Earth vs. Everybody

by John Swartzwelder

  “Check some other universe.”

  She shook her head again. “There are no other universes.”

  I thought about this. “Can I have your job?”

  “No. I need it.”

  We both sat there glumly. This wasn’t working.

  Mrs. Jacobson glanced over my personal information again. The word “detective” stopped her. “Were you ever really a detective,” she asked, “or was that another of your pathetic lies?”

  “Oh, I was a detective, all right. The pathetic lies start after the word ‘detective’. Just before the words ‘Army Chief of Staff’.”

  “Detective… detective…” she murmured, as she looked through the data on her computer. “Ah, here’s what I was looking for. Betelgeuse 13 has an opening for a detective.”

  I grabbed the printout, put on my hat, and opened the door to the airlock. “Betelgeuse 13, here I come!”

  Well, I suppose you can guess what happened. Yeah, they ended up hanging me.

  When I first arrived on Betelgeuse 13 and told them I was a genuine Earth detective, everyone got very excited. They’d heard about Earth detectives from our TV broadcasts. Earth detectives are great. They never miss. Everyone lined up around the planet to hire me.

  But after the initial excitement, my business quickly fizzled. I wasn’t what they were looking for at all. They were expecting one of those smart British-style detectives who carefully reasons things out and then walks over and points at the criminal. Not the blockheaded film-noir type like me, who just blunders around with a bottle of liquor in his hand, knocking people down and firing off guns, and never solving anything. But just because I wasn’t what they were looking for was no reason to hang me. The reason they hung me was all those sacred traditions I violated, the “people” I killed, and the historic documents I ate (hey, they looked good). So there’s another lesson for you teens. Eat at the diner.

  Fortunately, the people of Betelgeuse 13 aren’t all that up on Earth physiology, so when they hung me, it didn’t kill me. After a few days they said it was a miracle I hadn’t died (though some argued that I had been hung by the wrong leg) and cut me down.

  I stayed on Betelgeuse 13 for awhile after that, seeing if I could make a living with any of the other skills I had, now that we had all agreed I wasn’t a detective.

  I tried getting jobs lifting things, which is something I’m pretty good at, but everybody on Betelgeuse 13 had robots for jobs like that. Even the smallest robot could lift more than I could. And they didn’t complain as much. Or smell as bad. Or get caught stealing things as often.

  And I wasn’t a good bodyguard there either because everybody’s body was so irregularly shaped compared to mine. Parts of them—usually the parts that were paying me—always seemed to be sticking out around the edges where they could get shot. So that career didn’t last very long either. “I can’t do anything,” I thought to myself. And God damn it, I was right.

  It began to dawn on me that I had the same problem in space that I had had on Earth. I was unhirable there, and I was unhirable here. But out here it was even worse. I couldn’t compete with these space people on any level. Everybody was just too far ahead of me.

  They were all smarter than me, for one thing. Everybody in space has these chips in their heads that are full of information on every subject. Just try winning a bar bet with one of those guys. Just try it, wise guy. You’ll lose. I got one of those information chips put into my head—cost me all the money I had made as a detective—but my body rejected it so violently part of my brain came out with it. So I just ended up knowing less than I knew before. I tried carrying the chip in my pants pocket instead of my head, but that didn’t work. Just made my pants real hot.

  They all have these special kinds of pills too. Pills that do everything for you. Instead of eating or sleeping or exercising or going to a movie, they just take a pill. And if their hair gets too long, there’s no need for any of your so-called “Earth Haircuts”. They just take a pill and instantly there’s hair all over the floor and everybody looks great. But people from Earth can’t take these pills. Don’t ask me how I know. I don’t want to talk about it. And don’t ask the doctor who put my butt back together either.

