Robert Butler - Mr. Spaceman

“Nice,” Viola says, sending some crumbs forth onto the table.

“Very nice,” Misty says, also spewing crumbs. “Excuse me,” she appends, with the same result for which she seeks absolution, and she claps her hand over her mouth.

“It is all right,” I say, spewing crumbs myself, wishing no one to feel ill at ease.

“Thank you.” Misty releases more crumbs.

“Yes,” says Claudia, “it’s all very nice.” Still more crumbs.

“Hallelujah!” cries Citrus, her face slightly lifted, her biscuit crumbs arching high. And others express their pleasure at the biscuits and the dinner and at things in general, I believe, saying “these are good” and “this really is nice” and “let’s eat” and the air over the table is filled with white bits of Oven-Fresh Homemade Goodness, the spirit of this dinner made tangible before us.

And I look down at the plate of food before me. The main dish is a complex thing, bits of green peas and red pimento and tan mushrooms all awash in the swirls of egg noodles and, of course, there are white chunks all through, and I am stricken again with the fear that I cannot shake. These chickens died for us: I put it this way to cast it in its least frightening light, though the chickens were slaughtered and diced nonetheless. They died to nourish these other creatures, to give them life. It is the pattern repeated over and over on this planet, these very chickens, for instance, being willing to eat insects scurrying about. And, I must admit, it is a pattern found throughout the universe, though my own species has ceased the practice. We eat no sentient thing. Still, one wonders about even the possible hidden sentience of vegetables. There is so much yet that my species does not know. All of which thinking represents the wild spiral of a mind away from a fear for his own skin.

“Am I this chicken?” I ask.

For a moment the others do not understand what I mean. Then Hudson says, “I’d sure be, facing what you’re facing.”

Now I am puzzled. But I know to set aside my literalist impulse at moments like these. I suddenly remember the idiom. To be a chicken means to be afraid. This makes things much worse. Those whom I will face tonight understand the chicken to have feelings. Particularly the feeling of fear. And so how must they understand, then, the way in which they make billions of these fellow creatures end their lives? Prematurely. Ravished with fear. Grabbed and beheaded. Plucked and gutted and cooked and eaten. It is imbedded in the very words of this place that chickens are fearful creatures, yearning, no doubt, for a life free from that fear. How can I face those who willfully scorn such feelings in others?

I look at these twelve around the table, their teeth grinding away at the flesh of others. These thirteen. For my wife is eating, as well. It was her choice to serve chicken. And yet I know how gentle and loving is my Edna Bradshaw.

“What all is it you’ve got to do, exactly?” asks Hudson. “Tonight down on Earth.”

I find myself saying by rote, “At midnight I must descend in a public way and reveal to your planet the existence of …

Hudson interrupts, “Right. Right. But then what?”

“This is what I am still trying to determine,” I say.

Digger says, “Pretty late in the day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I say, “I am afraid it is.”

Claudia leans in my direction, her hand coming out. “Don’t you have specific directions for what to say, what to do after the revelation? That sort of thing?”

“No,” I say. And another clear but wordless reaction occurs. A dark, sinking thrum of a sound from those at the table. I am in trouble, they clearly believe.

“We are like this, as a species,” I say. “I am the senior specialist on this planet. So those to whom I am responsible give me my directive in the simplest way and allow me to carry it out however I see fit.”

Hudson says, “But how about envoys and technical advice and such.”

“All of that is premature,” I say. “You must come to grips with the fundamental principle before any of those secondary things can happen.”

“So that’s it?” Hudson asks.

“It?”

“You go down, say here I am, and you split?”

I struggle with literalism once more. Hudson notices. “Leave,” he says. “You leave.”

“Yes.”

“Right away?” He is saying he does not approve.

“Right away is up to me,” I say. And then, “This is good.” I am suddenly full of gratitude to Hudson, and to the others as well, for pressing me. “This is good you should ask these questions. I need your help to understand how to proceed.”

There is a general squaring of shoulders and clearing of throats. I believe my guests are pleased at being cast in this role.

“Don’t they … you … want any further contact with us after you show yourself?” Claudia asks, an edge to her voice.

“Not for a time,” I say. “We hope this basic fact of things will encourage you to end your divisiveness. You are one people, all of you. We will stay away until you learn to live with each other.”

The edge smooths in Claudia’s voice. “You’ve done this elsewhere?”

“Not me personally. But as a species, yes.”

Lucky, next to me, bends a little in my direction. “How does it usually go?”

“It is not fair to compare,” I say.

“So you don’t expect the planet Earth to change very quick,” Hudson says.

“Do you?” I hear how naturally now my own instinctive choice of words employs the strange question-as-statement locution. This pleases me.

And Hudson nods at me with a smile that I find pleases me, too — more, it makes me very happy — a we-understand-each-other smile. And Lucky’s leaning toward me makes me happy. And the earnest attentiveness of all these faces makes me happy. “My friends …” I say, though I have nothing in mind to finish the sentence. It is a simple assertion of being. They wait. “That is all,” I say. “You are my friends.”

Digger puts both hands on the table, “So what is it you need our help deciding?”

“Who you all are, the people of Earth.” I am not surprised to find blinking and bewildered sighing at this. As soon as I speak, I recognize the original goal of this dinner has never been realistic. So I quickly let them off the hook. “But I do not expect that from you. You have given me enough by your patience on this ship.”

“Then, what?” Digger asks.

“What to say down there.” Again, all that I do is speak the need and I instantly know I cannot be helped. I say, “But the words must come from me. I realize that. It would be a mistake to take your suggestions, no matter how good, and parrot them.”

“So is there nothing?” Viola sounds disappointed.

Citrus rises to her feet. “There’s one thing. A big thing that only we can do for Desi. We will speak what we know of this Second Coming, after he is …” She gropes for a word. She settles on “… gone.”

“You are right, Citrus,” I say. “I must descend in a place where very many people will see me, including the Cable News Network. But your memories of me and this ship and my wife Edna Bradshaw and her Homemade Southern Goodness will be very helpful to focus people’s understanding.”

“Oh man!” Hudson cries. “A book deal.”

“The Larry King Show,” Claudia says.

“I’m frightened,” says Mary.

Lucky shifts beside me, his hand going out toward his girlfriend around the curve of the table. “It’s okay,” he says.

“Yes,” I say to her, “there is no responsibility …”

“It’s hard enough trying to be what I am,” she says.

“Nobody ever heard of Thaddeus or James the son of Alphaeus.” This is from Citrus, who is still standing. We all look at her, and she adds, “They were part of the first twelve. You don’t have to be a major player.”