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- Do not “Troll” the Pootie Peeps Diaries. If you don’t like animal diaries, there’s no need to tell us about it. Just go find some other diary more to your liking.
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Previous Neighborhood Stories
The first thing that crossed Farley's mind when the space ship landed in the back yard was that it was a good thing the neighbors were out, because they were the type to be looking out the windows and talking up anything they saw. They'd told half the West side the time Farley had decided he needed a shed out back for tools and such and, even though the shed was small and Farley had put it on a slab according to code and everything, they made it sound like he'd pulled down property values all the way to the county line. He could just hear them saying, “What the hell's he got out there now?”
The second thing he thought of was how small the ship was— only about four feet high, not counting the three little stilty things it put out to land on—and maybe six feet long. It was late enough in the spring that it was light out that time of evening, so he got a good look. The ship was light green all over—the kind of green they use in hospitals to encourage the patients to get well and go home fast—except it had a kind of windshield that looked dark. It was egg shaped, with the
windshield at the wide end.
The thing rocked on its stilts a little as if there was something moving inside of it, and then a hatch opened in its side, and a ladder slid down, and a little guy about three feet tall came down the ladder.
He came down backwards, so at first Farley only noticed that he had a bald spot with some mud colored hair around it. Farley stopped wondering at that point if he ought to be scared because he figured a guy that size couldn't be much competition unless he had a ray gun.
When the little guy turned around Farley almost laughed. He looked like a mean five-year-old except for the lack of hair and the little mud-colored mustache. He didn't have a ray gun. He wasn't even wearing anything that looked like a uniform or a space suit, just a sweat shirt and pants, all blue, and little brown boots with little straps on them.
Farley figured he'd read enough pulps to know what to do, so he raised his right hand and he said, “I suppose you want me to take you to my leader.”
The little guy looked surprised at first and then he looked kind of smug. “Have you got one?” he said.
“Well, no, not actually right now,” Farley said. “My wife's visiting her sister.”
The little guy looked kind of blank then, so Farley said, “Well, I know where City Hall is, but the mayor's probably not there this late in the day.”
The little guy shrugged. “All I wanted was to borrow your facilities,” he said.
“Huh?” said Farley. “Oh, sure, right in here.” He took the little guy in through the back door to the powder room off the back hall.
“There you are,” he said, and he was gonna discretely back off when he saw the little guy glaring at the facilities as though maybe he thought they'd stop up if you just walked too close. Farley saw the problem right off.
“Hang on,” he said. “I'll get you the step stool.” The little guy said, ‘Thanks,” but he said it as if to say, “Quick thinker, aren't you.”
Farley waited in the kitchen 'til the little guy came out again. “Have a seat,” he said.
“I have to get going,” said the little guy.
“Oh,” said Farley, “I thought maybe you'd stick around a little and tell me about where you came from.”
“Look,” said the little guy, “I'm expected somewhere, okay?” Then he said, “Say, have you got any ice? The people giving this thing always run out.”
“Sure,” Farley said, “but is earth ice safe for you?”
The little guy looked disgusted. “Look, genius,’ he said, “frozen H2O is frozen H2O. Anywhere.”
“Okay,’ Farley said. ‘Coming right up.” While he was filling some plastic bags from the ice cube trays he said, “So how long have you people been watching us?”
“Watching you?” said the little guy, as if to say, As long as you've had singing pig concerts at the stadium. “Well,” he said, “I'd say we've noticed this place. I wouldn't say we watch it. It's not all that interesting. Besides, I suppose you've noticed most of your kind aren't very pleasant.”
“I've sure met some I could do without,” Farley said. “Then you aren't planning to move here?” He meant invade but he didn't want to start something.
The little guy kind of snickered. “Hardly,” he said. “This place would cost too much to clean up. This is definitely a starter planet. This all the ice you got? Never mind.” He hot-footed it out to his green egg and bounced up the ladder. Then the egg gave a little puff of smoke out of its narrow end and took off, pulling in its stilts on the way up.
This was not the embarrassing part. Farley just figured that if the little guy didn't appreciate this planet, then he didn't, and no skin off Farley's nose. The embarrassing part came later, after he'd decided that if Rose wasn't home he could pretty much spend his own time and he headed down to the Fall Inn.
At first he wasn't gonna say anything to the boys about the little guy and his ship, but after he'd had a couple of beers somebody noticed he wasn't talking and they started nudging him to be more sociable. Before he knew it he'd told them the whole thing, never even noticing the guy over in the corner who wasn't a regular. The boys told him he didn't have a full tank but he did have some loose shingles and that wasn't his hair falling out it was his brains flaking, and then the bartender cut him off after only four. He said, “What the hell,” and went home. And the guy in the corner who wasn't a regular followed him all the way to his door and wrote down the address.
