CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 29 (sub titled)

Limousine Driver for an Alien

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April 09, 2011 This is when it all started.  I am not a special man.  I am not even an average man for the things that I have received.  I am a chronic underachiever with a job that underpays me.  I am a residential counselor for the mentally disabled.  I went to college for four years and now I make nine dollars an hour while watching television and cooking dinner for crazy people.  I do not even feel any ambition for my job nor do I really care what happens to my career.  The great thing about being a residential counselor is that I work two straight days in a row, twenty-four hours a day.  I sleep in the staff quarters from eleven to six.  I watch and make sure they don't set fire to themselves while making breakfast, tell the next residential counselor what happened on Friday and Saturday and then I come home.  After that, I am supposed to have five entire days off.  Five days off to watch television and cook dinner for myself.

That was before the aliens with the death rays and cloaking devices totally ruined my perfect journey toward personal apathy, 300 pounds and trivial knowledge next to none in the metro area.

On Monday, I had a necessary errand on which to go.  A medical bill had become delinquent and now Semper Fidelity Credit threatened to take me to court if I didn't pay them $350.00, like immediately.  I tried to explain to them that I was still trying get my awful HMO to pay for the migraine problem I had before my neurologist changed me over to a new anticonvulsant.  That did not matter to them, as it shouldn't.  I needed to fork over the money or go to court where I would then have to pay court costs on top.  I had already found myself behind on everything after missing forty hours worth of work.  I couldn't afford to take them on, so I knew I had to take it in the backside.

I drove to the Metro Money building on 9300 S. Crow Drive.  The songs on the radio gave me a little lift before I had to deliver my installment payment of 100.00 to Semper Fidelity Credit. I found the suite on the office directory while humming the remainder of "Freak on A Leash".  People looked at me, but I didn't care.  Only losers came to this building, to pay off debts and get practically illegal mortgages.  I didn't fear any lasting stigmas.  I was already a loser.  So were they.  I walked into the elevator, smiling and clutching my loser money order for Semper Fidelity Credit.

I walked down the bleak, yet vacuumed hallway of the fifth floor until I saw the tinted door to Semper Fidelity.  I wondered about the title of this company for a fraction of a second, then pulled on the door.  The door was locked.  I looked at my pager that read 1:05 in the afternoon.  I guessed that Always Fidel still had not come back from lunch.  My lunch had also pushed last night's dinner down a few feet, so I took the chance to use the hall bathroom and wait for Fidel to come back.

While in the dreary, yet sanitized bathroom, I heard some noises like the old Buck Rogers shows and then I heard a door open.  I finished up and headed to the office of Semper Fidelity Credit, confident that I could drop off my payment.

The door opened easily this time.  I walked to the counter with my money order.  I didn't see anyone there to take my money.  I did smell something right away.  It smelled like a cross between bleach and over cooked ham.  I then noticed narrow columns of smoke wafting up from the floor.  About half a dozen of those small columns curled up near the ceiling.  I looked at the floor where those columns came from.  I saw what looked like shadows on the carpet, covered with some kind of encrusted gelatin with white chunks mixed in.

I stumbled out of the office and ran back toward the elevator.  I still did not really piece together what might have happened, I just knew what happened did not belong in my reality.  The elevator door opened up and I ran inside.  I ran to the front lobby and waved at the woman and man flirting at the fax machine.
"Something happened at the fifth floor.  I need to call 911."  I blurted out.

"Excuse me?"  The man with the gray hair and stiff pants said.

"Something happened up on the fifth floor.  We need to call the police, or the fire department."  I said.  I feared that my words had become too shaky to be understood.

"What's wrong up there.  Is somebody hurt?"  The man said.  He looked at the woman who did not lift her head from the fax machine the whole time.

I started to answer when I heard a similar sound.  It was the sound I heard in the bathroom, only much less fake, like the sound effect evolved from "Buck Rogers" to "Independence Day".  This time, it came with a bright, yellow light.  I looked at the source of this light and saw the woman at the fax quickly fade into a shadow, partially on the wall and partially on the floor.  Boiling black ooze spilled onto to the fax machine and white chunks flew out across the lobby.

