Smith's Monthly #13 Read online

  On the way back from the emergency room Amy said my alien/ghost incident was a combination of too much eggnog and the knock on the head I got when I looked up Dotty Jones’s skirt while reaching for my napkin under the table at the annual Christmas Eve neighborhood dinner.

  I didn’t argue with her. But just for the record, it was before I hit my head, while I was reaching for my napkin and after looking up Dotty’s skirt, that I had the ghost/alien incident.

  However, Amy was right about the eggnog. I had drunk even more this year than the year before.

  To my defense, I actually hadn’t been trying to look up Dotty’s skirt, even though her skirt was the shortest red thing I had ever seen, and ex-dancer Dotty most surely was worth looking at.

  Granted I had been staring across the table at her all during dinner as her husband Harvey talked and talked and talked about his car dealership. Besides the eggnog, ham and sweet yams, she was the only interesting thing happening.

  Pam and Howard McDonnell from two houses down hadn’t said two words since dinner started, and Walter and Wendy Clark who had the house on the other side of mine looked as bored as I felt.

  During most of dinner Dotty had been smiling back at me when Amy wasn’t looking, laughing at any word I managed to get in edgewise in her husband’s monologue. But I never once thought about dropping my napkin so I could look up her skirt.

  To be honest, the idea just never crossed my mind.

  No, I dropped my napkin like anyone might drop one at a Christmas Eve neighborhood dinner. I was reaching for a second helping of ham and the red cloth thing just slipped off my lap. It happens.

  It has happened to me before. Even once in a really fancy restaurant I dropped one.

  No big deal.

  I did the normal thing required in good social settings such as Dotty and Harvey’s formal dining room. I scooted my chair back slightly, and went under the festive holiday tablecloth to retrieve the napkin.

  There, I came face to face, or make that face to legs, with Dotty’s lower half.

  She had legs that, from my perspective of head-under-the-tablecloth, clearly belonged in Playboy or Cosmopolitan. Now I’m a normal red-blooded American male, and any normal red-blooded American male would hesitate when faced with a vision as clear and pure as those legs.

  And I did.

  I hesitated.

  And hesitated.

  And hesitated.

  There was no time passage for me under that table. I had left this plane of existence and gone on, drifting in a timeless place that existed only under that holiday dining table, in that close space between me and those legs.

  I had no name, no reason, no pride.

  It was like getting drunk back in high school.

  Or the time Linda, my first girlfriend, let me slip my hand under her bra.

  Or the time in college when I took mushrooms and ended up staring intently for hours at the design on a bathroom wallpaper.

  This was like all those times, only more so.

  Now, at age forty, I no longer did drugs. I had a great job in city hall, a wife of 14 years, two kids in junior high, and a three-bedroom house in a subdivision. I hadn’t had a mind-altering experience in a long, long time.

  Too damn long.

  So I hesitated.

  I forgot who I was, where I was, why I was even living.

  I doubt I even took a breath.

  I doubt I would have been able to take a breath.

  But there was no doubt I had totally forgot about my napkin.

  Then two things happened that changed the entire experience.

  First, Dotty uncrossed her legs.

  Now, from the perspective of my mind-altered state, this took about six wonderful and glorious years of slow motion.

  It was a pure cinematic moment.

  My camera-like gaze followed the line of her ankle.

  The line of her calf.

  The shape of her knee.

  And then beyond.

  Beyond to a place I should never have gone.

  A place I had no intention of ever going. But I went because I was faced with the challenge.

  And when challenged, any red-blooded American male will step up and face his challenger.

  She uncrossed her legs, so I looked.

  And I saw the promised land.

  The gates of heaven stared me in the face.

  I heard the Hallelujah Chorus.

  Dotty wasn’t wearing underwear.

  Now, I swear, Dotty showing me the promised land broke the illusion. I came back to real time, the last bite of ham choking in my throat.

  Seeing such a sight, under normal circumstances, would have sent me out from under the tablecloth, back into my chair with a red face and a giant desire to sprint for home.

  But normal circumstances were not to be. There was this second thing that happened.

  At that moment an alien, or ghost, or whatever he was, decided to make a trip into my reality, or to my planet, right there under the table with me, while I faced the promised land and a new religion, all on Christmas Eve.

  The alien/ghost guy stood about sixteen inches high, his bald head barely coming up to Dotty’s right knee. He was naked as the day he was born, tinted pure white like any ghost on television, and I could see right through him like a clear plastic shower curtain.

  Now again an event such as a short, naked, see-through white guy appearing under a table would have sent me back into my chair, and then maybe right down the street to a local bar to try to drown the memory.

  But I couldn’t move.

  Not a muscle below my shoulders.

  I fought and fought for all of ten seconds, but I just couldn’t budge or even feel the rest of my body.

  My mind screamed “Practical Joke!” as I panicked, fighting to move.

  But after another long ten seconds of panic, a little voice in my head said, “Calm down. This is not normal.”

  Sometimes little voices can be so damn smart.

