Unusual Attention

by B. G. Thomas

  “Aluminum foil,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Aluminum foil. Everyone says tinfoil, but they mean aluminum foil. It’s aluminum. Tin doesn’t do shit.”

  He’d barked out a laugh in surprise.

  She covered her mouth, and this time he knew she was blushing. “It’s ‘fuck’ that I don’t like.” She smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. It was more of a grimace.

  WHILE ADAM was at the gas station—the “convenience store”—he checked to see if they had aluminum foil. Miracle of miracles, they did, although it cost twice as much as it would have at Sun Fresh or Thriftway.

  Adam bought it anyway.

  He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t called Shane. Told him he was coming.

  Because he would have to explain why he hadn’t called in nearly two weeks. And why he hadn’t answered Shane’s calls. Had ignored the messages.

  The one where it sounded like he was crying.

  “Please, Adam. Please call me.” He was sure he’d heard a sob. “Adam. I-I think I love you. I’ve never loved—” And then the message had cut off and—

  God, I’m fucking shit! I’m shit, I’m shit, I’m shit!

  Love me? He said he loved me.

  And God. I love him.

  He pressed his foot harder on the gas.

  “BUT EVEN the aluminum doesn’t work if they have implants inside their heads.”

  “Implants?” Adam asked.

  She nodded. She took a deep breath. She touched the scar at her temple.

  “God, Mary. Are you actually trying to tell me you that you’ve been abducted?”

  She nodded. “When I was ten. We were camping.”

  God. Camping….

  He shook his head. “You think you’ve got an implant in your head?”

  She shook hers. A tear unexpectedly rolled down her cheek. “Not anymore?”

  Not anymore? “You found someone to look for it? You’re telling me that someone found an implant in you and removed it?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I did.”

  His eyes went wide. “What?”

  “I dug it out,” she replied with a little cry. “With an X-Acto knife.”

  God.

  “I dug it out.”

  23

  THERE WAS one other reason Adam was driving as fast as he could to get to Shane.

  He wanted to get there before dark.

  24

  HE MADE it.

  The sun was still up, but a half hour more? Not so much.

  If he hadn’t been speeding, he would have gotten there after dark. And whether or not Shane was right that the aliens wouldn’t abduct anyone in town, that narrow stretch of road the last twenty miles before Buckman was an entirely different matter.

  It was a place he didn’t want be. No matter how wackadoodle the idea was.

  God, the world had changed in two months.

  In two weeks!

  He pulled into the gravel drive behind Shane’s house. There was another car there he didn’t recognize beside Shane’s pickup. A red Suburban.

  What if it belongs to some guy?

  He walked past the garage to the back deck of Shane’s house, and just as he was about to knock on the back double door, it opened.

  Both he and the person on the other side gave a little jump of surprise.

  The “other person” wasn’t a guy.

  It was a woman, with long light brown hair going to gray—same color as Shane’s, he thought, without the gray, of course. Her eyes were the same color as well. He noticed that in an instant. Same brow as well. Almost the same nose, but her face was wider and fuller.

  God.

  It was Shane’s mother.

  She had smiled as soon as her look of startlement went away. It flashed on her face, broad and wide, not at all like Shane’s. But then it vanished just as quickly. She went rigid. Stood up straight.

  “You must be the boyfriend,” she said stiffly.

  The boyfriend. Like it was a nasty word. Hadn’t Shane said she was okay with him being gay?

  She looked at him, eyes narrowed, sharp.

  Oh. It’s not that I’m male.

  And then he said just the right thing. “I hope I’m still the boyfriend. More than you can know.” Sometimes he did that. Said the right thing.

  Unlike when Shane had said good-bye the previous weekend. Good-bye and I’ll miss you, and Adam had only grunted and nodded and hell, a grunt wasn’t saying anything, was it?

  But today he must have gotten it right because the stiffness went out of her shoulders and the hard line of her mouth softened, the razor in her eyes dulled.

  “I hope so too,” she said quietly. “But I suppose that’s up to you.”

  “Is it?” he asked and heard the desperate tone in his voice.

  I still want him. Crazy or not. Cigarettes and sports or not.

  UFOs or not.

  “I figured it was up to him.”

  She sighed, and now all the stone in her seemed to be gone. She smiled, although it was nothing like the one she had given him a moment ago. “All he’s talked about is you. For weeks now. And God, how much the last week.”

  Adam’s heart skipped. “Really?”

  Her brows came together, bunched up over her long nose. “What you did was shitty.”

  The words made him fall back, his heart ache.

  “Don’t you do it again. If you’re serious about him, then I’ll tell him you’re here. If you’re not, be a man and cut him loose.”

  “I’m already here,” came Shane’s voice. He stepped out from behind her.

  Was it possible for your heart to hurt and take wing at the same time?

  Because Adam’s was.

  Shane looked beautiful, despite the wariness in his eyes. So beautiful. Why hadn’t he ever realized how beautiful Shane was?

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” Shane said. “You hate driving. Why are you here, Adam?”

  Could Adam dare believe that was hope in Shane’s eyes?

