I was born on a small chicken farm in Southern Mississippi.  My childhood hobbies included hitting old farm equipment with new fangled farm equipment, cooking, tai chi, and swimming in the creek.  I graduated high school (Go Ladybugs!!) in 1999, and graduated from USM in 2003.  I have a secret love for the rock on the right.  Anything else, ya vultures?

September 7, 2004

At my mere thought of guns, Seamus had pulled a pellet rifle out of the back of the truck cab and was firing at anything and everything not moving. Thinking back on it, anything and everything probably was moving for him and he was just trying to kill the world. That would also explain the stream of profanities issueing from his mouth and the words "die" and "jumping bricks of mud" and "running buildings". Now, as long as he was shooting at the fairly stable structures, we where okay because the ricochet was no problem from a pellet gun and their was virtually no noise... but then Seamus turned his sights to more breakable efforts.
His first would-b target was the streetlight. Now, from his point of view he was a honed, fully trained military sniper capable of dropping a flea from five hundred feet. From our PoV, he was a drooling, half crazed teenager covered in pizza sauce holding an air rifle. The street light remains illuminating that alley to this day.
In search of bigger game, our friend turned his sights to the truck, which was quickly vetoed by Lunchbox on the grounds that "hell no, unless you want to crawl home after I run you over" was a condition that Seamus would find himself in. Then he saw the motherload.
Now, the town I grew up in is rather small and when the Wal-mart came it killed most of the downtown business. After several years of the shops standing empty and haunted, crime kept away only because the police station was right in the center, the town fathers decided to bring back downtown. They cleaned the streets, put new faces on the buildings, and did an overall makeover. One such place to not really made over was the downtown bank. The bank is an anceint structure set in stone right smack in the middle of the largest block of Main St. The bank, with its tall, gray, roman colomns on the outside and plush carpet and velvet ropes on the inside, held a place for buisness staying power in downtown. Such a place for so much mischief from a crazy boy with an air rifle.

September 9, 2004 5:23pm

So after cruising his eye over the entire structure of the bank, Seamus locks onto the bank's back door.  The back door was a six foot glass figure, with the bank's bright yellow logo embossed on it.  It was quite striking compared to the rest of the grey building.  And quite a target.

By this time, my little group of five were in the Gray Lady, beer safely deposited in the trunk.  We were waiting for Seamus to sight-in his barn door of a target and act.  Lunchbox stood beside his truck, patiently waiting for Seamus to get done.  Looking back on it, none of us really cared if he hit the door or not.  Banks were supposed to be impregnable.  I guess we all had the image of the main street bank as a large hulking monstrosity, incabable of harm in any way.  As I was soon to learn, this was not the case.

Seamus teetered for a second and rose the airifle in a less than fluid motion to his shoulder.  Imagine a three year old lifting a bazooka.  He almost fell back and sent one of those little pellets heavenward, but at the right moment he squeazed back on the trigger and... tick.  Just a tiny tick.  We sat in the car stunned, looking at the small dot at the bottom of the door.   Barely a glimmer lost in the falling sunlight.  Then a small crack extended out and up.  Then another.  Then the entire door spiderwebbed upward in a rush.  The sound came with such suddenness that we jumped in our seats, the momentum making the joints and shocks groan. 

Now, if anyone reading this is ever engaged in such a delemia, if I can empart to you any one piece of advice in such a situation, it is this:  Do not do anything.  That alley had become a tomb on the midnight of Halloween.  No one moved.  No one spoke.  No one breathed.  I would still be sitting there right now if not for my friend Twitch.  The man who could not sit still. 

"Shit," he muttered... and the door became Niagra, complete with white shower and thunderous boom.

The word for one moment was silence.  The word for the next moment was action.  Swift and immediate action.  The Gray Lady had never moved so fast in all her life.  My friends and I prodded her along on shear force of will and she responded with gusto.  As we roared out of the alley, tires squealing for the first time ever, we heard Lunchbox trying to corral Seamus back in to the car.

"But, but... did you see that?" Seamus was asking...

"I don't care, give me that gun and let's go.  NOW!!!"  And with those parting words from Lunchbox, we drove off into the soft, fading sunset to enjoy the night.

