by V X Lloyd
“You betcha.” Perry said, extending his arm to grasp Deb’s fur coat. Celia peeked around the corner. Naked -- no one would mind.
“Uh-oh!” said Perry, noticing nudity.
"Sweetie! Come have a seat!" said Deb, patting the couch very near to Perry.
“Nope!” Celia, a scared mouse, zipped back into the bedroom.
“So you two, just friends, huh?” said Perry, full of winks.
“Yeah, we barely know each other,” said Moony, watching Deb twirl the hair of Perry’s beard.
Celia came into the living room wearing one of Moony’s designer work-style shirts.
“Perry, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Maybe we could meet and talk sometime,” said Moony as Celia drifted to him, kissing him for considerably longer than the conventional etiquette manuals deemed traditional when a person has guests over.
Perry waited for the kiss to end. “Well, why don’t you and me go play racquetball tomorrow evening? The court’s just a few blocks down.”
Deb chimed in, “Oh Bucko, we were going to dinner tomorrow after work.”
Celia pulled away from the kiss and did some of her yoga right there in the living room. Moving into “Downward-facing dog” pose, the work shirt slipped up around her neck. She was not a person who reserved space on her list of priorities for keeping her body to herself.
“We could play racquetball on Thursday, if you already have plans,” Moony said, scratching his face. Celia moved into dragon pose.
“You and me, huh Moony?” Perry smiled.
Moony nodded, staring thoughtfully at Celia.
After several moments during which Perry received only silence, he decided they had better go. Only Celia’s yoga and Moony remained.
2. First Encounters
Instead of playing racquetball, Perry suggested to Moony that they could take a trip to Mexico.
Lately, he had been full of good ideas, and it was because he had become so receptive to getting them from whatever source spoke to him at any given moment. Most of the snow had melted off the roads, and while cleaning up trash outside the apartment complex’s mailboxes, mostly junk mail that the residents discarded as soon as they’d set eyes on it, he chanced upon a flyer advertising Puerto Peñasco as not only a safe and inexpensive vacation spot, but also a reported landing zone for extraterrestrial life forms. The flyer cited several interpretations of Bible verses as evidence of this exact spot being a destination guaranteed to bring revelations on the coming weekend.
This particular Bible verse came from 2 Samuel, verse 11:2, and it went like this:
One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful.
Perhaps you’re wondering how someone could have come to such a specific conclusion based on that Bible verse. I myself often wonder the same sorts of things.
Perry, always interested in aliens, though ignorant as to the real reason why, wasn’t worried about rationality. He decided to go for it. He had gotten Sod Hill’s business affairs in order to such an extent that if he missed two days, he could still return in time to prepare the apartment complex’s adjacent bar, the Frog Regal, for one of his new bi-weekly art film screenings. He loved the theme of comparisons above all else, so he was thinking of showing two Al Pacino movies back to back, with coffee in between: Serpico then Simone. Though he had budgeted his time this weekend to install a European-style cappuccino maker, since art-types enjoyed that sort of thing, it could wait until next week. His life would benefit instead from an open-ended vacation; he would invite his new friend Moony.
Moony was down for a Mexico trip, since it would be a safe distance from the Gypsy where he could induct Perry into the skills of alien humans. He didn’t understand Perry’s apologetics regarding short notice. They dropped what they were doing, borrowed Moony’s father’s RV, and left.
On the road, they talked about Perry’s groundbreaking art film idea, planning a few discussion questions to take place after them and even brainstormed some advertisements to create a buzz. If things went well, the bar could eventually separate into an Italian section and an American section. In the Italian section, there would be the cappuccino maker and some pastries, and the rest of the bar would be pretty much the same, since it was already American. Perry realized he didn’t have to run this idea by Deb, since she would just say “Go for it, Bucko, if we can afford it,” adjust her reading glasses, and get back to her paperwork.
Perry drove, Moony sat and mused, watching the scenery change. The snowdrifts began to look small as they moved south, getting a better view of the Sangre de Cristo range, sharp and (to Moony) looming. But soon the mountains were gone too, and the view from the RV couldn’t have interested him less: grassland and desert.