I then saw a form appear in the lobby office.  The light had blurred my vision and my mind.  I would not be able to recollect the sighting until later.  I could only make out a greenish extension with a steel object on the end.

The man looked at me instead of what approached.  He looked at me as if I could help, but I just looked at him with a childish scream in the back of my throat.  The sound and light reverberated again.  This time the man began to fade right in front of me.  I felt a strange, cool sensation brush on and through me.  I leapt backwards and fell on some plants in the lobby.  Before I could even stop my slide on the waxed floor, I twisted my self up and raced out the door.  I felt another cool wave blow by me as I knocked the door loose on my scramble out of the Metro Money Building.

It is difficult to truly relate what I thought as I ran to my car.  I only remember hearing the sound of my own yelps and breaths.  The noises began to sound less realistic by the time I got to my 1990 Honda Civic.  I opened the door and jumped inside, ramming the side of my head against the top of the doorframe.  I saw some purplish stars but that did not stop me either.  I jammed the key into the ignition with my trembling hand and started the car.  I backed out without looking back and fully expected to crunch into another car in the parking lot, but actually didn't.  The radio came on, playing "Superbeast" but this time I didn't care much for singing along.  My only priority remained to leave the parking lot and get away from whatever killed all those people, to get away from the image of that guy evaporating in front of me.

I exited the parking lot and squealed out onto the road.  The other cars around me did not share my sense of urgency.  As I drove down Crow Drive, I saw something emerge over the top of the Metro Money Building.  The gigantic monster had only tentacles for discerning features.  Several yellow dots blinked on and off as it floated over the building and then over my car.  Some orifice opened near the middle of it.  I stomped on my brakes.  A cowardly, loud scream left me as I braced to be destroyed.

Instead, the tentacle monster flew up and disappeared into the afternoon sky.  I tried to keep my eyes on it, but no trace or spot or speck remained.

"Get off the road you god damn idiot!"

I jumped out of my seat when I heard the angry motorist.  He maneuvered himself slowly around my car that he had almost hit from behind.  He shook his fist at me as he drove by.  Another chorus of honks rang out and I drove the car slowly forward to the stoplight.  I saw the people behind me talk to each other while looking at me in anger in the rear view mirror.  I looked back and pointed to the sky and quickly noticed how retarded that looked.  Obviously, nobody else on the road saw the thing.  They were too busy with their lives and their selves.  I tentatively kept on driving home.  My heart eased down to a mere million beats per minute.  I stretched my ears on the radio, waiting for the DJ on KORD to announce the mass UFO sighting.  I focused on getting home in one piece so I could calmly call the police and tell them what happened inside the Metro Money Building.

At Home

When I got home, I didn't call the police.  I turned the television on.  The local news had no breaking story about anybody getting evaporated or about any UFO with tentacles floating over southern Denver.  The regular Jerry Springer / Judge Judy / Young and the Restless programs droned on to their trashy conclusions.  I walked over to my medicine cabinet and opened the door.  Dr. Furkin warned me about extreme hallucinations if I mixed the Cereflaxitine with any other psychotropic drugs.  I could still see the ashtray on the coffee table of my living room where Levar put his joint out.  I had only taken one hit off the joint, then remembered my doctor's warning.  I only took the hit out of politeness for my friend.
I sat down with the television on and pondered the new depths of my existence.  I had run out of a building screaming where I had to drop off a payment.  Now, Semper Fidelity Credit would take me to court and I would be garnished.  What could I say?  Sorry your Honor, I came in with the payment, but the tentacle monsters with the death rays wouldn't let me pay.  I resolved myself to the situation.  Perhaps I could call them, let them know I would be in first thing in the morning.  They might buy it, but then again they had probably heard that a billion times.

I dialed the number.

"I'm sorry, all circuits are busy. Please try your call again later."