October 11, 2004 1:22pm

Krusty's Place

We figured that the best place to do our drinking was a place no one would look for us, mostly deep in the woods. We thought long and hard, but decided on a place out towards Krusty's father's land, where a creek flowed past a nice sandbar near an abandoned rail bridge. The night was clear, a bright moon just rising over the tree tops lighting our way down the dirt road that lead to the bridge.
When we got there, we noticed two cars already parked next to the trail leading to the sandbar. Not being too afraid of a few people out in the woods and walked up to the cars.
"Hey," Krusty said, "This is my dad's car." He pointed to a red rusted buick something or other. The doors were bother different colors than the body of the car and a small hula girl was gently shaking on the dash.
Now, when Krusty identified the car as his father's, a wave of relief and fear passed through our little group. The relief came in the familiarity of the man. He was a rough guy, but very friendly with his son and the rest of us. Most of the people who new him called him Old Man because he was the oldest of their clan and because he had accumulated less jail time and therefore given a title of respectablility. He could stay out of trouble. Out here alone, he was the only parent we could run into out here and not get in trouble. He may even bum a beer off of us. On the other hand, it was widely known that Krusty's daddy's side of the family was known for acquiring money through more risky means. They had all seen some prison time and some had killed out of any and every reason you could think of. They were good people, easy to talk to and loved to tell stories, but you had to pay attention and realize that the family stories they passed down were easily created on any given day. This was the fear, that this night may get a little wilder than we had originally hoped.
We grabbed the cooler and headed down the trail. We walked, stumbling in the dark in the woods before seeing the moonlight reflecting off the white sand and slow moving water. Two figures were silloetted against the scene, passing something back and forth and talking real low.
"Daddy?" The way Krusty said it rhymed with "ready". The figures slumped down, the first reaching his hand out to calm the other, who had gone ridged.
"Yeah, boy," The first figure said, "Just wait right there a second, I'll be right there."
The two of them walked towards the water.

