Belt Buckles & Pajamas Page 4

  “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy,” the hedgehog offers. He has it right: Andie is just like stepping into a warm sunbeam that ignores the arctic breeze and shines through the living room window and you just want to curl on the floor and let its warmth soak through to the bone.

  “I’ll take that as you being okay with joining us today. How about you, Gordon?”

  We all look around. “Who the hell’s Gordon?” Stuart asks. “Is someone hiding? Is it one of THEM?”

  Andie is looking at Shy Boy. “Hey, it’s Shy Boy,” Violet says. “Shy Boy has a name!”

  Shy Boy looks over at Violet, not making eye contact, rather looking down at her feet. Violet grins. Andie sees the exchange. I know we are in trouble. Again.

  “Violet, what exactly brought Gordon into this group?”

  “Got me Andie, maybe he heard about the rave we were having later.”

  Andie isn’t amused. She is even less amused when she sees the little tent Shy Boy is pitching. He rocks back and forth, still staring at Violet’s feet. “Gordon,” she says, “why don’t you go on back to your room. You can join us again tomorrow, if you are feeling, um, better.”

  “Rocket man,” the hedgehog says. We try not to laugh, but Stuart just can’t help giggling sometimes.

  Andie turns on Violet as soon as Gordon has left the room. “Violet,” she says, her face almost red with anger, “if I find out you are abusing Gordon, if you are doing anything to that boy, this will all be over. No second chances, no excuses. Over. Am I clear?”

  “Andie, I haven’t laid a hand on Shy Boy. I swear.” She says it with such a straight face, such sincerity; she would be a great actress. Or poker player. But I guess, in her own way she is telling the truth, it wasn’t a hand. I think Andie suspects she isn’t speaking the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but she lets it slide.

  Andie takes a deep breath. You can almost see the halo coming back to rest. “Daphne, do you want to tell me what happened to Theodore?”

  I look at her. I know she wants to know what really happened. I know she wants to figure this out. So do I. But I can’t. That whole one with the cosmos Glen and Theodore and my third grade teacher and everybody else… it can’t be real. How could I ever be one with everybody when everybody would have to include… him? If he was ever one with humanity, if he was ever any piece of good, how could he have…

  “I need tin foil,” Stuart says, to break the silence.

  “Daphne,” Andie tries again, “please talk to me. I just want to listen to what you have to say.”

  “The eye in the sky,” says the hedgehog.

  “SEE! I told you! It isn’t just me, the hedgehog knows about it too.” Stuart jumps up and Sam steps in. I’m starting to wonder why Sam is ever back far enough to have to step forward. I mean, geez, it’s his job: you’d think he would know one of was going to flip out every session. But Stuart isn’t going after Andie, he just wanted to stand up so he could wave his hands around and point up at the sky. No, not the sky, the ceiling – it would be the sky if we weren’t inside. Sam backs away when he sees that Andie isn’t in immediate danger from Stuart.

  “THEY are watching us,” he says, gesturing madly. “If we don’t put up the tin foil, if we don’t block their mind reading ultraviolet rays then we are doomed. DOOMED I say!”

  “Mooooo,” says, I believe, a cow from Pet Shop’s herd. If it wasn’t a cow that hedgehog is doing a damn fine impression of one.

  “Yes, mooooo,” Stuart agrees. “That’s what tipped me off, the cow jumping over the moon.” He gets real quiet, crouches down a little, and whispers, “They are using the moon to hide behind. That’s where the satellite is.”

  Andie leans back, sighs heavily. Good, she has given up on me, I am safe.

  “Stuart, just because Herbert brings up –”

  “It’s not Herbert,” he breaks in. “It’s the hedgehog. Those guys hear everything. They’re the perfect spies. Who would suspect a hedgehog of eavesdropping?”

  “Whoever you heard it from, I assure you there is not a satellite hiding behind the moon, bombarding us with ultraviolet rays that read our minds. It just isn’t possible.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No,” she answers. “Ultraviolet rays have a maximum distance of three hundred miles before degrading, the moon is well over fifty thousand miles from us – it just wouldn’t work, scientifically speaking.” I have no idea what she is saying, or proving, but the way she says it – I would have believed anything she said then.

