Greg Abraham: Front Man

It hurt. He’d been hiding Thump. From these people who mattered? From himself?

Ron stood at the end of the long dining room. It had two small chandeliers, hardwood floors and paneled walls, a phalanx of French doors that opened onto the city sparkling below.

He stared. The Noiesni dignitary appeared to be conversing with Thump and a young Asian woman. In one hand Thump held a large glass of milk; in the other, a napkin heaped with crackers and salami. Of course he hadn’t asked for scotch—he’d been warned—but he’d gone ahead and asked for milk. He stood there gawking at the Noiesni and sipping on milk while he juggled salami, so that he didn’t even have a free hand to wipe his mouth with.

Breathe deep, Ron warned himself as he edged toward the trio. Then it struck him that maybe nobody even noticed Thump. Maybe they all were looking at the Noiesni. He wasn’t really that tall, six-four at most. It was the gauntness that must make them look taller on CNN. Not gawky, but graceful, and there was the craggy face, almost hideous, yet eyes so young; Ron could imagine the Noiesni in shorts instead of his suit, playing basketball with college freshmen, though the color was ghastly, like somebody with hepatitis and a fever.

The Asian was saying, “My mother and father arrived in Hong Kong in ’72. They did well enough to leave in ’91. They and my grandparents live in Vancouver now, but my older brother was already in Sydney. Have you ever been to Sydney, Mr. Sh’tka’heh?” She said it perfectly, like a nanosecond’s worth of sand flowing through an hourglass.

“Not Sydney, no.” Sh’tka’heh glanced at Thump and smiled. “This is Sarah Dinh. Her mother’s name is Ruth. Shall I begin the introduction?”

His eyes were as dark as Thump’s, those alien sclera white as snow, like porcelain so thin it became blue. There were light-years of gentleness in those eyes, and they warmed as the boy that Ron loved stuffed salami in his mouth before he said, “My name’s Thump. Nice to meet you, Sarah.” So proud of what he took for quintessential polish, he nodded since his hands were full.

Chad hastened around the table. If Thump and Ms. Dinh let themselves get engaged in Noiesni formalities, the dignitary would be tied up for half the evening.

Ms. Dinh read the cue perfectly, as if already looking for an excuse to get away. “Sarah,” Chad almost sang, “I don’t know which wine to cork first. Could you help?” She must work for Zenoquint. The exchange was as sterile as anything in a board room, as safe and urbane. Sarah Dinh escaped with Chad while the Noiesni stretched his mouth in a long, pained frown.

Ron saw dismay in the alien eyes. Thump’s back was to everybody except the Noiesni, who regained his composure and began to listen eagerly while Thump rambled, “My dad had his own garbage truck, but he got killed when I was three, not on the job or anything, so there wasn’t any insurance money, it was a motocross accident, y’know, like that, and I never met my grandma, not on that side, because she lived in Iowa, but Ryan, he’s my older brother…”

Ron backed away, turned, looked at the guests in the living room, and beyond that, in the library. These people were his friends, but you didn’t get invited just because you were a friend. You had to be in or you wound up alone, and you had to respect what you had to do to be in. Look at Harry—God, put me away, Harry was such a doll, and he knew how to act—they’re all, staring at me, and I’ve got to get to the kitchen. People let down in the kitchen…

“Are you okay, Ron?”

Chad had his arm around him, knowingly ushered him toward the kitchen, countertops aglow, boy in the boots slouching in the doorway, black cutout against blinding white.

“I’m sorry, Chad.”

“What for?” Chad offered him half a beer with a gesture stiff as the words.

“Thump, the way he’s crowding the Noiesni. I guess he’s… he’s such a mess. I know it.” It came out in polite, dying tones. Maybe Chad could forgive them.

“Sh’tka’heh kind of crowded him. He heard there was going to be a musician and was looking forward to it.”

Ron hoped there was a reprieve in those words. “Thump’s not a musician. He just plays in those bands.”

Chad munched a corn chip. The nice food was in the dining room. Here were the chips, lots of beer, diet soda. “I bet as many people came to meet Thump as Sh’tka’heh. The Noiesni aren’t news anymore.” Chad grinned—for an instant it was a mouth uglier than the Noiesni s—and opened another beer for himself. “You two aren’t breaking up, are you? I mean, Thump’s so Guess?! ” Chad’s face lit up with one of those flattering, leering grins that wasn’t a joke, not at all. Did Chad want a boy? Or did he just want to get even?

Hank lounged next to the sink. He was leaner than Ron, skinnier than everybody, even if he really was negative. He hung on every word. Such a cunt, and a mean one, too, why had he and Chad been friends forever? “We’re not breaking up! Of course not.” Ron wanted everybody to hear that. But we should be, because if we aren’t, I’m not going to be invited back… right, Hank? Ron felt like he was staggering. Maybe he should go back into the dining room. That door over there, if he walked through it he’d be back, and he wouldn’t have to go down the hallway. That door could bend space as the Noiesni could, spare him light-years of humiliation.

“Tell Thump I’m sorry about the milk.” Hank sounded so earnest.

Ron turned halfway. “He has milk. He could’ve had beer. Six days out of seven he’s drinking by noon anyway.”

Hank loved that. “It’s a party, Ron.” He glanced down and closed his eyes in an I’m-worried-about-you-both way. “He asked for chocolate milk, but Chad doesn’t have any. Tell him I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Ron stumbled as he reentered the dining room. Sh’tka’heh leaned against one of the French doors and glanced over his shoulder. “Are you all right? I’ve barely gotten used to the gravity myself.”

Was that a stupid Noiesni joke followed by a stupid Noiesni smile? Sh’tka’heh extended his hand, as if Ron needed it. The hideously long brownish fingers looked like twigs or sick, ropey turds, and with extra joints. Thumb in the wrong place, on the inside of the hand instead of the outside.

Ron smiled as if the Noiesni had a million dollar account. “Maybe Chad should turn down the gravity. I bet you could show him how.”

The Noiesni’s teeth were as white as his sclera, ten times whiter than Thump’s. Sh’tka’heh turned back toward Thump and resumed:

“In the Seventeenth Epoch, when my foremother had resettled in one of the Great Colonies, she met my forefather, who wouldn’t summon life until the Epochs changed, so he was actually the first of the Sh’tka’heh Lineage in the Eighteenth; their firstborn was of course required to migrate between Empires, but before he left—something of a prodigy—he’d taken awards as a wavemaster. He composed and navigated splendidly, outstripping almost everyone in both crafts. It was his discovery of normalization through triadic singularities that allowed some of the earliest extra-galactic exploration. Of course, it wasn’t until the Twenty-seventh Epoch that settlement began outside our own galaxy here. We admit that the family’s real achievement in the Eighteenth wasn’t in our Empire. But the History is part of our Lineage. Lineage really does count more than Empire, don’t you think?” The Noiesni grinned in reply to his own question, so Thump grinned, too. Chatter about Epochs and Lineages rattled on.

Ron edged away so that the table was between him and the extraterrestrial.