“Looks just like the Wild West, don’t it?” asked Perry.
Moony nodded. The grassland scenery looked like it was something he’d seen on an old television—it looked drowsy, the way antenna reception wavered when whipped by a storm. Occasionally his mind’s eye caught the image of the Gypsy’s wooden money box on coffee table, and he imagined the road noise was the feel of it in his hands, opening the box to pocket the acrid-smelling bills. Even though he may have cocked up the rather huge opportunity for the Sphinx to be his constant helper, he was feeling more and more confident that he would be able to outmaneuver the Gypsy’s grand nanoengineered plans for him in the galaxy. Maybe instead of doing it alone, he would hire a team of detectives to get to the bottom of it all. On the other hand, maybe he was just such a detective. He imagined holding a monocle or a magnifying glass.
It started raining outside and this became their only noise. The RV was in between customization work. There was no stereo, there was no toilet -- the two men used a Hills Bros. coffee can to piss in. It sat on the floor where the toilet was supposed to be and, whenever the Fleetline hit a bump, sloshed room-temperature urine onto the linoleum. There was no bed – Moony’s father wanted to have bunk beds, since he could not tolerate sleeping next to his wife's tosses and turns, which she did because she could not abide by his snoring – so Moony and Perry didn’t sleep. They used amphetamines and shared childhood stories and came to respect each other, despite their economic differences. Moony learned that for seventy years, the Whitecomb family had been the proudest, yet not necessarily the most successful, beekeepers in the state of Colorado. Perry had never gotten over his childhood fear of bees.
“Christ, I’m scared of bees,” was how Perry expressed it.
It turned out Moony was afraid of bees too. “And I’ve never even been stung by anything. My sister was stung by a wasp when she was a baby. Seeing her throat swell up and she cried like a sick monkey – I didn’t know what to do. My dad put a wad of tobacco on the sting and we rushed her to the hospital. Do you believe in omens?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I was just wondering.”
Perry shared his bee sting story. “The first time my parents showed me what’s what with bees, I was stung by fifteen, twenty. . .” he looked at Moony, “—maybe thirty. . .” Moony gaped, “—fifty-some bees. I swore off bee-keeping. Best decision I ever made. Sixty, seventy bee stings can really whip the shit out of you.”
“Is that where you got the bumps on your nose, from all the stings?”
“What bumps?” Perry leaned to find the rearview mirror, but there wasn’t one. He swerved the RV back into the right lane. “Christ, this steering is too tight.”
Having no radio but desiring noise, Moony learned that Perry believed himself to be a man who delegated his pursuits in the desired proportions – his job, which he put his heart into, made him happy enough, and his spare time gave him satisfaction. He said he was an open-minded fellow who had everything he wanted except children.
Perry’s sunglasses were artsy, Perry thought, since they existed as very small pink circles. The man had squinty eyes, but the glasses were clearly not intended for
use when driving into the Arizona sun. He realized this at one of their frequent stops for fuel, looking in the side mirror and noticing a striking redness on the whites of his eyes.
Crossing the border was effortless, but like Moony said, “It’s the coming back that’s the trick.” Perry had already made sure that they had all the proper paperwork (and none of the amphetamines) in the glove box to facilitate their return. When they arrived at Puerto Peñasco, both men were charmed at the number of fellow RVs and American citizens present. The two had arrived in the biggest and newest RV of them all, Perry noted.
Viewed from the outside, the Fleetline recreational vehicle looked truly top-of-the-line, an unequivocal prototype of high-stakes relaxation. Stepping outside of it for the first time south of the border, Moony and Perry regarded the massive RV with drowsy awe. It had taken them from Denver to Puerto Peñasco in a single day. The sun shone as it always did in northern Mexico: gloriously, with a vibrating yellow attrition. The two men parked themselves a little way down on the beach in lawn chairs, watching the sunset.