  “Oh,” Stuart says. He giggles – he almost sounds like a girl when he giggles, it is kind of cute – and sits back down. “Never mind.”

  “Mooooo,” the cow assents.

  Andie turns to me. I am still a little melted from how sweetly she had straightened Stuart out. I have never seen anyone calm him down like that, not so quickly, nor so effectively, and certainly never so lovingly.

  “Theodore is gone.” I can’t help it. I have to tell her something. She deserves it.

  “Yes,” she replies. “Violet told me that much, now how about you tell me how it happened?”

  I look at her, her soft brown hair, with little curls around the ears. Her pale, smooth skin, her pretty lips and white teeth and proportioned body and her so not Melissa everything. How could I ever be a part of that? How could Andie and… and him ever be a part of the same universe? I cry. But not on her shoulder. Not where I want to.

  She tries to comfort me but Violet pushes her back – not so roughly that Sam comes after her, but firm enough to show Andie she isn’t welcome, that it isn’t her place to hold me, that Violet still… owns me? Is that what she thinks? I pull back from Violet, stop crying and dry my eyes on my sleeve.

  “How can you exist?” I ask. “How can you be real?”

  “Daphne, am I that unbelievable? I thought we were making contact, that you knew you could trust me.” She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t realize just how much contact she has made. I shudder, thinking what she would find out if she ever shared a dream with me, if she ever linked minds with me as Theodore had. If she ever saw inside my thoughts.

  She reaches out, and this time I don’t pull back. I tremble as she places her hand on my arm. Violet wants me to push Andie away again, I can tell by her icy stare, but I don’t want to. I let the hand sit there; I feel the warmth of her skin against my arm.

  “Believe in me, Daphne. I believe in you.”

  My eyes brim with tears I believe in her so much. She squeezes my arm, and I can sense the pulses of light, the goodness, emanating from her, flowing into my own veins as pure as a transfusion of holy water.

  “Glen is with Theodore. They are both gone, but it is okay. They are part of… part of everything now. Theodore tried to explain it to me but it was a little, well, metaphysical. Zen and all that.”

  “But they are in a good place?” she asks.

  I try to think if it is good or evil or if it just is. I know what she wants the answer to be. “It’s good,” I tell her, but I don’t think that is the complete truth. Because if you add in the good people with the bad people, if they are all part of it, then doesn’t it just kind of wash out in the end? Even super goodness like hers has the equally evil counterpart. I know that. God how I know that.

  “I’m glad,” she says. “But what about you? Did Theodore tell you how you fit into this good place?”

  “Sort of. He told me I was a part of it. That you were a part of it. Every – everyone was a part of it. That there weren’t any aliens, that even though we are alien to each other we are still part of the same… humanity.”

  I can tell I hit a home run with that answer. Andie is glowing. I think the no aliens thing was really important for her to hear. I guess I’m glad I told her, if only to see her reaction. I might have to come up with some more stuff like that; it’s worth it to see her radiate. To think that I can cause her to look like that, it makes me glow a little myself. And then it crashes as rapidly as it h
ad been built. Just like always. Bastards.

  “Are THEY a part of it?” Violet asks.

  “Oh my God, that’s how they absorb us!” Stuart shouts. “We have to figure out a blocking mechanism. Maybe a virus to reject the host organism? Tin foil won’t work on an organic transformation, we’re going to need a laboratory. Something with microscopes and test tubes and samples of alien DNA.”

  Andie’s glow fades. Damn Violet. You knew that would happen. She just had to push the buttons, had to turn the spotlight back on her.

  “We all live in a yellow submarine,” says the hedgehog. No one is particularly amused.

  Fourteen: Stuart Builds A Machine To Save Us All

  We are back at the cemetery. Violet brought along her two new toys, Shy Boy and Pet Shop. I wonder if there are any animals buried here. Probably not, they never let us keep any pets. Not visible ones you have to feed, anyway.