October 12, 2004 5:17pm

We stood, looking to Krusty for sign that all was well. He gave none. In fact, he gave less. The boy became useless, standing there waiting with the rest of us.
Twitch spoke up, "Hey, can't we just go down there and sit with Old Man and the other guy? This sucks."
We shushed him, pushing him to the back of the group where he stood in a sort of pout. The rest of us knew what he was feeling, we all felt like we should be getting on with this buisness of drunkenness as soon as possible, but whatever nefarious plans were happening down at the creekside were enough to give us a moment's hesitation. We heard a shout in the distance and a then quiet. Even the birds and crickets had stopped. Then a sound from the old bridge up and to the right. A deep creaking sound that comes when old wood is twisted by the changing tempatures of a Mississippi nightfall. A shudder went through me as I stood waiting.
Then a shape came into the horizon. Krusty's dad walked over to us and nodded a hello.
"You boys better just come back to the trailer with me," he said, "Not good to be out here too late. Hey, what's in the cooler?"
"Just some beer, daddy," Krusty said, "Who's that?" Krusty motioned over his shoulder as we started making our way down to the cars.
"Oh, just some punk off his rock. The moron thinks I owed him something, only he can't get his mind straight enough to remember what it is. Now let's get back to the trailer before your uncle tears the place apart."
"Who's all out there?" Stinky said. He hung out with Krusty the longest, and therefore knew most of the clan that was not currently incarerated.
"Oh, just some of the boys. Roach, Peanut, Awful, and the kids."
This meant that this would be a more of a social occasion that we had planned. Roach was a tall, slender build of a man that divided his time between the oil rigs that would hire him and the Parchman work farm. Not that he was violent, he just had a penchant for drinking and driving, often at the same time. Roach could also play a mean country guitar, self taught in the ways of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams. Peanut was Old Man's other brother, small and tough. He, too, had an unbeatable thirst, but Peanut could control his more erratic behavior by simply falling asleep at a moment's notice. He also had the best sence of humor of the group. His wife, named Awful because of reason's too numerous and explicit to name here, was a great big tyrant of a woman who had bore two children and called it quits after that for good. They lived on what little Peanut recieved from an oil rig accident a few years back and what did not go to clothing and feeding the kids went to booze. Awful did most of the driving and fussing.
Then there were the two children, nicknamed Walnut and Hazelnut. Wal was the boy, small and squat like his dad and the oldest at about thirteen. Hazel took after some long gone pretty member of the family with long wavy blond hair and saphire blue eyes that already had the boys turning at eleven years of age. Both children made good grades at school and were polite and well mannered.
When we got to the trailer, the group was sitting in the front yard in lawn chairs around a blazing bar-b-que. Peanut and Roach were passing a bottle of tequila back and forth while the children and Awful sat to the side enjoying the night breeze. We later learned the airconditioner was out in the trailer, making it an large tin oven. As we drove in, the men stood up and walked around to the driver's side of Old Man's car. We watched them talk a second then came over to greet us. We did not get the beer out of the trunk, for fear we would not be the ones drinking it if we did. Old Man did not mention it. He knew.
Stinky and Roach started talking music, and soon a guitar was brought out. Soon Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" was filling the night air. Twitch and Faces struck up a conversation with Peanut and were soon swapping oneliners and old knock-knock jokes at rapid pace. I saw Krusty go over to Wal and grab something out of his hand.
"What did I tell you about smokin' these things?" Krusty yelled.
"It's okay. Me and dad got an agreement, I can smoke as long as he drinks." He motioned over to where Peanut was taking a long gulp off the tequilia.
"Here," Krusty said, taking a puff off of the cigarette, "Let me show you something."
He lead Wal over to the table where the bar-b-que stuff was and picked up a napkin. Peanut and the rest of us strolled over to the table as well. He put the napkin in front of him and took a large drag off the cigarette and then blew it into the napkin. Where he blew a dark yellow circle appeared.
"Now, look, Wal," Krusty said, shaking the cigarette, "That's only a little of what is going in your lungs. Don't get addicted like the rest of us."
Wal snatched the cigarette back and pointed it at Peanut, "Yeah, well, he's still drinkin', so I'm still smokin'"
Peanut looked at his son and at the napkin. For a moment, he changed a little. Then he broke out in a grin and picked up his own napkin. He took a drink and lifted the napkin to his lips, spraying the liquor through the tissue and out into the night air.
He turned back to the group, showing off his napkin, "Well look, boy, mine's just as clear as can be." We stopped for a moment. A beat of silence so clear it was profound. Then we laughed. We laughed for the rest of the night, until Station showed up.
Now we all remember the neighborhood kid that none of us liked, but we let come around anyway. That kid in the deep woods of East Marion county was Station. He wheeled up at about a half past midnight in his blue sedan and almost ran over the bar-b-que. The music had stopped and Peanut was fast asleep. We were sitting around, still sober, the beer in the trunk iced down and undrunk. The talk had gone to movies and favorite episodes of the Simpsons. When Station came in, everybody groaned. He would probably be loaded on something, either talking a mile a minute and bothering everyone for a light for a cigarette he never smoked (He would just take the lighter if he could) or he would be so zonked you were lucky if he recognized where he was, much less who you were. Roach groaned the loudest and announced he was going to pee. Old Man stood up, saying he would get rid of him.
"Hey, Old Man, let me tell you something, I just gotta tell you something, man it was great, just great and wonderful and hey, guys it didn't see you there well I did, I mean you were there and then the headlights were off and then you weren't and---"
"Stop, you little tweak," Old Man said, raising his hand, "Just stop, go home, and bother whoever is there"
Station seemed to drop in his skin, hurt that Old Man would turn him away. The drug was put on hold and he stood there wounded.
"Well, sorry, I just saw the party and---"
"No party, Station, just my kid and his friends and I am trying to get some time in NOW GO," Old Man was shaking a little now.
"Okay, I just wanted to show you something to buy, man." Station went to his car and pulled out a pistol, small and black. He thrust it out to Old Man. "Go on, Old Man, just squeeze off a few. Fires real nice and legal as pie. Just twenty-five bucks."
"You moron, you know how illegal it is to ride around with a loaded weapon in your car? Get that damn thing and your own dumb-ass self out of my yard before I take that thing from you."
"Okay, but it fires real well," Station got in his car as Old Man walked to him. We were frozen once again. The blue sedan tumbled to life jerking backward out of the drive way. We watched him go with a sigh. Then he started unloading the gun into the treetops, shot after shot. Pop, pop, pop, pop,... They went on forever. We fell to the ground, stomachs flat to the dirt. All of us except Peanut that is. He was fast asleep while Station had come through and jumped to his feet when the shots rang out.
"Holy shit, let's kill that son of a bitch" he shouted. Before anyone could stop him, he ran to his truck and pulled out a rifle. Roach came running out of the house holding two pistols and the two of them began chasing the car down the dirt road. Only, between them they had drunk about a half a gallon of tequila, so they swerved and zigzagged as they ran down the road, sqeezing of shots of their own at the fleeing sedan. I heard one taillight (or was it a windshield?) crack and the shouts grow silent. Old Man just stood up and sighed.
"Well, boys," he said, "I think you might want to go home. I think this night just got really long for me."
We nodded and tripped over each other getting to the car. Krusty said he wanted to stay here tonight, since the holiday weekend had already started we could catch up with him tommorrow or the next day. We promised to find him before we drank his share of the case.
Going home was uneventful, likely because I decided to drive in the opposite direction of the fleeing Station and his drunken two man lynch mob. We promised to meet back the next day at Twitch's land and start fresh.