  “Because I believe you,” Adam said quickly, before he could stop himself. “I think I do. I’m scared too.”

  Shane bit his lower lip.

  “And I think I love you.”

  Shane’s eyes went wide.

  Adam’s heart soared.

  “I do love you,” he whispered.

  For the first time in his life.

  Then Shane was leaping forward to kiss him, and Adam accepted it and more, despite the fact that he’d never kissed in front of someone’s mother before.

  “I think I will leave you two boys to it,” she said and walked away.

  But a moment later—Shane’s mouth tasted so good, all mint, no ashtray—Adam pulled (reluctantly) away and spun around. “Mrs. Farmer, wait!”

  She was almost to her car. She stopped and turned around.

  “I—I would like to talk to you too.”

  “Oh?” she asked.

  25

  “YOU TOLD him about that?” Mrs. Farmer said, looking at her son.

  Shane looked chided. “I tell him everything.”

  “Don’t be mad at him, Mrs. Farmer,” Adam asked.

  She shot him a look. “I’m not mad at him. Just surprised. It’s not like I post that kind of thing on the bulletin board at Walmart. People will talk.”

  “Like they don’t already,” Shane laughed.

  They were sitting at Shane’s little white plastic table on his back deck. Right where everyone could see them. And then talk.

  Shane was actually holding his hand.

  Wow.

  “And call me Nora,” Shane’s mother said.

  “Nora,” Adam—the human echo—repeated.

  “I mean, if you’re going to be my son’s boyfriend and we’re going to talk about them—” She bobbed her head up to the sky. To them. “—I think it’s only right that you use my name. We’ll save you calling me ‘Mom’ until I know you’re not going to run out on him again.”

/>   Adam flinched.

  “Mom!” Shane said.

  “What can I say?” Shane’s mother—Nora—replied. “I’m a mother. Been watching out for Shane all his life. It’s not like I can just stop.”

  “Of course not,” Adam said, wishing his mother felt the same way. It wasn’t like she hated him. She hadn’t thrown him and Daphne out when she’d discovered their sexuality or anything like that. She was just indifferent. Always had been. She’d actually admitted once (more than once) that she had never quite known what to make of them. Like they were aliens or something.

  Aliens.

  Imagine.

  “Mrs. Far—Nora. Do you think that the… the man in black took you?”

  She shrugged. “If he did—if they did—I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything.”

  “Most people don’t,” Shane said. “Unless they’re hypnotized.”

  Adam sat back, the plastic chair creaking, and sighed.

  “It’s probably a good thing,” Nora said.

  “Many of the stories aren’t pretty,” Shane said. “Of what they do to people. Even the Betty and Barney Hill story isn’t happy. They scared the couple. Pretty much terrified them.”

  Wasn’t it funny that no one needed to know who “they” were? That was the word they kept using. Maybe it was less troubling than “aliens”?

  “And their story isn’t nearly as scary as some of the others. The Travis Walton incident, the one that Fire in the Sky is based on, is frightening. The Cash-Landrum case is downright terrifying. Not one of the three witnesses was actually abducted, but they were exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation. Betty Cash stayed in the hospital for fifteen days after the encounter. When Mark Rowtly was abducted, he was panic-stricken, paralyzed. He can hardly remember anything, but because of what he does remember, he will never be the same. If they mean us no harm, then why do some people have such horrifying experiences?”

  “Ms. Minden seems to think they’re invading,” Adam replied. He found he just couldn’t use her first name. It was hard enough, considering, to use Nora’s. “I think they drove her a little—”

  (a lot)

  “—crazy.”

  “Of course,” Shane said. “To know what she knows, and there are so few who believe her.”

  “She dug an X-Acto knife into her own head!”

  “Did she find anything?” Nora asked.

  “She said she did.”

  Showed me what she found.

  “She let me see it. She had it in this tiny little glass bottle.” He raised his hand and indicated the size by holding his thumb and forefinger not much more than an inch apart. “It was triangular. The points kind of curved away instead of pointing out. And there were these… I don’t know. Bumps and impressions on the surface. It was red.”

  Blood red. Dried blood red.

  Was that the color of the damned thing, or had being inside her turned it that color? If it had actually been inside her head.

  “Do you believe her?” Shane asked. “That she dug it out of her head?”

  “She thinks so.” Then: “Yes.” My God! “I do. I think I do.”

  Shane nodded.

  Then another thought came to him.

  “Shane, do you think they put one in you?”

  Shane nodded again, without hesitation. “I always kind of thought it was in my hand, though,” he said. “Sometimes I think I can feel it.” He took the thumb and first finger of his left hand and squeezed the web between the thumb and forefinger of the other. “But now? I kind of think it might be in the same place as Ms. Minden’s.” He touched the side of his head.

  “Why?” Adam asked.

  “The noises,” Shane said matter-of-factly. “You’ve heard them. I know you have. Those high, piercing shrieks?”

  “Like an ice pick to the brain,” Adam said with a gasp.

  He’d heard it the day he had first laid eyes on Shane.

  “I heard it the first time the day we met,” Shane said aloud.

  “God….” So what the hell did that mean, Shane?

