We’re sitting on her porch, the trusty Styrofoam cooler between us. There’s a broken hole in the lid now. It was an accident. I’m drinking 32-ounce cans of Colt 45 malt liquor. I love the buzz but it always gives me a headache-heavy hangover. I believe it’s worth it.
She’s drinking peach wine coolers for some insane reason. She insisted I take a sample sip and it was so sweet I had to chase it with a syrette of Trulicity.
It’s been threatening to rain all day but so far we’ve been lucky, it’s just chilly and gray.
She finishes a peach cooler and drops the empty bottle down the mouth of the three stacked radial tires she’s using as a footstool.
Silence for a while, and then she says, “Do you believe in spaceships?”
“Spaceships? Of course I believe in spaceships. We’ve been building them for seventy years.”
She lets out an exasperated groan. “Not like that. You know what I mean.” All these years and I’m still teasing her. Just to get a rise. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I keep waiting to change.
I say, “Sorry. You mean spaceships from other planets, right?”
“Yeah. Like aliens. Do you think they’re really real?” She has this eager, excited little expression and I know what’s coming.
“I don’t know. Why? You ever seen one?”
“YES!” she says, giddy as a kid. “A couple weeks ago.”
“Tell me about it,” as if I could stop her at this point.
“Okay. Well, I was walking home…”
“Wait. Does this story end with an anal probe?”
She shoots me a cross look. “Ew! No! Shut-up. Anyways, I was walking home from Evergreen [Evergreen Counseling Services. We both go there for help with the crazies]. It was dark `cause I had to make a late appointment. Usually I’m there in the morning. Early Thursday morning…”
“Is that you? I thought you looked familiar.”
“Shut up, retard. Let me talk.”
“Sorry…”
“Yeah, so anyways, I’m walking home and it’s spooky `cause I notice there’s like no cars on the road. No traffic whatsoever.”
“You think the spaceships stole it?”
“What? Stole what?”
“The traffic. Maybe the spaceships abducted all the traffic. I hear they have tractor beams.”
She punches my arm. “Shut up! I’m being serious!”
“Sorry… Go ahead.”
“Anyways. So all of a sudden, I hear this sound. Like a, what do you call it?” She looks at me, waiting for an answer.
I shrug. “What?”
“What do you call that sound spaceships make.”
“Clarence?” I offer.
“No, fuck-knob. The sound alien spaceships make.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard one since my First Communion.”
“No, dipshit, like in the movies. It’s a specific sound. It’s real moody.”
“Moody, huh? Like this?” I try to whistle like the Theremin in The Day the Earth Stood Still. The trick is to hum under the whistle.
“No. Not like that.”
Silence for a while, then she says, “It was like a blip. Like this; Blip blip blip blip.”
“That sounds like a blip all right.”
“Yeah. So, like the more I walk, the louder it gets and the faster the blips get.”
“Did the blips get blippier too?”
She lowers her head, lets out a long breath and says, “Fuuuuck ooofff!”
“Sorry.”
“So, anyWAYS! I seen this crazy blue light in the sky. Like, really really blue. Y’know?”
“It was really blue?” I stroke my chin like a philosopher. “Yes, I know what that was. That’s the light from the trans-dimensional bivalve motor that makes the jump to hyperspace. That blue light. It’s like a turn signal on a car…”
“Really?”
Got her again. “No,” I say and she punches my arm harder this time.
“You’re a total and utter ass.”
“I know.”
“Way to ruin a good story, asshole.”
“Thanks.” I say and reach for another Colt 45.
Crumbling Asphalt 