9 November 2004
[side note: Since I have not written on this story (or anything, for that matter) in over a month, I am discontinuing it. My apologies. I will give a small ending now, to appease those who stuck with me this far. I am going to start another story here soon, but for now here is the ending of "Night of the Boys."}
I got up early the next morning, about noonish, and gathered up Faces and Stinky and went out to Twitches land. There we got drunk and fished, catching only the wind and water and a mighty hangover the next day. Walking back to the car, hands hanging over sunburned shoulders, I told my first story. It ended with a group of friends just having a real good time.

December 2, 2004  5:49pm

Where to begin?  A dry, dusty morning just like any other.  I woke up, sneezed, and shook the dirt out of my hair.  Then, I sat wondering.  Why am I up when the sun is not even out?  Why do I have dirt in my hair?  Where do I see so clearly without my glasses? The answers came one at a time.  I woke up because I had a stick sticking in my back.  I removed the stick.  Dirt matted my hair because I was lying on the ground, probably most of the night.  I removed as much dirt as I could.  I could see clearly because aliens had kidnapped me the night before as I made my way home, had done radical experiments on me, and had dropped me off in a cow field a few hours before.  Maybe I should start at the beginning.

Part 1:  The beginning

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.  Then, he made all the things in them.  Then he made man.  Man, guy named Adam, was a bit of a dissapointment, so He made woman.  Woman, gal named Eve, well, it was like comparing apples to oranges.  This was after God had made apples and oranges, mind you.  And they were not always called apples and oranges, though.  At first they were red things and orange things, but the saying would not have been quite as good, know what I mean? 

Anyway, Eve said, "I'll call these apples" and Adams scratches his head and said, "I'll call these oranges" and Eve said, "Very original, Adam" and Adam said, "Well it kinda proves the point about the differences, don't ya think?" and Eve said, "What differences?" and Adam said, "Well, the differences between apples and oranges and me and you right?" and Eve said, "Oh, Adam, just shut up and take a bite of this apple, this nice snake gave showed it to me and it tastes very scrumptious" and Adam, looking around, said, "What's a snake, I don't think I have seen one yet" and Eve said, "Just bite the damn apple, Adam."  Voila.  We have the creation of the phrase "like comparing apples to oranges".

So anyway, after God got tired of looking at two naked people acting like idiots, he decided to get away for a while until Adam and Eve had figured out clothes.  He crossed the galaxy and came upon a planet very simular to the earth he had created, only he had not created it.  Even more shocking, this earth already had people on it and they were wearing clothes.  He found one alone in a field and decided to ask some questions.

December 8, 2004  4:47pm

Now, I have no idea what those questions were.  I only know that there was another planet, God went there, and poof and alien race much like humans.  I'm from earth, just like you, okay?  I do not need this information and neither should you so just stop whining for it or I will turn this little tale around and you will never hear about my adventures with the aliens or their facination with spam.  Okay? Okay.

So, before I was rudely interupted, God came back to earth and saw that his people were clothed and he was happy.  He then decided to leave them alone and not mention the other planet and see what happened.  He then created solitaire and it was good.

8,000 years later, the other planet got bored and decided to find out if any other intelligent life was out there (or here, depending on your universal view).  How do I know this?  Simple:  they told me when they got here. Which brings me back to my story, the second part to the first part of me getting drunk and touring the world with aliens.

It all started earlier in the night when my friend Jeff got arrested for trying to stop his girlfriend from having sex with a man who had slept with a goat. Well, that wasn't exactly the charge the police gave him, but hey, brevity. So I and my friend Charley went down to the bar to raise money to bail Jeff out. It started that way, innocently enough, I swear. So we end up drinking away all the money and Jeff gets out of jail the next morning. All that is important to this story is that myself and Charley were so drunk we did not see that police car when the curb jumped out in front of Charley's pickup and the mail box dived in front of the grill to save the telephone pole from being smashed in a valiant but futile jesture.