Next morning early there was a van parked in front of Farley's house and a guy who looked like a reddish mouse was standing on the doorstep.
“It is urgent that we examine the site of your close encounter,” he said to Farley. “We must have measurements and photographs. It's vital.”
“Well, I don't know,” said Farley. “My wife's got her tomatoes and squash set out. And the peppers. I don't know if she'd want anybody tracking around the yard.”
“Think of it as your chance to contribute to human knowledge,” said the reddish guy. “Your chance to help silence the unbelievers.”
“I don't know,” said Farley. But he hesitated and the guy gave a signal and about ten people jumped out of the van with cameras and tape recorders and measuring tapes and notebooks and collecting jars. They started looking over the garage and the shed and the garden and they stuck probes in things and waved sensors in the air and did a lot of sniffing and poking, and one of them walked all around the lot line with a Geiger counter. Farley figured he was lucky he’d already put the chicken wire around the vegetable garden because they seemed to think the little guy from the space ship had planted it.
“Is this the only evidence of the landing?” said one guy. He was pointing to the three little holes the
stilts had made in the sod near the garage and you could tell he was disappointed. “I could make marks like that myself with a plant stake,” he said.
One of the other guys snickered and Farley thought he said, “You have, too.”
“That's where the ship landed,” said Farley.
“No scorches?” said the guy. “No glassified soil? How long were your lights out?”
“They weren't on,” said Farley. “It was light outside. The refrigerator worked just fine, though, oh, and the bathroom light. I forgot. The guy used the bathroom.”
At that, about five people stampeded into the house, which irked Farley pretty much, but they came right out again, looking peeved.
“I could have told you he even left the soap dry,” said Farley. Then he saw one of them wrapping a sample bottle in one of Rose’s guest towels. “Hey,” he said, but they were starting up with the questions again.
“What did the craft sound like?” they said. “Loud whirring? Humming? High-pitched whine to make you cover your ears? Or was it sub-audiferous vibrations?”
“It sounded like those remote control airplanes some of the kids have,” Farley said.
“Oh, so you didn't really listen,” they said.
“Did the ground shake when it landed?” they said. “Any strong ozone smell?”
“Nope,” said Farley. “I told you it was only about four feet high. And no ozone.”
“Perhaps your sense of smell was affected by it,” they said. “Flashing lights? Search beams? Lasers?”
“Nope, nope, and nope,” said Farley. “Told you all that before. “
“After they shut down the lights,” they said, ‘did they take you inside the craft?”
“Him,” said Farley. “It was just one guy. And, no. hell, I wouldn't have fit in it.”
“How long were you in there?” they said. “What kind of injections did they give you? Were you conscious during the tests? How long were the needles? What kind of tests did they do on your wife? Do you think they'll bring your kids back again?”
“Him,” said Farley. “And I wasn't inside it, and my kids are out on their own, and my wife's in Kalamazoo at her sister's.”
“Oh, that’s what they told you,” they said. Farley was starting to sweat a little.
“What was their message for mankind?” they said.
“Huh?” said Farley.
“Their spiritual message, their predictions, their inspirational diffusion. Is Elvis still with them up there? Are the Cubs gonna win the series?”
“Him!” said Farley. “It was one little guy with an attitude, and his message was he wanted to take a leak and pick up some ice!”
Farley stomped into the house and slammed the door but not before he'd seen the neighbor's curtains move. More fun than my shed, huh? he thought. The UFO guys hung around another half
hour taking measurements between the holes in the ground where the stilts had been—and also where Farley had taken out an old fence—and picking up soil samples and grass and putting them in jars and photographing everything, including the neighbor's windows and some fairly clear evidence of dog visits, but they finally left and Farley sat down in the kitchen with a beer. He tried to think about things like rabies shots and the IRS as a kind of relief, but that didn't work, so he concentrated hard on imagining his uncle's prostate trouble. Then he opened another beer.
That afternoon Rose came home. She cleaned out the kitchen sink, threw everything in sight into the washing machine, and took her hat off. “Farley,” she said, “what happened in the powder room?” Just then the doorbell rang.
“I'll get it,” said Rose. It's probably Cora” I've got to tell her what my sister's mother-in-law said about her boy Mick’s roommate.” She ran to the front door. In a couple of minutes, she came back to the kitchen.
“Can you beat that?” she said to Farley. “A reporter was asking why there were UFO people here this morning. He said the neighbors called his TV station. I told him I couldn't imagine, but the powder room looked like a tornado hit it.”
“Is he gone?” said Farley.
“No,” said Rose. “I told him maybe you'd know something. Here he is.”
Farley winced. Then he said to the reporter, “Sorry if I'm a little slow. Still a bit woozy from all that medical stuff.” He downed the last of his beer.
“So,” he said, “you wanna start with Elvis?”