The aliens always come at night. I discover this fact sometime around Grand Junction,camped out halfway up the Sangre De Cristo range. It is private land, ranch land, empty.Against the warnings, I have a fire going. It is cold, but not cold enough that I need a fire.Building them gives me something to do, but building a fire for one feels like arson. The wind sees my fire, races across miles of wasteland, gathering dust from the valley. It sucks and pulls at the fire, trying to draw a piece of it into the dark stands of dry, scrubby pine. I spend most of the night tending the fir e, circling it like something I intend to kill, chasing down renegade coals whipped up by the wind. Eventually, I sleep, and in my sleep, the mountain burns down. In the morning, there are ashes on my tongue.
The aliens follow me to Tres Piedres. I eat huevos rancheros at a cafe and think about where I will spend the night. The man who runs the cafe knows something. I want to ask him what the best solution is. He says the recipe is a secret. I leave him a tip, though I cannot afford it. That night, I build another fire. It does not comfort. Instead, it draws attention. A bright, wavering speck in squared miles of nothingness. I am making it easy for them. Cultists and coyotes scurry through the sage. They nego tiate over the prospect of my intestines. But the aliens are more secretive about their intentions. For now, they watch. Let them. I unclasp my knife and stick it into the sand within arm’s reach. I will not go without a fight.
There are too many people in Sante Fe. The aliens know I cannot stay here long. Their patience is disturbing. I sit in public areas where it is safe, bearing my bones to the brightsun. German families haul bags of merchandise from shop to shop. Tonight, they will stand in front of their long hotel mirrors and hold up denim shirts, pierce themselves with turquoise jewelry, adjust cowboy hats to the most precisely flattering an gles. They will leave half-eaten steaks on their plates. I fall asleep on a bench in a square surrounded by tall cottonwoods. Sometime later, a policeman jabs my ribs. My presence has upset the German families. Outside of town I stop on the road to listen . If aliens laugh, that is the sound I hear. I tell them to shut up and regret that I never learned to play an instrument.
Sleep, I decide, is their medium. So I no longer sleep. Sometimes it seems I followthem, sometimes it is the reverse. Through Los Alamos and Farmington. Quietly, I tread Arizona’s empty room. The German families, too, follow me in a caravan of rented cars, their faces pressed to the windows. At windy roadside stands, they scan trinkets laid outfor them by Navajo and Apache. Their bodies radiate suntanned health. They will never consume enough meat. When I approach, they turn on the air-conditioning and roll up the windows. The Indians sit motionless on folding chairs in the shade. They sense my predicament but offer no assistance. They want no part of it. I am bad for business.
Near dusk, I make a point of turning suddenly, unexpectedly, into the rocky waste. It is a desperate, hopeless maneuver, and for the first time, I understand that I am at absolute alien mercy. I laugh into the night and the night bounces it among the rock s for a while before returning it to me. Relieved, I lay beneath a sheet of plywood nailed to raw beams of wood. It is not a night for stars. If they come, they come, that is what I tell myself. There is nothing I can do about it. All night, the restless German families pass each other on the highway.
In Blanding, the Mormons are accommodating if not suspicious. A pale convenience store clerk hesitates when I request use of her microwave. The tamale is neutral, I argue, producing one from my pocket. I sit in a booth near a window and wait. Pink Mormon children with white hair chase each other around racks of potato chips. I suck the hot,starchy center from the tamale and lick clean the husk. The pale clerk selects three burritos from the freezer. Their bright packages balloon and wither on the revolvin g microwave platter. The children tear open the packages and squeeze the contents into their pink mouths. In the bathroom, I examine my skin for subtle rashes.
The night is damp and cold. I select a resting place on the edge of the town, near an RV camp. I have grown indifferent toward the aliens. This is not the best policy, I am certain, but resistance is futile. Instead, I aspire to be a specimen of nothing. I find an unlocked car and slide into the back seat. The trailer attached to it is a gleaming silverbubble sprouting TV antennae. I drift into a flickering sleep. In the night, they visit. Their instruments glow and hum. I am immobilized with fear. I forc e myself upright and wipe the condensation from the windows. An orange fog rolls down the empty highway. In thedistance, dogs bark warnings to each other. They have gone. Deer emerge from the fog. For the remainder of the night, they wander strips of gras s beside the looming shapes of trailers and cars and RV’s.
A state policeman stops me in the early morning. He is young and pink-skinned, with short white hair. Immediately, I recognize him. He shines a flashlight on my face while reading from a laminated card. He has trouble pronouncing amphetamines. I shake my head. He inquires about hidden weaponry. I reveal the knife. He steps backward. The flashlight beam bobs. The knife plops softly into the sand.
You are the father of those children, I tell him.
They are the lambs of God, he replies.
He places his boot firmly on the knife, bends, slips the knife into his shirt pocket. In the car, he removes his hat. Beneath the short white hair, his scalp is pink and new. He tells me what I need to know. It is to take place in yet undetermined canyon to which he will conduct me. Strangely, the information only confirms what my blood understoo d long ago. We enter Moab and he pulls the car over. He puts on his sunglasses and his hat and gets out to open my door. His grip is gentle, almost reluctant. The knife is returned to me.
I have one question, I ask him.
I have children to feed, he explains.
I find a bench outside an art gallery and sit. I no longer fear them. I know what is required of me. I need only wait. The German families have rented Jeeps and mountain bikes. They consult with one another on nearby benches, scrutinize maps, calculate th e best route of attack. Their sense of purpose is inspiring. I would like to march with them into the canyons, but instead, I go alone. I would only hinder their advance.
The altar is cold. The night, transparent. I lay on my back, looking up. The stars affix themselves to the skin of my eyes. I am afraid to blink. I am afraid that if I close my eyes even for the slightest instant, the stars will dissolve like grains of sugar: the night’s blueprint lost. Here is what I do: with my index fingers, I hold open on e eye and close the other. Then I switch the procedure. In this manner, I maintain my vigil, waiting for something to shift, for the aberration at the blurred edge of perception to reveal itself. It is a small, maddening sacrifice.
-Steve Featherstone
