All good things come to an end, and this is no exception. It happened because I put my hand on the alien’s knee. Or at least that triggered it. This is how it happened. I’m talking to the alien one day, and he’s talking in that hiccuping rhythm he gets, only it’s much worse than usual. I’m not sure of the reason for the hiccuping, but I think it’s because something’s bothering him and he’s afraid that if he talks about it, actually puts it in his alien words, it might get worse or it might hear and come after him, that kind of thing, the way we do with our superstitions, you know, spitting or crossing ourselves when we say certain things. But at the same time he’s being brave and not letting his fear get the better of him. So he puts it in words anyway, but the part of him that’s afraid is causing the hiccuping. “Take it easy,” I say, and put my hand on his knee, because we’ve spent quite a bit of time together and are not like strangers. He stops and looks at me with surprise, the way Meatball does sometimes, and all his eyes blink together. Then two extremely weird things happen, one right after the other. First, he says his first human word ever, “Easy,” and it comes out perfectly clear, even clearer than a parrot talking though still in stereo. And then, before the scientists can do anything, the alien changes color, he turns blue. It takes about a second. From a bluish green he goes to a greenish blue and then to a deep blue-blue that maybe has a little purple or brown in it. I also notice that the broccoli smell is replaced by a different smell, something herbal and lemony. The alien reaches out and touches my head, and the next thing I know, he pulls on my head a little and then we have our two heads together, skull to skull. I’m touched, I think that this is his way of saying that we’re friends. You see it in old movies sometimes, when the Indian and the cowboy make a deal after they’ve been enemies. You know, blood brothers. Maybe the alien appreciates that I understand about his fear although it’s only a guess on my part. Robert runs in, yelling, and all the scientists are yelling, I’m not sure why, but I realize that the alien is leaving us now. That’s why they’re upset, because so much government money has gone into this and he’s leaving. He floats up to the ceiling, goes through the ceiling, and disappears, does it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, and maybe it is to him.
Robert says something like “Interatomic!” in a shout. I say, “Holy.” Maybe I say it more than once. Professor Pfeiffer says, “Did you see that? Did you see that?” as if we’re at a baseball game and someone just hit it out of the park with a big crack. Sometimes you can tell the ball is going out of the park just from the sound of that crack. Robert runs up to me and hoists me into the air by my shirt, tearing it a little. “What did you do?” he says, foam at the corners of his mouth. Now I remember that I wasn’t supposed to touch the alien. I start to apologize. We’re all excited and say stupid things, I guess. There’s a lot of running around. They run upstairs to see if the alien’s there. But the alien isn’t anyplace in the building. You don’t have to be a genius to figure that one out. The alien’s gone home, like E.T.
That’s when the questions begin, and they’re still going on, although it’s been a year now since the alien went through the ceiling. I’m asked the questions over and over, and I try my best to answer, but no one likes my answers. At one point it was practically around the clock, then ten hours a day. Finally I put my foot down, and it’s four hours now. It’s stressful. “What did the alien say to you?” That’s one question. He didn’t say anything, really, not in so many words. “What did they come to tell us? What do they want of us?” That’s another question. Even the President of the United States himself came and helped out with the questioning. I guess they thought that if I was holding something back, I wouldn’t when I saw the President himself. I was so impressed, it was hard for me to open my mouth to talk. To see someone you’ve seen only on television or on the cover of Newsweek, it’s weird. The President is a regular person. I even smelled his cologne. He looks shorter in real life, and older and more tired, but he’s so dynamic and handsome up close that if he told you to jump into a burning building for the good of the country, you’d do it right away without asking one question. “What do they want from us, Marty?” he asked, putting his hand on my knee the way I did to the alien. This is what I said, and what they don’t like: “It’s not like that, sir.” I said “sir” because I didn’t know how to address him. Someone later told me I should have said, “Mr. President,” everyone knows that. Well, everyone may know that, but when the President of the United States walks into the room, pulls up a chair next to you, and puts his hand on your knee, you might not be thinking so straight, IQ or no IQ. “It’s not like that, sir,” I said. “The alien wasn’t part of any them, he was here just for himself, and he didn’t want to say anything to us, he just wanted to say something to someone and I guess he picked me.”
They can’t accept that because, they say, why would an intelligent being travel all those light-years from another galaxy just to talk to one person? Contact, they say, and I hear the word “contact” all the time now, isn’t between two people, it’s between two civilizations. Well, they’re smarter than I am, that goes without saying, and what they say sounds sensible and right. Except in the case of our green alien who turned blue and left, excuse me, it’s wrong. I’m as sure of that as I’m sitting here. They laugh at me, and it’s not a friendly laugh. “Why you?” they ask. “Why did the alien cross all those light-years to talk to you, just you? Are you an expert in anything? Do you hold any key to the secret of life or the human race? Are you wise, virtuous, the bearer of any special insight? You’re just a worker at a pet store. You clean cages, you give the dogs baths for fleas, you mop the floor.”