  And, even though I consider myself a pretty modern guy, everyone in space was miles ahead of me technologically. Even the kids. A lot of the younger trendier types on Betelgeuse 13, for example, routinely traveled from place to place by downloading themselves onto the galactic internet. That was the latest thing, when I was there. They thought interstellar rockets were old fashioned and corny. They could travel from one end of the galaxy to the other in the time it takes to click a mouse. The only time I tried that I forgot my password and couldn’t get out. I finally had to kick my way out through somebody’s keyboard. Next time I’m going to write my password down.

  If they weren’t surfing the galactic internet they were getting places by using Star Trek style transporters. I tried that and, on my very first trip, due to a magnetic disturbance in the planet’s atmosphere, I got split into two Frank Burlys. One good and one evil. I told the good Frank Burly to go get us both some coffee, then I took off before he got back. I was afraid that we might be put back together at some point, but we never were. We weren’t that much different anyway.

  After awhile I started to get the feeling that maybe Earth wasn’t so bad after all. At least on Earth I had a chance to compete. Up here my puny mind didn’t get me very far. I started getting nostalgic, telling aliens I met in bars how great the Earth was.

  “On Earth everyone had puny minds,” I told one alien, “and primitive thoughts, and a limited understanding of the world around them. A guy could really compete with pea-brains like that.”

  “Sounds great,” he said.

  “And where I come from nobody was really very good at doing anything,” I said, dreamily. “In most instances, a monkey could do it better.”

  “Wow.”

  “And the trees, they weren’t ordinary trees, they were watermelon trees.”

  “Why don’t you go back there then? If you like it so much.”

  “I didn’t say I liked it. I just said it was easy. And, anyway, I can’t go back there. The whole place has been overrun by a bunch of smelly aliens.”

  “Watch it, mister.”

  I looked at the alien. He was bigger than me. “All right, I’ll watch it,” I said, “since you’re so big, and I’m so small.” I took another drink. “But, whether your people are smelly or not…” I held up a restraining hand, “and I’m sure they’re not, it wouldn’t do me any good to go back to Earth now. The same know-it-alls I’ve been running into out here are down there now too. I couldn’t compete with them. I might as well stay where I am. Starve here. Save some shoe leather.”

  Now I know what you’re thinking: Hey, Burly, you’re thinking, we all know you’re a hero. This is your chance to prove it. Why don’t you roll up your sleeves and get out there and save the good old Earth? To that my answer is screw you, gentle reader. Up yours, also. I don’t work for you. I don’t do things just because you think they’re a good idea. Let somebody else save the Earth, if it needs saving. Or you do it, if you think it’s so God damned important. It isn’t my job. Screw you. Screw everybody.

  On the other hand, I suddenly thought one day when I had really been drinking a lot, if saving the Earth was my job, I wonder how much that job would pay? I mean, they’ve got to give you something if you’ve just saved their worthless butts for them, right? They’ve got to show their appreciation in some tangible way. Stands to reason. I never saw Paul Revere in an unemployment line. And I’ll bet you didn’t either. If I was a hero, I probably wouldn’t have to work for the rest of my life. I’d get everything for free, just like Paul Revere does. And Sgt. York—remember all of that free bottom land he got? Well, they’d damn well have to give me some bottom land too. Better yet—bottom land for everybody. Anyway, that’s the way it looked to me after about forty drinks.
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br />   So I decided to go back and take a crack at saving mankind. The money was right. The problem was, how to do it. The Earth was crawling with aliens. I couldn’t overpower them all—that was my first idea. Knock ‘em all on their cans and tell them to hit the road or they’d get worse. I didn’t think I could pull that off. I’m tough, but I’m not that tough. I couldn’t outsmart them all either. I’m very smart, but I’m not that very smart.

  Then I decided maybe I should just do this the way the heroes in the movies do it. “What will you do?” people ask them. “I’ll know that when I get there,” they say. And everybody figures that answer is good enough. And, sure enough, when the hero gets there he does know what to do. Or sometimes the hero would say: “I’ll explain on the way.” And people always think that’s a good answer too. I decided that was the way I’d do it. I’d explain it to myself on the way.

