I read what I’d just scribbled down. It all seemed so pathetic, I could do nothing but cross it out, blacking over everything with the pen. I kept picturing that look on Neil’s face, his satisfied smile as the john’s head moved toward his crotch.
The wind shifted, rattling the trailer’s frail walls. Perhaps I should try writing another poem, I thought. I wanted to create something profound, something generations of people would read, nod, whisper, I know exactly what he felt. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Shit.” The words caught in my throat. I reopened the journal, squinted at the mess of ink, and tried to remember what I’d written.
nine
The dreams began two days after Avalyn’s appearance on “World of Mystery.” Generic at first, they harbored images of rubbery-armed spacemen with blue-gray skin and penetrating eyes that seemed equivalent to the Hollywood depictions I’d seen on TV. These aliens petrified me nonetheless.
After the second dream, I telephoned my mother at work and told her how the memories had revealed themselves. She returned home that evening holding a spiral notebook decorated with an elaborate bow. “To record them in,” she said. “Whatever’s inside your head, let it come out.” I drew a crescent moon and stars on the notebook’s cover; beside that, a spaceship whizzing past a chunky cloud.
I kept the journal at bedside, and during the following week I logged what I could from each alien scenario, sometimes sketching a face or hand or beam of light. In my half-sleep, I’d misspell words or stop midsentence. A typical entry:
6/29/91-
I get out of a station wagon, my little league uniform is on-I stand in the middle of a yard-crows are flying (indecipherable) getting darker. My hand is crammed into the baseball glove my father bought when (indecipherable)-in the trees a blue light, the color at the bottoms of swimming pools, I walk closer but it seems I’m running toward it then I see the spaceship and a light shoots out, the light tugging me forward-like a giant hand-the blue light (indecipherable)-really scared, and the hand starts to m (word trails into scribble off edge of page).
The dream log aided my memory. But something else bolstered my ability to remember, something apart from the dreams, something I couldn’t explain to my mother. I began recalling other bits and pieces about my first abduction, images beyond those that took shape during sleep. I would be watching TV, eating lunch, or sunbathing on the side of the hill, when out of nowhere a scene would surface in my head. For instance, I suddenly remembered this: that halfway through my final Little League game, it had begun to rain. The rain became a downpour, and the umpire had officially canceled the game midinning. My teammates had abandoned me in the dugout, running hand in hand with parents to their family cars.
Had that been the moment I’d initially been taken? Had the aliens witnessed me through the net of clouds as I’d lingered, alone, on the baseball field? I wasn’t yet certain. I had no idea why I remembered these pieces now. The more I remembered, the more alone I felt, as though some devious secret were just now being revealed, as if for ten years I’d been the butt of an enormous joke. Yet I knew the information that tangled like wire inside my head was all-important, clues that moved toward some destination.
July commenced with a telephone call from Avalyn Friesen. Her voice sounded angelic, just as it had on the TV program I’d rewound to watch at least twenty times by then. She said she had received my letter-“my first and only piece of fan mail,” she called it-and wanted to meet me. “You said you think you’ve had similar experiences,” Avalyn said. “Well, Mr. Brian Lackey, your eagerness is usually the first step toward coming to grips with the truth.” She paused, and a dog yapped from somewhere on her end of the line. “I just hope you’re ready.”
We talked for nearly an hour. I informed Avalyn of additional details beyond those I’d written in my letter. I mentioned my recent series of dreams, and she told me she’d been through a similar pattern. “Your memories are ready to make themselves known to you,” she said.
We scheduled our meeting for July third, Avalyn’s day off from her job as secretary at Inman’s grain elevator. I dialed a couple of numbers to cancel my lawn-mowing appointments. Then I called the prison in Hutchinson. A receptionist directed the call to lookout tower number five, where my mother no doubt sat staring over the prison yard, her.38 in her side holster. She picked up, and I asked if I could borrow the car.
“I’ll find another ride to work that day,” she said. “This is something you have to do.”
On July third I dressed in my best khaki pants, a short-sleeved blue oxford, and a pair of oversize loafers I’d confiscated from a box of clothes my father had never returned to fetch. I slicked back my hair and touched a pair of zits with dabs of my mother’s flesh-colored makeup. I didn’t look half bad.
The stretch of highway from Little River was one I’d passed hundreds of times, but on that afternoon it seemed utterly new. Midway between Little River and Hutchinson, I slowed for the turnoff toward Inman and glanced at the inside cover of my dream log. There, I’d jotted instructions for reaching Avalyn’s: “Go six miles east. Right after the sign advertising Kansas Beef, look for driveway with the blue mailbox…”
The Friesen farm sat a quarter mile off the main road. Holstein cattle grazed in overgrown stretches of pasture. A lane of flesh-colored sand trailed toward the house, flanked by trees that appeared centuries old. The trees folded over themselves like clasped fingers, squirrels and birds darting between the branches. I drove under them, parked at the side of a boxy log cabin, and rechecked my reflection in the side mirror.
I’ve never excelled at meeting people, but meeting Avalyn seemed inevitable. My nervousness was nowhere near as uncontrollable as I’d feared. I passed rows of zinnias beside the gravel path; before I reached the door, she opened it. When I saw her, I felt tingly, the way I imagined I’d feel glimpsing a celebrity. Avalyn wore silver teardrop earrings, a white housedress, and no shoes. Her hair gleamed, pulled into an oily bun that sat like a cinnamon roll on her head. “Brian,” she said, and it sounded more like Brine. She offered her hand, and I took it. The hand felt soft and feverish, as if I were holding a hummingbird. I released it, and she brought her fingers to her chest. “It’s good to meet you,” she said.
Avalyn introduced me to her father, an ancient-looking man who slurped from a coffee mug. Beneath his red cap, his face was grooved with wrinkles. He had thick, tanned biceps that shone from his shirtsleeves. One arm revealed a tattoo, an eagle bearing a scroll that read LIBERTY. He smiled, tightened a strap of his overalls, then coughed and cleared his throat. “Avalyn and I are all that are left in this family.” He spoke so slowly, cobwebs could have formed between his words.
Avalyn’s father opened the refrigerator’s top compartment, unwrapped a green Popsicle, and gestured toward the back door with it. “I’ve got work to do in the field,” he said. He took off his hat. Hair fluttered from his head as if startled.
After Mr. Friesen had gone, Avalyn led me toward a rocking chair, and I sat. I surveyed the simple room-the TV, a dusty wood-burning stove, a rolltop desk, her collection of stuffed animals. The wall displayed various pictures of an older woman, assumedly the late Mrs. Friesen, and a chubby young man with a crew cut who resembled a platypus in military garb. Avalyn saw me staring. She shrugged, stepped into the adjoining kitchen, and returned with a plate of Saltines and a bright red sardine tin. “I haven’t eaten lunch,” she said. She unsheathed the tin with three twists of the tiny key, then placed chunks of sardines on the crackers. They were the kind doused with mustard, and yellow blobs spilled onto the plate. “Help me with these,” Avalyn said. I bit down, cupping my hand to catch the crumbs.