that they discuss the shiny
thing that blinked and winked in the night sky.
Seven of his friends thought
that it might be comet on its way to crash into the Earth. Three thought it a
sign from the Heavens about something or other that they couldn’t be specific
about and one thought it was the start of an alien invasion.
Professor Grand decided to
refrain from coming to a conclusion until he knew more. So each evening, he
would pay Mr Shrew his two pennies (an income that he was beginning to
appreciate), and although he had been there the night before, Mr Shrew still
insisted on measuring the professor’s posterior.
“Can’t be too careful, you
might have put on some weight in the meantime, Proffy,” said Shrew.
Professor Grand hated being
called ‘proffy’ but as long as he needed the roof he knew to keep his thoughts
to himself.
Each evening, the professor
clung on for dear life and took notes about the way the shiny thing, blinked
and the way the shiny thing, winked. Yet there seemed to be no pattern to any
of it. It wasn’t getting any bigger in size, which led the professor to think
that maybe it wasn’t headed towards Earth after all.
I will place it out before
you, dear readers, what was puzzling the dear professor. Sometimes, even when
there were clouds in the sky and no other stars were visible, the shiny thing
still blinked and winked.
“Werry, werry, werry
strange,” said Professor Grand. In fact
there probably wasn’t enough ‘werries’ in the world to cover the professor’s
curiosity and worries.
Sometimes it stopped,
perhaps for a week or more and strangely on Christmas Day.
‘Curious’, wrote the professor
in his notebook.
One sunny afternoon when
Professor Grand was sleeping at his large house on the other side of town, two
police constables called at the building opposite Mr Shrew’s Victory Mansions
and arrested the man on the top floor. Apparently he had been going out at
night on to his roof, standing on the top of the chimney and using his
telescope to look into all the bedrooms opposite. From afar, the reflection from
the telescope seemed to blink and wink and Professor Grand died never knowing the truth.
4. The Stones
Willie
wiped his brow and looked out at the desert. There had been stories as
far back as the dawn of time about the desert, the Moonboy Hills and
those stones.
It
had been said that when the stones started to move the end was coming.
Willie always wondered what end these folks were talking about. He had
been too long in the saddle to really care about such things now. There
were names and places that he had started to forget and well, his end
was probably coming sooner rather than later.Willie guessed there must be a right time for everything.
He
remembered when he was a boy and that first evening he’d ridden up into
the Moonboys. He’d been arguing with his paw about some nonsense or
other. Taking off with his old horse General had seemed the easiest way
to resolve things. The first two nights had been lonely and cold, boy
could it get cold up there.
On
the third night he’d taken shelter in a cave and managed to light a
fire. That was when he saw them - the weird carvings on the far wall.
When
he’d asked around town about them, one of those clever college guys had
talked about the pre-Clovis people being responsible but Will had no
idea what he was going on about. The Professor had asked if Will could
take him to the exact place where he’d seen the carvings but Will wasn’t
too keen. He just said he’d forgotten. Anyhow Willie felt it went a lot
deeper and darker than those Clovis folks, there was something strange
about those signs and that was the truth.
Funny
thing to tell, he’d never actually shown anyone other than his own
family the location of the carvings. In his teenage years Willie had
spent a lot of time up in the hills worrying and thinking about one
thing or another.
Girls, money, work, you name it he always took his problems ‘to the cave’.
When
he met Sarah he’d stopped going up there. Then, when the kids had come
along, he’d take them up one by one on his horse to show them the
pictures. But they had all grown up and moved away and no one apart from
his youngest Brad had kept up any interest in the place.
Recently
after Sarah’s death he’d found himself coming back to the place more
and more, to think over his life. Things didn’t feel so lonely up there.
The kids and their children very rarely came visiting anymore and he’d
usually see the clan at some Christmas get-together, then nothing until
the following year.
Willie
didn’t mind saying it, he was as lonely as hell and wondering if it was
time he should be moving on.
Life was for the young and he would tell
you, he hated getting old. It hurt in every sense of the word. He was
tired and it was as plain and simple as that.
Then
a couple of weeks ago the stories had started circulating around the
place. Over at Jacob’s Rock and in Wall Fire Alley there had been folks
talking about the stones, they were moving, sometimes as much as several
feet in a night.
Over
in Kent County a minister had called it the end of days. He’d seen the
stones moving with his own eyes, may God strike him down if he was
lying.
Some
folks from the big city came and took photos of the stones and they
were kind of thinking that the locals were up to no good, perhaps moving
them in the middle of the night. But as the good folks of the Moonboys
had seen, there were no footprints near the stones. No rope marks. No
way, anyone or, anything could have been involved.
Sixty
years before the stones started moving when Willie was still a
teenager, he had taken a rubbing of the cave carvings. He was sure he
still had them somewhere.
After a barrel load of searching one stormy afternoon, he’d found them in the attic, three clear images of the carvings.
The
first image was of little rocks sitting on a plain. In the second, the
rocks had changed position and they all seemed to have moved or been
moved in the same direction. On the third there was a figure that
someone in antiquity had attempted to erase from the carving by rubbing
over the image with something rough.
It
had never made any sense to Willie except there was something peaceful
about the carvings and the cave. There was no doubt about it there was a
connection between the story that these carvings were telling and the
rocks moving.
Willie
decided he’d go out to Lazy Boy Canyon and have a look for himself.
He’d go at night when the desert was a lot cooler then he’d catch the
stones as the sun came up.
He
pitched his old tent by an overhang that helped him get some shelter
from the frost. He tried as best he could to get some sleep but this
wasn’t a night for it.
Just
after two in the morning he could hear a scraping not too far from the
tent, he guessed it was just another lonely animal out looking for
company or food.He
rested a while but around four in the morning the sun rose over the top
of the Moonboys and caused the tent to heat up real bad. Willie felt
the only place to go was outside and anyway he was eager to see the
stones.
Sure enough, there they were, streaks of sand behind them like they had been moving on their own.
Surely that couldn’t have been what he’d heard in the dark of night?
Willie walked over to the rock and all of a sudden he felt a peace come down on him like he’d never felt before.
He bent down and touched the rock and smiled.A few days later they found the tent but nothing was ever found of Willie.
There
was one strange thing that only the wild animals would have seen, the
rock that Willie had touched had moved forwards a few feet.
5. The 'Tweens
In
all the time that planet Earth had been circling our Sun, it was a
miracle that they hadn’t been seen or at least caught on camera before
now.
They
had lived here far longer than us and had kept themselves apart from
us. Perhaps that was the reason they survived. Homo Sapien’s impatience
with those different from themselves had long been demonstrated.
They were probably mistaken for Yeti, or Ghosts, or Monsters – Man had called many things monsters except perhaps, himself.
The
Universe was theirs – they lived amongst the dark matter, they lived in
the time between seconds, they lived in the rooms that were left empty
until we entered them, they lived in the spaces that we had not owned or
destroyed. They lived in the inbetween.
There’s one now in the next room from you, living the life of a ‘Tween - until you turn the door handle, that is.
bobby stevenson 2013
