I have two answers to this, one I tell them and one I keep to myself and will forever, because it’s not the kind of thing that can be said in public, it’s too embarrassing. The answer I give them goes like this. Sometimes a family comes into the store because their dog is old and sick, and maybe the vet has told them that it doesn’t have much longer. Dogs get blind and full of tumors and they start making messes again, when they’re ten or fifteen years old. So the family comes to our store to buy a puppy that will replace the old dog, when it dies, maybe the same breed, so their kid will still have a pet. As if the death doesn’t take place, you see. Like getting a new washing machine. And I’ve seen it more than once that the kid—I remember a little blonde girl in particular, with pigtails—makes a sour face and says something like “I don’t want a dog, I want our dog!” And the parents say something like “But Biff will leave us soon.” You get the idea, anyway. I don’t know why the alien came here and why he left, but it seems possible to me that he came to talk to one person and not to a whole civilization. It isn’t that way in the movies, I know, but it’s still possible. Real life isn’t always like the movies.
When they ask me, “But why you? Why Martin Bogaty?” I shrug, keeping the second answer to myself. But here’s the second answer. It goes like this. Early on, I saw that the alien wasn’t a he or a she. I’m not talking about whether it had a dick or not. I mean, no one knew that anyway, because the alien’s anatomy was all different and they could only check him from a distance. I’m saying “he” and “him,” but I knew that the alien wasn’t a male ahen. How did I know this? It’s hard to explain. Let me say first that saying it wasn’t a male or female doesn’t mean it was neuter either, like a dog you neuter. It’s not a matter, really, of what sex the ahen was. This is about something else. What I’m getting at is that the reason I knew that the alien wasn’t a he or she is because I saw that the alien was a lot like me. Dave was right when he made that joke about the ahen and me having a lot in common. We had more in common than anybody guessed, and I think that was the reason the alien liked me and finally turned color and left, because he had made contact with someone like himself, and that was the reason he came in the first place.
I think I was thirteen or fourteen when I figured it out, about myself, that I wasn’t going to be a man who went on dates, pot married, and had children. It might have been earlier. There was a party, and a girl at the party was talking to me, and at one point she said something hke “But you won’t have that problem, Marty.” The subject had to do with the troubles men and women had with each other. The girl’s parents were getting a divorce, I think. They hated each other like poison. The girl was very sophisticated about it. I don’t know where she is now, or even if she remembers my name and saw me in the papers. Anyway, I understood what she meant by my not having that problem. She wasn’t talking about being a fag or anything like that, or about being put in an institution, she meant that people who are like me simply aren’t going to be part of that part of life. In the circus, for example, some of the circus people aren’t in any of the rings, they’re on the sides where there are no lights, or they’re in the back. The guy who sweeps up after the elephant with a big broom, for example. Some people may laugh when they see that, but they don’t care who the guy is. They don’t talk about him. What is there to talk about? I’m not part of the main action. I’m sort of a bystander or watcher. And that’s what the alien was, or is, wherever he is now. Maybe, at his home, when all the aliens nest together in their huge heat cones and hum together warm and comfortably like bees, maybe he has to stand outside and watch. It’s not really a sad thing, though. It’s an interesting thing, in a way, not to belong. When you’re outside looking in, you see a different world than they see. Look how I used to play with Barry before he got zits. I wasn’t his father or uncle, but I wasn’t another kid either. That’s why I could see things about him that no one else could see, and he knew it. So my theory is, the alien wanted to communicate with someone like himself, that was the kind of “contact” he was looking for, and I guess it was important enough for him to cross all those light-years to find it, though if you can float through ceilings, maybe crossing light-years is not such a problem.
Professor Pfeiffer comes into the store. He says, “Marty, Susan.” Right away, we know something’s wrong. He holds up a hand and smiles a sad smile. “I’m leaving,” he says. “It’s been nice knowing you.” “Where are you going, Bill?” Susan asks. I keep on cleaning the gerbil tunnel that goes in the front window, but I’m listening while I’m cleaning. “Back to Washington,” he says. “They’re closing down the lab at Shoreham.” “Too bad,” says Susan. “We’ll miss you.” “Me too,” says Professor Pfeiffer, squinting. “But I have a good souvenir. Daisy.” “How’s she doing?” asks Susan. “She was cranky for a while, I don’t know why, but I think she’s settling down. I got a new cage for her, and a new cover. And, Marty, you’ll hke to hear this. I bought an old-fashioned mop and bucket for her. When Daisy behaves, I take it out and mop the floor and wring the mop out. She loves that.” “Marty’s been under a cloud,” says Susan, as if I’m not there. “I think it’s because of all the questioning. He says they ask the same things over and over and yell at him.” “That’ll stop too,” says Professor Pfeiffer. “The whole thing is closing down, and about time.” “It was such a disappointment,” says Susan. “We never even learned where the alien came from.” The scientist nods, as if to say: No use crying over spilt milk. He comes over to me. “So,” he says, “aren’t you going to say goodbye to me, Marty?” “I hope you’re not angry,” I say. “Why should I be angry?” he says, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Didn’t I cost you your job?” I say. “Heavens no,” he says. “What gave you that idea? I still have a job. You mean, the Shoreham Project? I’ll tell you the truth, Marty, I never did like the way it was run.” He means Robert. “They didn’t even let the alien watch television,” I say. “There you are,” he says, making a joke out of it. “I would have left too.” He holds out his hand, and I get up and shake it. I can tell, from his eyes, though he only has two to express things, and two isn’t very much, that he’s not laughing at me anymore, not even a little, inside. I notice, too, how pale his skin is. I guess I miss that other skin that wasn’t peas or spinach. “Goodbye, Bill,” I say, and the way we hold hands, so friendly and equal, it reminds me a little of the strangest moment of all in the whole story, but also the most natural, if that makes any sense, the skulls touching, mine and the alien’s, which now seems like an incredible dream.