  Stuart found some tin foil. I think he got it from the kitchen. He just has the roll, not the box with the cutting edge on it. That’s a good thing. He would most likely try injecting us with his anti government takeover serum if he could cut us open. I think I will stick with the meds they give us versus whatever botulism-inducing potion Stuart would cook up in the bathroom.

  He is building little antennae and funky triangle shaped reflecting things. I don’t even pretend to understand him when he tells us how they will refract the mind reading rays and distort the reception by the moon satellite.

  “But I thought the moon was thousands of miles away,” Pet Shop tells Stuart. I think he just wants to get out of climbing the tree. Stuart says the triangle reflectors have to be at least twenty feet high to be effective. I don’t blame Pet Shop, I don’t want to climb up there either. It doesn’t look safe. Tree climbing is safe if you are a kid and in your own back yard but it’s been a long time since that was true.

  “Up on the roof,” says the hedgehog.

  “Exactly!” Stuart nods his head. “The flaw in Andie’s logic is that she was relying on government statistics! Of course they are going to provide her with misinformation. Thank God we have the advantage of the hedgehog surveillance network or we would have fallen for it as well. You really can’t blame her, for it was an impressive argument, with quite lovely presentation. I liked her sweater.”

  “I liked what was under the sweater,” Violet says. Sometimes Violet isn’t being crude, sometimes she just says what we all are thinking. We nod our heads in agreement with her – except Shy Boy, of course. He just drools, but it is hard to tell if it is because of Violet’s comment or just regular drooling.

  Stuart points up the tree. “Okay, Pet Shop, up you go. Time’s a-wasting, once the moon crests over Jupiter it will be too late to block the signals.”

  I hear Pet Shop muttering about his damn monkey never being around when he needs him. I thought that was kind of funny. Usually it’s the animals he has that are funny, but that time it was Pet Shop himself with the good one.

  While Pet Shop is in the tree we set up the tin foil antennae on branches we can reach from the ground all around the cemetery. We add some more to the broken down fence that is failing to keep out the weeds or us or probably anything that wants to broach the perimeter. It is going pretty good, we are almost out of tin foil, when we hear it.

  “Screeeeeeech!”

  Stuart hits the ground, eyes wide open, glancing around nervously. “Has the moon set over Jupiter? Somebody look, somebody tell me, has it started? Are they here?”

  “Screeeeeech!” It echoes through the cemetery again.

  Violet laughs. “Look up there, Pet Shop’s got a new friend!” We get up, a little embarrassed when we see Pet Shop flapping his arms up in the tree. There is a big old owl on the branch next to him, flapping back. I swear to God it looks like they are talking.

  “You go, Pet Shop,” Violet calls to him. He smiles, flaps his arms, and lets out his own loud screech.

  The owl must have felt we were intruding on a private conversation, because it took off after that. The wings are huge, but it barely makes a sound as it glides from the tree and through the woods. It was beautiful but it made me nervous, how quick and silent it was. And those claws and that beak. Anything that hunts in the night, when you are alone. Unaware. Scared.

  “Come on, Shy Boy, I need a reverse transmitter to complete the anti government meta ray wave insaturation deflection device.” Stuart pleads. He is trying to get Shy Boy’s radio. Like that is going to happen. That thing is attached to him. The only time I ever saw him not pay any attention to it was when…

  Violet must be in a good mood, if she is helping Stuart out. Or maybe she is just in her normal horny mood. Either way, she saunters – no one else saunters like Violet, let me tell you – up to Shy Boy. Stuart smiles; he knows Shy Boy doesn’t stand a chance.

  She smoothes his hair back with those sensuous hands. “Come on, Shy Boy, don’t you want to help us out?” It is funny to see him try to pull back with his top half while his lower half tries to grind against Violet.

  “Listen, sweetie,” she coos, pulling the earplug out of his ear, blowing into it her hot, warm, musky breath that feels like the ocean and the sunset and a sauna. “How about we do a little trade? We just want to borrow it for a little while.”

  He stops pulling back, as she tugs on his pants. His hands hang limp by his side. As she takes him in her mouth, she unclips the radio from his belt loop. He doesn’t notice. She could be cutting off his arm and he wouldn’t notice.