After many beers and another bee story, Perry told Moony more about his pioneering idea to split The Frog Regal into two sections. “One would be active during the day, and one during the night. Just like different time zones.”
Moony played along. “Hmm. Well, it would mean more business all day long. Not a bad idea. There isn’t a pastry shop anywhere in the neighborhood. I’d go there.” And he would, because he liked eating pastries. Perhaps he would begin waking up early enough to eat freshly-made ones.
In lawn chairs, the conversation made its way onto the topic of relationships. Moony was just about to gently redirect the conversation onto the subject of telepathy when he noticed Perry had an erection, clearly visible through his white linen slacks. Moony, a gentleman, attempted to keep his eyes on the loose skin half-moons beneath Perry’s eyes rather than his friend's new trouser tent. He tried to get himself to chuckle inwardly, but something about the experience caught him profoundly off guard. Was there a grand plan behind all this? Was Perry interested in Moony? Was Moony interested in Perry? He didn't think so, but he decided that, after all, he was in a different country, so why not let himself be open to the possibility?
In the meantime, he continued talking to Perry as before, meanwhile trying to scan into his friend’s cerebral activity, but he was too inebriated to have success. Perry’s plastic chair was on the back two legs, precariously balanced and bowing under the weight of a carefree man. Perry seemed to be forming some sort of meaning with his spoken language, saying something to the effect of: “Getting into a relationship is never smooth if there’s cheating involved. But it seems so easy.”
Moony hesitated a second. “Yeah, no, absolutely, you’re right,” he said emphatically. He didn’t know what the hell Perry was talking about. Was this an innuendo? A euphemism? Or had Moony simply lost his attention span somewhere in the long drive?
Perry rocked up and down, flexing the firm plastic legs a little. “What if you don't know if the other person has, say, a spouse -- they’re cheating and you don’t know, getting into the thing?”
Lucky to have a reflexive answer, Moony gave his expert opinion, “You start to get an instinct for those things.”
“And you just do ‘er anyway?” Perry asked, shaking his head as if to music Moony could not hear.
“Ah, you would too,” Moony said, wondering whether his words were slurred from all the beer. Moony noticed Perry had maintained his erection. Good for Perry. “It's just nature being nature.”
Perry stood up. “I see you staring at me.”
“And I’m seeing more of you than I’d like to right now.”
Perry looked down, trying to feign an unimpressed surprise. Moony heard the distant sound of a faraway wolf howling.
Moony didn’t think that he liked the way Perry’s pants were looking at him. He finally realized that, despite being a gentleman, he was not under any orders to do anything beyond the scope of his sexual orientation.
“Get out of here!” Moony said, pivoting his hand on the neck of an empty beer bottle so that it was no longer in “I drink this” but now in “I beat you with a club” mode. He approached Perry, whose beer-goggled eyes indicated that he might receive Moony with open arms, violence or no.
Moony stopped at a distance, leaning back with his arms rigid in front of his belly, trying to summon the energy he had reserved from high school football by slacking off on the field, as if sloth possessed the power to send little packets of energy to himself in the future. Moony’s stance sent a mixed message. His intended message: don't touch me with that phallus. The conveyed one: Hug me if you dare. He had been hard-wired to be charming, so his body language often clued unwanted advances.
Two or three wolves joined the howling. Some yips and barks too.
Perry stepped closer to him and Moony knew if he started to run, Perry would somehow catch up, taking big slow steps toward him. Perry had the keys to the RV. Moony knew they were in his pocket, jingling. . . jingling – against what?
Moony wanted to escape. He wanted to escape from the experience ever dawning. He wanted to feel like someone else. A few hours into a chi-orienting video game and he would feel perfect again. He fumbled with his hands. How to make all this go away? Now was not a time for conversation. He fumbled in his mind for the best documentation for this situation.
Perry told Moony that “It’s not a big deal,” then said that he should “Come here.”
Moony”s perceived options were to commit an act of brute force or run. Moony ran like a scared rabbit.