I hung up.  Ever since we got the new area code, calls were almost as reliable as the Pony Express.  I got some Big K Black Cherry Soda out of the fridge and sank into the couch.  Judge Mills Lane bitched someone out for being a bad parent.  The let down from my crazy adrenaline worked hard on my eyelids and I fell asleep until six o'clock.  I changed the channel to the History Channel and watched television for another nine hours.  I ate left over Chinese food.  At three o'clock in the morning, after absorbing more trivial facts from the History Channel, I went to bed.  I felt much better.  I was at least an ounce or two closer to three hundred pounds and I stood a slightly better chance against my nemesis on TriviaNetwork.com.  My life had come back into order.  For now.

I woke up at 11:00 and lay in bed with my eyes open until 11:30, thinking of the trippy day before.  I forgot to call Semper Fidelity Credit, but I would go there again today, hopefully without the THC hallucination experience.  I put on some semi-clean clothes.  I went to the bathroom.  I turned the television back on.  I changed the channel to ESPN.  Golf was on, and although in desperation I would watch it, I didn't feel that sports-desperate today.  I watched a rerun of Law and Order until noon.  Then I turned the channel to Judge Mathis.

It was halfway through the show that I knew my life would never be the same again.

Judge Mathis gave way to a long stream of commercials.  Channel Two News previewed their top stories.
"And we will go to the site of the arson murder investigation at the Metro Money Building in South Denver.  Residents are shocked.  The families of the victims speak about this terrible tragedy.  The police are still looking for the heavy set man caught on the surviving security video running out of the building."
I felt my heart beginning to panic again.  I instantly walked to the phone and dialed the number to the Denver Police.  I lived in the west suburbs, but I had memorized the Denver Police number while working at the group home.  I didn't need any time to figure the heavyset man had to be me.  I just hoped I didn't look that stupid on the camera.

"Denver Police."

"Yes, I think I was the person on the video camera at the Metro Money Building."

"Do you believe you are a witness sir?"

"I was there. I ran out of the building when those people died."

"Please hold sir."

I thought about whether or not I would be a suspect.  My finger grazed across the off switch of the phone several times.  I had already committed though, when perhaps I should have thought about it first.  They could want me to identify the criminal, but all I saw was a tentacle with a weapon attached.

A tentacle.  That is what I saw.  It wasn't the same kind of tentacle that the spaceship had, but a tentacle all the same.  It glistened bright green with hints of yellow.  The weapon looked like a large bicycle spoke with tuning forks coming out the sides.

Wouldn't that be a great story for the police.

"Sir, this is Captain Entley.  Did you have some information about the fire at the Metro Money Building?"
"Yes, well I'm not sure.  I think I was the one who the video cameras taped running out of the building."
"Were you at the building when the fire started?"

"Uh yes, I was."

"Sir, where do you live?"

"I live at 5595 Parfait, it's a duplex."

"Will you be there if we send someone out right away?"

"Am I in any trouble?"

"No, we just really need to talk to you."

"Yes, I'll be home."

"Very well, sir.  We'll be over there as soon as possible."

I sat back down to watch Judge Mathis and wait for the cops, but I couldn't concentrate on the show.  I switched to MTV, and suffered through a few rap videos before I got anxious and walked outside.  I checked the mailbox.  My ten million-dollar check from Dick Clark had not yet arrived.  An object on the sidewalk about fifty feet away caught my attention.  It looked like it might have been a silver coin of some kind.  I walked over to pick it up in front of my neighbor's house.  It was not a silver coin but a silver colored game token.  I let it fall back to the sidewalk.

As I let go of the coin, I heard the engine of a powerful but well tuned car pull up into my driveway.  Someone in an unmarked car had gotten to my place in like ten minutes.  I took one step to greet them, but their terrifying efficiency drove me further away.  The green alien with the death ray also drove me a little further away as well.

A man in a beige sports coat got out of the driver's side.  He looked about forty with brown hair, a mustache and tinted glasses.  He opened the passenger side of his car.  The alien slithered out and they both walked toward my duplex.

And that’s how I met the Limo Driver for the Alien.  His name was Ralph – the Alien, that is.  I never did get the name of the driver.