  Five minutes later, Stuart has his reverse transmitter, and the anti government meta ray wave insaturation deflection device is completed. Shy Boy – well he almost smiles at me. I sometimes wonder about Violet, but maybe this is good for him, despite what Andie said about invading personal spaces.

  “We’ll give it back in a couple days,” Stuart tells Shy Boy. “Their satellite is so big it can only hide behind the full moon.”

  We head home. Halfway back we realize we forgot Pet Shop, and return to the cemetery. He is still screeching in the tree, looking for his owl friend. We convince him that the bird is gone and he reluctantly climbs down.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow, Pet Shop. We have to recalibrate the deflection device every night. Those government scientists aren’t idiots, you know. They will change the frequency of wave transmission at least once a day. No resting on our laurels, or it is off to the empty mind draining vacuum of assimilation.” Stuart is so encouraging when he wants to be.

  Fifteen: Lunch Does Not Start Well

  We found out where Stuart got the tin foil. For some reason, it had slipped all of our minds that today is the stupendously popular grill out day. The one day each year that the crazies get to look at real burning fires. And eat wonderful char-grilled hamburgers and burnt hot dogs and sometimes we get cut up potatoes (we don’t get to cut them up, of course) and onions and peppers and wrap them in foil – tin foil, specifically – and throw them on the coals. Except we don’t have any tin foil. It’s all hanging around the cemetery, keeping us safe from government mind control waves. According to Stuart. He isn’t even acting like he is sorry that we are all sitting on the grass near the grills and the picnic tables and not getting fed.

  Sam is not in a happy state of mind. “If whoever stole the foil doesn’t confess real soon there’s going to be no burgers for anyone,” he says. “I want my grilled potatoes and carrots, damn it!” I forgot about the carrots. Those are good too. Sam usually does all the cooking on grill out day; I think he is taking the missing foil very personally. Andie says we need to not take things personally, but when it is true how can you not?

  Stuart is not giggling. Violet is not going for Sam’s penis. Shy Boy, well, is remaining in character, so that isn’t a problem. Even the hedgehog is silent. I don’t know the last time we were able to keep a secret. I thought for sure Pet Shop would have given us up; we did leave him up in the tree, after all, but so far so good, all lips are sealed, no fingers pointing, no Benedic
ting Arnold.

  Andie, the lady of the lake, the angel from above, arrives, in her faded jeans and casual sweatshirt that says rolling in the leaves and holding hands and singing off key old eighties songs at the bar on karaoke night. Andie arrives, and we all catch our breath. Stuart giggles, as he thinks the gig is up. I hold my faith, newly found, that it is in fact not quite up, not if I do, as I do, believe in Andie.

  “What’s the matter, Sam?” she asks, catching him off guard. How can anything be the matter when she is talking to you, when she is showing she cares? Sam is not immune to the wonder that is Andie, I have known that since I saw her halt him with a simple gesture.

  “They took the tin foil, Doctor MacPherson. How can I cook my carrots without the tin foil?” He looks sad enough to cry. I think about running and getting a couple of the triangle reflectors off of the tree, but know Stuart would raise a fuss if I did.

  “Now, Sam, we don’t know that anyone took it, do we? Perhaps it was just misplaced. Or maybe someone borrowed it. I am sure if anyone borrowed it they will be more than happy to return it in time for you to cook your carrots. Why don’t you go ahead and start the burgers and hot dogs and I will see if I can find you some foil, okay?”

  She guides him back over to the grills. He gives us a dirty look, as if he knows despite what Andie said that no one misplaced or borrowed his tin foil, that he knows for certain that someone took it deliberately and that once he finds out who it was they are in trouble. And I think he is pretty sure he already knows who that someone is. But that doesn’t really matter since Andie is successful in getting him started on the burgers and hot dogs and even better she comes over to us after Sam is handled and sits on the grass next to us and I want to cry. Not because of sadness or missing foil or no potatoes but because it is so right having her next to me on the grass, not asking me questions or worrying about what I was dreaming or giving me another pill but just being there. Next to me. No strings attached.