*
Shouldn’t all this running make Perry go flaccid?
It hadn’t. Moony was chased:
across the road
past concerned campers
across another road
into a tortilleria (Past a fresh batch of maple-sugar tortillas he thought twice about stopping for)
into the kitchen (and gave a thumbs up to the cook)
out the back door
through a line to the bathroom
over a retaining wall, and eventually
onto the beach.
Moony was drunk and fried from amphetamines, so he judged it would be prudent to head for the water and start swimming.
Perry stopped at the water’s edge, dizzy. He vomited on a sandcastle.
Moony continued his exertion into the Sea of Cortez. He felt determined to disappear. He would not look back. He would savor drowning if that’s what it took to maintain composure. When he got tired of the forward stroke, he began to backstroke. The night clouds and stars overwhelmed him. Now it was clearer than ever that the Sphinx had been wrong to have ever reached out to a doofus like him. He wasn't worth saving. All he was good at was being a drain on the system. Civilization was headed inevitably towards the malevolent dominion of a sky-vast computer made of linked minds. A thought came to him in a strange voice, like himself, but older and with a speech impediment, offering its wisdom: You ithh doing nothhhing wiff yauu life.
It wasn’t untrue. He’d always given up on anything he got good at.
He cried, not deeply, but enough to count as weeping. He knew that if anyone were watching they would see something to the effect of a crying man. For a brief moment, he was not conscious of himself. He wept more earnestly, no longer because he was chased down by a man with an erection, but because of the night sky. He let himself shiver in the cool water. The alcohol had thinned his blood and dehydrated his muscles, and he gave into the meaninglessness of human life. He floated in a sort of peace for a while, his negative thoughts and ideas nursed away by the action of water. The tide carried his improbably lucky body back to shore.
Perry sat in the sand watching the sea return his friend to him. A young couple, not twenty feet from him, undulated, awkwardly enough to be real, making a love sandwich between a blanket and a beach towel. He listened to the breath and body sounds but did not look. Perry had no revelation.
“Hey buddy,” said Perry, sand in his beard. He had his hand raised. It reminded Moony of Tom Hanks’ character in the movie Castaway. He felt sad.
Moony didn’t know what to say. The two men walked decently for a while, side by side. If another second had gone by like this, Moony would have had a huge life revelation, but he was interrupted. Perry put his arm around him.
Moony pushed him away and thought he might finally and thoroughly establish himself as a badass for doing so. Perry told him to quit making such a big deal out of it.
Then he pulled it out. There it was, sticking more or less straight out of his zipper’s opening. If someone were to have walked by, they would have seen two grown men standing facing each other, motionless for four seconds, looking down at the waist-level object.
“Just touch it,” said Perry, enjoying the hell out of himself again. “Come on, you’ve given it so much attention already.”
“No way Jose,” said Moony, stepping back. Perry wagged forward.
Moony reached his hand into Perry's pocket, wrenched out the keys thinking This right here which I am doing, I am not doing, no hand in the pants, and he bolted. Hopping inside the RV, he started the engine then locked the doors.
Was he just going to leave his landlord in Mexico?
He could. Maybe twelve people in the world would care.
What kind of friend does that? He didn’t know. What kind of friend chases his friend with an eternal erection? He could guess at the answer to that: a bastard named Perry Whitecomb. He put the RV in gear and sped forward.
The headlights shone hazily in the dust of the white gravel road. Moony’s mouth tasted like something between dog fur and salty lemonade. He wondered about getting something to eat and thought again of the cinnamon tortillas. If he just ate a few of those, he would feel grounded again, balanced and happy. Everything would be fine, once and for all. Everything was so, so simple. Except for the pangs of guilt he felt in his stomach about leaving Perry behind, and the fact he still hadn't even spoken to him about being an alien human. He felt these things in his stomach. But, he realized, his stomach was also the location he felt hunger. A few cinnamon-toasted tortillas could solve both the guilt and the hunger -- how incredibly efficient. As long as he held onto that profound tunnel vision, everything would be OK.