Charley said it best, "Shit". 

So there we are, sitting in a busted Chevy covered with mail that will so not be delivered before the weekend and we are bathed in a bright white light.

"What the hell are yall doin'?" the officer behind the spotlight said.

"We was just droppin' off some mail," said Charley.

"Yeah," I said, then opened the passenger door and ran like mad. I wanted to hear "Freeze" or "Stop or I'll Shoot". Something, man. What did I get, Super-Cop jumping on me from ten feet away, tying my hands with one of those twisty ties and shoving my face in the asphalt. Then I heard tires squeal.

Super-Cop and I looked around to see Charley driving away in the police officer's car. I laughed, Super-Cop started running. As I watched in stunned amazement, Super-Cop catches the car, hauling himself up onto the trunk lid as Charley sped away. Charley drank alot that night, but he could still have out driven a running police officer had said police officer not been embued with abilities far above mortal man. Thinking about all this, I suddenly realized that I was lying on the ground and that Super-Cop may just think about me as he pulls Charley from the car window and jumps to the rooftop, Batman-style. So I got up and ran.

Allow me to give anyone out there an important tip: If running from the a crime scene with your hands tied behind your back, pick an direction without a lot of fences. Heaving my largesize frame over chain-link and picket (the worst by far) kills the back. Finally I reached a large cow field and stopped running. The moon shone down on the field bright and full, exposing the landscape to my bleary eyes. I looked behind me to see if anyone had followed, but only saw the comforting image of a broken picket fence and city lights. I could feel a little blood on my hands now that the adreneline had worn off and a little of the drunkeness sinking in again. Slowly I picked myself up and began walking. Until I slipped in cow entrails.

December 12, 2004 1:17 pm

Part III: The middle of the middle

Now, to say I freaked a bit is unrealistic.  I freaked a lot.  As the moon cast off the clouds to shine a soft baby blue light onto the earth, I found my self lying in a puddle of cow.  There was cow everywhere.  Even a little in the tree twenty feet ahead.  Then I saw something that wasn't cow, that wasn't moon light, that was pure and clean and from the heavens.  It was a little orange man with an oval face, large black eyes, and spindly little legs and arms, clad in hiking boots and a parka and nothing else.

"Shit, dude.  You got cow all over you.  Did you know they could turn inside out like that?"  It said, staring at me.

I said, "AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"

It jumped a little bit and then pointed one long finger at me.  The tip of the finger glowed and a small beam of light came out of it.  The beam came straight at me and suddenly I was deaf. No, wait.  Everything just got really quiet.  I got really quiet.  I couldn't speak.  I jumped up to run, but kept slipping on bovine innards.  Then the beam of light came again, and I stopped.  All of me just stopped.  The thing came around me and stared at me.

"Why do y'all always do that?  Like you'd never seen an alien before."  He must have seen the shock in my eyes. "Oh, com'on.  Like George Lucas could hire people that creative?  Even Jim Henson had to go off planet for Kermit and he couldda done with a green sock, know what I mean?  And don't get me started on Spielberg.  A guy has to use the telephone for a minute and Mr Spielberg gets a couple of hundred million out of it.  Do you know I didn't even get mention on the DVD?  No, in that movie they make a puppet.  Green sock for the talking frog, hell no!  But when they need a genuine alien they make a robot.  What a world, huh?  Boy, you don't talk much, do you?"

I struggled to move, to yell, to fucking blink, but all I got was nothing.  I was captive of this alien thing and all I wanted to do was, hell, even pee my pants, but nothing doing.  I could barely even understand what he was saying under my panic.  It walked away for a moment while he was talking.  I could feel him releasing my hands from the ziptie Super-cop had put on me.  Then it walked around where I could see it again.  Then it slapped me.  That brought me back to it, even though now my head was at a right angle and staring at the grass.

"Oh, huh, no wonder you can't answer me.  Sorry,"  he positioned my head so I could see him again.  "Now, if I unfreeze you and you start screaming again, I will make you look like this cow, get it?"

I went into blind panic again.  I think I may have blacked out.  Then he slapped me.  Again.  Then I fell.