  But I calmed down anyway, and without once looking at the little ghost/alien man, or the promised land, (avoidance is a good thing sometimes) I looked around under the table.

  From what I could tell from my position (bent over double, head under the tablecloth) no one around me was moving either. Harvey’s constant talking had suddenly stopped. In fact all sound had stopped from everywhere the moment the little guy appeared. I had never heard it this quiet in this neighborhood in the ten years Amy and I had lived next door. I could actually hear my own breathing.

  Amy’s legs beside me were not moving, still crossed. But that was nothing unusual. She could sit like that for hours and never uncross her legs. I swore she had no blood flow at times.

  Harvey’s right leg was frozen in mid tap. Wendy’s legs were crossed and also frozen in position, her brown pant leg riding up above her sock enough to show me she hadn’t shaved her legs in a few weeks, a piece of information I didn’t really want to know.

  And Dotty’s legs were being held in the open position, leaving just about exactly nothing about the promised land to my imagination.

  The short, white, naked, see-through guy did a full turn surveying his surroundings as I stared at him. He looked like a normal male, except for being very short, as pure white as a ghost, and transparent. Maybe he was a ghost. Maybe he was a ghost Dotty and Harvey had been hiding. Knowing them, anything was possible.

  Or maybe he was an angel who made a break from heaven when Dotty opened her legs and showed me the pearly gates. But if that was the case, why wasn’t he making fast time away from her? I sure wanted to at that moment.

  Maybe this was a bad movie and he was my conscious? Maybe he was here to punish me for looking up Dotty’s skirt?

  There was just no way of telling. Somehow I managed to keep the panic down to a dull roar in my head.

  The little guy stopped looking around, then said something in a high, Mickey Mouse-like voice in a language that I might have guessed to be Lati
n, if Latin wasn’t a dead language.

  With that he got a little less glowing white, and a little more solid, as if he’d been fine-tuned a little. I could see through him still, but not as clearly.

  He again said something in the strange language into the air, then made a nodding motion to himself. Then he turned to face me.

  Surprise.

  I managed not to panic completely again, but I swear my stomach had left my body. Up until that moment I wasn’t sure he even realized that the head part of me wasn’t as frozen in place as the rest of the body parts he could see. Obviously he did.

  He looked me right in the eye and asked in a high, squeaky voice, in English. “Human?”

  He actually wanted an answer.

  Now I had never been asked a question before while in full-blown panic. It was just another first among many this Christmas Eve.

  I took a deep breath, then managed to reply. “I think so. But at this moment I wouldn’t put money on it.” My voice sounded very weird in the complete silence of the world under the table.

  He nodded, turned and said some more quick Latin-like mouse-words into the air, then faced me again. “Greetings. We are pleased.”

  “Hello to you, too,” I said, sort of getting miffed. Panic had always turned almost immediately to anger for me, and this time was no exception.

  “Now that we have that out of the way,” I said, “would you mind telling me what’s happening? And who you are? And what you’re doing under Harvey and Dotty’s formal dining room table?”

  That got him confused, which was just damn fine with me. If I was confused, he was going to be confused right along with me.

  He turned back to look into the air, said a few more quick words in his strange Latin, then faced me again. “Too fast,” he said slowly. “Computers cannot translate.”

  Wonderful. The little white guy had computers. I should have expected as much. This had to be a prank by some computer nerd somewhere. Maybe the Wilson kid from down the block. He was always doing this sort of thing. I’d just play along until it ended. I nodded as best I could.

  “Un-der-stand,” I said.

  The little guy listened for a moment to the thin air, then smiled, showing me a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. “Good.”

  “Who are you?” I asked. I’d have pointed at him, but my arms were no longer in use.

  After he listened for a moment, he said, “I am friendly. Who are you?”

  “I am confused,” I said and with that the little white translucent guy smiled real big and nodded happily.

  Now that we were formally introduced, I wanted some answers. “Where are you from?” I asked while he was still nodding.

  After the customary pause to check the air beside him, he said, “Spattcha. I am from Spattcha.”

  Okay, that made sense to me. I could tell we were getting someplace now. I wasn’t sure exactly where, but if it got me out from under this table, it would be a good place. I glanced at the promised land over the guy’s shoulder, then asked, “Where is Spattcha?”

  “Cannot see it from here,” he said.

  “To be honest,” I said, “I’m seeing a lot more under this table than I ever expected to see, so you might be surprised.”

  Somewhere, no doubt, some computer nerd was laughing himself silly. But my little voice didn’t believe what I was thinking about this being a joke. My little voice said I should be taking this translucent guy seriously, since he could freeze bodies and make all sound go away. But taking a sixteen inch white, translucent, naked man under a dining room table seriously was damn hard.

  The short guy looked puzzled as he listened to thin air, then glanced around at his location. Now granted, his location must have looked damn strange to him. It looked damn strange to me, and I knew what I was looking at. Eight pairs of legs under the tablecloth, plus one head and a naked short guy. Weird by any measurement.