  But before I had a chance to even leave for Earth, I happened to see a newspaper that had an article about dead planets in it. The Earth was mentioned. I started reading this article, frowning.

  “Remember the Earth?” it began. “Home of the foot long hot dog and racial hatred? Well, it’s still around, but no one goes there anymore because of the doomsday shroud surrounding it and the total lack of life on its charred surface.”

  I read the rest of the article with growing anger. In their ferocious no-holds-barred battle to gain control of the Earth the aliens had ended up destroying all life on it, including their own. And now the Earth was as dead as the Moon.

  That’s when my mind snapped, I guess. At least I think it snapped. I heard a loud snap coming from the direction of my mind. Other people heard it too, and turned to look to see where all the racket was coming from.

  Enraged at seeing all my planning come to nothing, and my big chance to return to Earth as a hero gone forever, I threw the newspaper down, kicked over the newspaper rack, pushed over the newspaper building, dumped the town’s only bridge into the river, and started tearing up the expressway. After a couple more drinks I got really mad. When my rage finally subsided a few days later, I realized I had completely trashed Betelgeuse 13.

  While I was sheepishly looking around at all the destruction I had caused, I noticed that all of the inhabitants were huddled together out near the horizon, some of them holding up crosses to keep me away (and they did keep me away, too. Crosses! Yuck!). I suddenly realized that with no one around and all the shop windows smashed, I could take what I wanted without—and this was the important thing—paying for any of it. So I grabbed an armload of stuff. No, make that a double armload. And with the spaceport abandoned, I could take any ship I wanted. Free of charge. So I commandeered the newest fastest one they had. And no one tried to stop me from doing any of that. They were too afraid of me. I was nuts. It was all so easy, I couldn’t believe it. Hey, I thought, how long has this been going on?

  Like most successful careers, it had happened entirely by accident. If I hadn’t seen that newspaper, I might never have realized that with my limitless anger, mindless brutality and frightening other-worldly appearance, I had all the tools it took to be a successful space monster.

  Dazzled by this realization, I took off into space and headed for another planet to pillage, roaring with excitement.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I’m not proud of the next eighteen months. But a man has to eat. And he has to have bars of gold. And motorboats, a man needs those too. And if a man can only get those things by scaring the shit out of another man, he has to do it. Right? Right. Anyway, that’s the way I had it figured. It made sense to me. And during that period of my life it wasn’t a good idea to argue with me. I’d scare the shit out of you if you did.

  For the rest of that year and into the next, I was the terror of the galaxy. I’d land on an unsuspecting planet, stamp around, roaring my head off, scare everybody away, get some food, and whatever loot I fancied, maybe take in a movie or do some ice skating, and then high-tail it back into space before the inhabitants could regroup.

  I thought of working up a scary costume to wear, something with horns and claws and maybe a long spiky rubber tail, but most of the frightened inhabitants I encountered assured me I didn’t need it. It was gilding the lily, they said. They were already afraid of my size and strength and the crazy way I acted. Plus, they were put off by the aura of filth, decay and disease I gave off. Whatever I had, they didn’t want to catch it too. So my bad grooming habits helped me there.

  The inhabitants’ biggest fear when I landed on their planet, judging by their panicky news broadcasts, seemed to be that I might begin to reproduce. But they didn’t have to worry about that. I couldn’t get a woman to even look at me.

  Sometimes I’d run into a meddling little kid who tried to convince all the grown-ups that I wasn’t as bad as I seemed to be, and everybody should come out of their hiding places and surround me. In cases like that, I had to tell the kid to button his lip or I’d button it for him. I didn’t want people to know I wasn’t as bad as I seemed to be. I wanted them to think I was considerably worse. Go ruin somebody else’s business, you little bastard. After I’d buttoned a couple of lips, word got around and the kids started laying off me.