He had unfrozen me over one the many piles of cow that littered the field and now my front was covered in cow intestines as well as my back.  I scrambled to get away, but then came to a little.  He could have already killed me.  He could have turned me into the puree, straight blender style but here I am.  Even if he is going to kill me, I thought, In the afterlife, I might as well get to say I hung out with an alien before he zapped me into goo.  That's gotta be better how I died story than "I wuz huntin with my 4-year-old and she shot me," ya know?  So I turned around and stuck out my hand.

"Sorry, about that.  You can understand, what with the cow parts and you being an alien and all.  Name's Franklin Odermeyer.  Everybody just calls me Oder, though," I said. 

The alien grabbed my hand and shook it with a hearty grip, "Good to meet you, Oder, my name's (insert unpronounceable string of consonants here).  But you can call me Fleat."

Fleat was a little shorter than me, now that I was standing, at about 5'8".  His skin, which looked orange before, was now more yellow with a little red running through.  The hiking boots were canvas and the parka looked like a normal orange artic parka.  Since the night was a little warm, I thought it a little odd, but here I was talking to an alien, so odd parka was a little better than really fucking weird naked alien.

"So, um," I said, trying to see if I could start conversation with an alien.  Movies seemed off the table and fashion was not my strong suit.  I also guessed asking, "do you live around here?" was a little off, too.  Finally, I just said, "You know, there are easier ways to get a steak from a cow."

Fleat looked around at the ruin of the bovine.  His head snapped back at me and he stared. "You think I did this?  Hell no, he did this," he said, pointing at the ground about ten feet off.

December 14, 2004  2:24pm

At first I thought the alien had gone crazy.  Was he saying that the pile of cow over there slaughtered the rest of the cow?  Then I saw the shape under the cow stomach(s?).  A man was lying face down.  I moved to see if he was all right, but I could tell he was dead.  In any case, Fleat stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

"You don't want to do that, man.  He's a real mess.  He blowed up almost as good as our friend Bessy did.  You humans are some piece of work, ya know?  I mean, one day you are invention something as good as the tootsie pop, then the next you are trying to light the farts of cows and getting yourselves all blown up."

I turned to look at him, "You mean he was lighting the fart of a cow?  That's how this happened."

Fleat nodded, "Yeah, and like always you humans point you fingers at us and say that aliens are responsible.  Hell, I could stand here and tell you that cows are full of methane by the smell without disceting and slaughtering the poor dumb animal.  But you humans you think that we slice 'em up for kicks when really you raise these dumb kids who think holding a cigarette lighter to a cowss ass is funny.  Same thing with the anal probs.  It's all about lighting farts and blaming the aliens with your species.  If I had a dollar for everytime I had to explain this, I could, well, I really don't want to enter into economics at this time.  You'll just confuse it with me trying to take over that, too.  Like I would want too...  So what's your story."

So I told him about Jeff being arrested and the drinking and Super-cop.  He just nodded at the right moments and kept checking his wrist, which seemed to have nothing on it worth checking.  I ended with the inevitable question, "So why are you here?"

"Well, that's tough to say," he said, "why are any of us here?  I guess I am here right now in this field to meet you for some reason.  What that reason is I cannot tell.  But you will have to come with me."

"Go with you where?  I just need to get home, away from the cops and into my own bed.  I am still a little drunk and I think the stench of the cow is getting to..."  My statement was drown out by a low hum that reverberated to my toes.  A large light came zooming out the sky and was suddenly all around us.  Then we were no longer in the field.

Part IV: The end of the middle

I have heard that being beamed aboard a mother ship was an interesting experince, a terrifying experience, and even a bone-numbing, painful feat worthy only for the smell of vanilla that accompanies it.  Frankly, I will never know if this is true because I was not being beamed aboard a mother ship.  It was sort of an annoying cousin ship.  And the actual beaming process was a boring, time consuming venture that could only be truly understood if you have ever tried to fight a Rothgarian Hellcat while fixing a good cup of coffee over an open fire.  But more on that later.  As we made our way to the ship via beam, Fleat explained what was happening with the beaming (he thought I was freaking out, but when you can accept converstation with an alien beaming you up, the beaming process is a little muted) and why he was here.  Earth, he explained, had become a resort for his kind since they found it years ago.  

"In terms you would understand," said Fleat, "This is our Branson, Missoui.  Not quite the theme park that it could be, but a nice place to visit if you don't mind the locals."