  The short guy pointed at Amy’s legs. “Human?”

  “All but four days a month,” I said.

  That seemed to confuse the little guy even more, so he turned and pointed at Dotty’s legs. Only he actually pointed at the promised land. “Human?”

  “No,” I said. “Fantasy, mixed with divorce, unemployment, and a drunken death.” Of course as I said all that I was looking at where he was pointing. What red-blooded American male wouldn’t?

  He listened to the thin air, then shook his head. “Our language computer is having problem.”

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  He listened, then frowned.

  I was getting nowhere fast. And at that point I wanted to be moving anywhere that wasn’t under Dotty’s formal dining room table. “I have a simple question?” I said slowly.

  After a moment he said, “I will answer question.”

  “Why is nothing moving around me?”

  The short guy waited for a moment, then smiled like a contestant on a game show who could give the right answer to a question. “I am projection through space/time. Other humans still move, only very slowly. Time pass slowly here.”

  “And I can see and talk to you because...?”

  The little guy consulted with the thin air for almost a full three seconds, then said, “you are inside my time/space influence. It was a good happening, to talk to a human. We only planned to look around.”

  He glanced at the air again, then turned to face me fully. “Little time left. I must do the event.”

  “Event?” I said, wishing like hell I could stand up straight and run. Or even feel my body enough to know that someday I might again stand up straight.

  The little translucent guy nodded. “Event. I proud. I bring humans welcome.”

  He stepped forward and stared me right in the eye, smiling, his sharp teeth looking damn dangerous, even though I could see through them.

  I didn’t say anything, because, to be honest, I had no idea what to say. And again the panic had gotten my brain locked down tight.

  After a moment he looked confused, looked off into thin air for a consult with his thin air friends, then turned back to face me. “Did you not understand?” he said slowly. “I bring welcome. My people. Your people.”

  Suddenly I understood. The little guy wanted me to represent my country and all the rest of the world and the entire damn human race, while bent over double, head under a holiday tablecloth, staring up my hostess’s skirt.

  It would be a challenge, but I was up for it.

  “Welcome from all of us humans,” I said.

  He smiled real big as soon as his computer translated.

  “Our people,” he said. “We be friends some day.”

  “You will be returning?” I asked. Suddenly the thought of this little guy popping in and out all the time had me more frightened than I wanted to think about.

  “Return,” he said. “Need vast power. Right conditions. Your planet must circle your sun two hundred and eleven times first.”

  I hope I didn’t show the relief I felt. “We will be waiting,” I said.

  The little guy flickered from pale white to bright white like an old television set going bad. “Must go now,” he said. “Much information to study before next time.”

  “Don’t stay up too late,” I said.

  The little guy frowned, then flickered and was gone.

  Suddenly Harvey was talking again.

  And Dotty was still moving those legs apart.

  And I could feel my body again.

  Then the worst thing possible happened. Amy, my wife in the real world above the table, tapped me on the back to see if I was all right.

  Now I had just seen an alien, or a ghost, or whatever he was. And come face to face with the promised land. My panic was still way too close to the surface and I didn’t need Amy tapping me on the back right at that moment.

  But she did.

  A simple, solid little tap.

  But my reaction wasn’t so simple. It was as if she had punched the “on” switch and every m
uscle in my body decided to move at once.

  Now, even though I didn’t, it must be remembered I was face to face with Dotty’s legs at this point, bent over in my chair, tablecloth over my head.

  So when Amy tapped me and every muscle in my body suddenly fired, I came up straight, the back of my head smashing into the underside of the formal dining table.

  Dishes scattered, ham was tossed into the air, and people yelled.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  Intense pain made my entire body jerk, sending my chair smashing backwards into a glass corner table that held a big ugly plant.

  I went down like a log, flat onto Harvey and Dotty’s green shag.

  Now granted, right at that moment I suppose I could have said I saw God, too. God would have been a nice addition to the evening I was having. But instead I’m fairly certain that all I saw was a bunch of swirling blue and purple and red lights clouding my vision. I doubt very much if those lights were God. More likely they were just revenge for me looking in on his promised land.

  The next thing I remember I came to, still on the floor, but someone had dragged me out beside the table and turned me face up.

  The light was beyond bright, and my head felt hollow and empty with someone ringing a loud bell inside it.

  Amy was crouched beside me, holding a cloth to the back of my head and looking worried.

  Harvey was swearing about how I broke his glass table, and Dotty stood over me, smiling, her long legs showing the way directly up into the dark, where I knew only trouble waited.

  Luckily for me the emergency room was slow on Christmas Eve and we got out in just under two hours.

  On the way home I tried to tell Amy about the alien without telling her about the promised land part. I even told her about the moment where I had represented the entire human race. After all, shouldn’t she be proud of me? I had been the first human to ever talk to an alien. In two hundred and eleven years the world would know the truth when the aliens returned and I would be famous.

  But being the down-to-earth Amelia Earhart namesake that I married, Amy just laughed, as if she was seeing right through me like I had seen through the little guy under the table.