  The job had its ups and downs, but no more than any other job I’ve ever had. It was a living. And I was doing what I wanted to do with my life. I won’t say I had always wanted to do it—I had wanted to be a movie star when I was a kid. Then a priest. Then a priest watching a movie. Then some other careers. Then came the day when I found out it didn’t matter what you wanted to be, you were going to end up standing in line at the unemployment office with everybody else. I wish somebody had told me that sooner. Before I did all that planning—but being a space monster was what I wanted to do now. It was a good enough career. I was getting my three square meals a day, and my bars of gold, that’s the important thing.

  Eventually, as my notoriety spread, I attracted the attention of the Intergalactic Police. I usually managed to stay one or two jumps ahead of them, but the constant pursuit forced me to change my style. Instead of rampaging across a whole planet, and then picking through the inhabitants’ valuables at my leisure, I’d just set down in the biggest city on the planet, roar as loud as I could and get out of there with whatever I could quickly get my hands on—some money, food, or maybe just a section of the newspaper. It was less satisfying doing it that way, but it had to be done, at least until I could find a way to shake off my pursuers.

  And it wasn’t just the police chasing me. There was another ship out there too. It had been chasing me for weeks. I didn’t have any idea who it was. A fan, maybe. Or an autograph hound. But I ran from it anyway. That’s one of the things you can count on with me. If you chase me, I will run.

  Eventually I started getting a little tired of all the police chases. My job was hard enough without having to avoid the police all the time. I took a day off to sit down on an asteroid and figure out a way to get the cops off my tail for good. One of the policemen used that day to catch up to me and stick a gun in my ribs.

  “Boing!” the cop said.

  I turned around. It was Larry Laffman.

  As he slammed me up against a rock-face and told me to spread ‘em, and I laughed myself sick at the serious way he said it, we swapped stories. He told me how he’d ended up as an Intergalactic Policeman, and I told him how I had evolved into a space monster. Then he reminded me that anything I might say, including all of the things I had already said, could be used against me in a court of law. I said he might have told me that before I blabbed everything. He said he was sorry. He was new at this. Also, he pointed out that my hands weren’t up nearly high enough.

  I was surprised to run into Larry way out here in the middle of outer space. Last I heard he was in Vegas. He told me he had escaped Earth when the invasion began, along with his agent, in his own private rocket ship. I asked where he had gotten one of those. He said he had recently negotiated a new deal with NBC for a spin-off of his hilariously phy
sical game show: “Take It From Me”. The spin-off was going to be a more laid-back easy-going version of the same show called: “I’ve Got To Hand It To You”. NBC had wanted the spin-off pretty bad so Sid got Larry a good deal, which included a huge salary, an important sounding title (“Vice President In Charge Of Everything”), controlling interest in the actual peacock, and a space ship—the only privately owned fully-operational space ship in Hollywood at the time. (The one owned by the Moe Howard Estate had crashed). So when the Earth was invaded, he and Sid escaped in the ship. He said once he got out here he took the police job on the advice of his agent.

  “Sid says with this cop experience I might have a better chance to land some roles in action pictures, which is about all they make out here. He got me a good contract for this cop thing too. Cash up front, 20% of the police station, and I get to break all the laws I want after I turn 80.”

  I finally got to meet Sid. He was standing over by the police cruiser wearing an honorary deputy’s uniform and talking on a cell phone.

  “Hi Sid,” I said.

  He waved. “Beautiful,” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re the one who caught me, Larry,” I said warmly. “Because you’re my best friend. We go a long way back. We’d do anything for each other. The other cops don’t know me like you do. They wouldn’t let me go and wish me good luck like you’re going to do, Friend Larry.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t let you go. I own 20% of this bust. It’s money in my pocket.”

  “But…”

  “Business. Sorry. You want to pat yourself down? I’m not sure I want to get that close to you. They’ve got laundromats out here, you know.”

  I started slowly patting myself down. I didn’t particularly want to touch me either. Besides, I needed time to think of a trick. A way to get away. I wasn’t too optimistic. Usually when I try to think of a trick, all I can think of is the word “trick” over and over. Can’t get it out of my head. I don’t know why that happens. But it’s not a trick. It’s just the word for it.