  “I think maybe it means we both have one, Adam.”

  And there it was again! He hadn’t said that out loud, had he? He was sure he hadn’t. Were they reading each other’s minds?

  Shane nodded, and Adam’s eyes widened.

  “You know, like when you stand too close to a speaker when you’re holding a microphone? I think that we both have them. Implants, that is.”

  To differentiate from the “them” that meant aliens? Adam shuddered.

  God. He was sitting here talking like this was all real.

  What a difference two weeks in a life could bring.

  “I think,” Shane continued, “that sometimes the implants—our implants—”

  God oh God oh God….

  “—react to each other.” Shane leaned forward in his chair and rested his chin on upraised, entwined hands. “And I’m wondering…. Maybe we could use that?”

  “Use it?” Adam asked.

  Shane nodded. “To get them to leave us alone.”

  26

  SHANE’S MOTHER stayed for dinner—helped make it—which turned out to be Hamburger Helper and corn on the side. Not a staple in Adam’s diet, but Shane added onions and green peppers and a can of mushrooms, plus a handful of grated cheese, and it turned out to be surprisingly good.

  Nora drank a few cans of Milwaukee’s Best (which didn’t say much for Milwaukee) with dinner, and Adam had a Guinness—the last of a six pack he’d left behind the last time he’d been here.

  Afterward, he switched to Crown and Coke (also left over from last time), and Shane went with rum and Coke. Nora chose to leave and gave him a hug as she left, which both startled him and made him feel warm all over.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she said. “You know you don’t want to mess with a mother. Much scarier than aliens.”

  He smiled and nodded and couldn’t believe how good the potential threat made him feel.

  Like nothing he’d ever really felt except for, to an extent, with his sister. But this was that and more.

  Daphne would be pleased.

  They cuddled on the couch after she left and watched Mama’s Family on DVD, and Shane told him how happy—how very, very happy—he was that Adam was here, and Adam couldn’t help but feel embarrassed and amazed and surprised he felt it too. How happy he was to be here.

  Despite the fact that he was three hours from the big city.

  He looked up and found himself wishing there was tin foil—

  (“Aluminum foil. Everyone says tin foil, but they mean aluminum foil. It’s aluminum. Tin doesn’t do shit.”)

  —on the ceiling.

  “They won’t come,” Shane said. “Not here. Not where they can be seen.” Despite that, they ran to the local small-town convenience store and bought some patchouli incense sticks—the oil was too much a specialty item even for the Super Walmart—and they burned those, and Adam was touched by the gesture.

  “I can’t believe what I’m feeling for you, Shane.” He was lying back against three or four big pillows (at least), and Shane was resting back in his arms. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone. I’ve never wanted to. I… I’ve been afraid, I guess. I don’t know why. I always have been. Daphne is the only one I’ve even let halfway in.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s the one I met at Pride.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “I like her.”

  “She likes that I’m with you.” Adam smiled. “I am with you, right?”

  Shane laughed. “Yes. I’m with you.”

  And Adam was thrilled. His heart skipped. The butterflies were back. He really couldn’t believe he was with someone. “You’re so different,” he marveled aloud. “There are things about you… things on my absolutely no-way list. And yet I don’t care.”

  “The cigarettes,” Shane said.

  “Yes,” Adam
said quietly.

  “I haven’t had one in a week. Combined with my asshole boyfriend not calling me, it’s been hell.”

  Adam didn’t know how to react to either of those sentences or all that they said. He was a bit stunned. Shane hadn’t smoked in a week?

  “Over a week. Really.”

  Boyfriend?

  “We’ve established that, haven’t we? You’re my boyfriend?” Shane rolled over and rested his chin on crossed hands atop Adam’s chest. “At least now?”

  Then Adam did another double take.

  It had happened again.

  “Did you just read my mind?” he whispered.

  Shane gave the slightest shrug. “I think I did. Kind of. I think it’s happened before.”

  “I do too,” Adam said, and this time, it was even quieter than a whisper.

  “Wow,” Shane said.

  Adam nodded. Wow, indeed.

  This is real.

  He looked back up at the ceiling. Forced himself not to. His eyes met Shane’s. Met Shane’s beautiful eyes.

  Real. This is what is real.

  And this was what was really important, no matter what else was going on. No matter what else could go on.

  This was what needed taken care of.

  “I am so sorry, Shane. For what I did. It was mean.”

  Shane gave a nod. “Cruel, even.”

  “That hurt.” It did. But he deserved it. And he told Shane that he deserved it.

  “Don’t do it again, okay?”

  He wouldn’t. No way.

  “I believe you.”

  Again. Shane had done it again. It was a little unsettling. But Shane believed him. And that was what mattered.

  “I read online that for most people, the worst of the nicotine withdrawal is only supposed to last a few days. A couple weeks at most. I think the asshole who wrote that never smoked.”

  “An asshole like your boyfriend?”

  Shane smiled. “Just like that.”

  Adam couldn’t remember being so happy. Even with the worry that Ets could be waiting for him. With Shane at his side, anything was possible.

  Now if I can just get him to stop watching baseball, things will be perfect.