After the conversation drifted, we talked about the simularities between his world and ours, which were not quite different.  We also found out we liked the same earth music, movies, and television shows. So I began to fill him in on what had happened in the our entertainment world.  He was upset that both Buffy and Angel had been cancelled, but excited that Friends was finally a distant memory.  Then suddenly, we were in the ship's transporter room.

His ship contained only the barest things to survive, almost like a winnebago.  The ship did not have a classification, it was just a junker that Fleat had bought to get away from it all.  The most basic components of this ship included a bedroom, kitchen, dining space, cockpit, and a transporter room.  The transporter room that we were now standing in contained many pieces of memorabelia from the original Star Trek series.  Fleat lead me around the room showing off his possessions.  My favorite was a tribble that Fleat claimed had had the most screen time of all, due to the fact that it was the most lucid and could take direction.  

"Horrible drinkers, tribbles are," Fleat said, shaking his head, "This poor one slipped on a puddle of his own urine and fell face first on a toothpick, killing him instantly.  What the world could have known had he not gone so tragically.  That is why I had him stuffed and mounted here.  So that every time I come back home I know that some don't have it so well.  And I like to rub my face in its fur." With that he pushed his large head into the ball of fluff and shook it.

He took me on a tour of the rest of the ship, then went off to slip into something more comfortable.   I noticed that the rooms were very hot and was beginning to itch at the uncomfortable tempature.  When Fleat came back wearing a t-shirt that said "my lightsaber can beat your laser gun" and bermuda shorts, I finally realized it.

"Your planet must be really hot, huh," I said.

"What?  Oh, yes, well hotter than yours.  See a couple thousand years ago, our planet was much like yours and we were much like you.  Then we killed our obone (thier word for ozone) layer and the planet had drifted a little closer to the nearest star and we started to change and adapt.  Take this for instance,"  He handed me a blue looking cocktail with a smart little umbrella in it, "This drink was made popular almost a thousand years ago.  Now, it is a simple mixture of compounds made to regulate and cool the body.  Back then though, people used it to keep their cars from over heating.  It's got a nice sweet flavor, too."

I had almost taken a sip of the drink.  I could feel my eyes narrow a bit as I looked suspiciously at Fleat.

"Are you saying you just gave me a glass of antifreeze?" I asked.

"Well, yeah."

"Are you trying to kill me?"

"Um, no, not particularily."

"You do know that antifreeze will kill a human if injested?  That my insides cannot take the chemicals in this and I will sufficate on my own vomit and die right here in your ship's living room?"

"Oh, well, no.  I just bought this rug.  No, definitely not.  No dead humans on my ship.  I'll just get you some lemonade and we will be off to Agora."

"Thank you, that means a lot to-  wait, what did you say?"

"I'll go get you some lemonade.  Why, your not allergic to lemons, are you?  I swear you humans are a weak lot," he said.

"No, no, no," I said, holding up my hand and counting off the points with each finger, "I would love some lemonade, I am not allergic to lemons, antifreeze will kill me, and what the hell was that about us going somewhere?"

"Oh, yeah.  I thought you knew.  I am taking you to Agora.  I thought it would be nice to go someplace I have never been and I have never been to Agora.  Why, got something you want to do before we go?  Shower, shave?"

I just shook my head in disbelief.  He took it as a sign of acceptance.

"Right, well, I'll go get that lemonade and we will be off."

"Wait," I shouted, "Hold on, what the hell?"

"Do.  You.  Want.  Some.  Lemonade?"  Fleat asked, talking as if he would talk to a plant.  A stupid plant.

"Where is Agora and why are you taking me?"

"Agora is twelve debinules away.  That's about 290 light years.  Won't take a sec.  Have you ever been there?"

"Wha- hell no!  290?  How would I get 290 light years away?  I haven't even been to California?!"

"Well, I have a spaceship that can make that trip in a half hour, your time.  I have the time to make that trip.  I have the inclination.  What about you?  Anything else planned?  Any other time in your miserable life that you will have the opportunity for such a journey?  Otherwise be quick and let's not waste my time.  I am on vacation."

I stared at his big oval, orange face and into the blackness of his eyes.  There was an innocent sensarity there.  At least he was the best salesman I had ever met and he had a valid point.  The last of the drinks was out of my system, I was thinking clearly, and decided a trip to an alien planet could fit into my busy work schedule.  What the hell?

"Do you have anything stronger than lemonade?" I said with smile.