MARTIANS

By

Troy Riser

(Originally published in Sou’Wester magazine in Fall 1997)

"You ever wondered about life on other planets?" Larry asked, cradling his beer. His name was embroidered in looping cursive above the right breast pocket of his permapressed blue workshirt, and his fingernails were black half-moons, impacted with grease and dirt. He smelled of sweat and gasoline.

"Pass the ketchup," Marsha said thickly, her mouth stuffed with onion rings.

"I mean, there could be alien civilizations watching us right now, waiting for just the right moment to make contact."

Marsha gulped diet soda and cleared her throat. "Let em watch," she said. "Let em wait." She swiveled on the stool, taking in the bar. A few regulars lounged at the tables, talking high school basketball and weather and crops, wearing worn workboots and nodding heads in time to the jukebox. Lynryd Skynyrd was playing "Freebird"--yet another rock and roll band that should've taken the bus, she thought. She closed her eyes and thought Paris, or rather, PARIS, in neon Eiffel Tower letters: sidewalk cafes, waiters speaking Hollywood, Maurice Chevalier French bearing secret messages from the Underground. Candlelight. Chilled wine in long-stemmed glasses and passionate lovemaking with abandon on the banks of the Seine.

"Who knows," Larry said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, "maybe they've already made contact and the government's keeping it a secret so people won't panic." He picked up his mug, watching the bubbles rise. "What if all those stories you read about, about people getting kidnapped by UFOs and having alien babies--what if all those stories are true?"

"Onion ring?" asked Marsha, sliding the plate down the bar.

"People found out they'd up and quit their jobs and pack what they had in the car and take off for the mountains or some shit." Larry straightened in the stool, in the grip of a thought, his eyes narrowed with slow-wheels-turning intensity. "Me, I got a cousin with some land down in Kentucky. That's where I'd go. That's what I'd do."

The Caribbean, thought Marsha, maybe Barbados or Grenada. White sand, coconut trees, warm blue water going on forever. Dark, muscular men who speak in a rapid-fire Queen's English that sounds like a burst of Black Cat firecrackers. Singapore Slings with little umbrellas. Reggae.

"What do you think?" Larry asked, raising his empty glass to catch the attention of the bartender.

"I think you should buy me a drink," she said. "Something strong. Something with a little umbrella." She brought her thumb and forefinger together to show how little the umbrella was.

He handed her a beer in a frosted mug, the foaming head slopping over the sides. "Fresh out of umbrellas," he said.

"Turkey," Marsha said. "Istanbul."

"I just bought you a beer," Larry said.

They call the faithful to prayer over loudspeakers, she thought. The women are unbearably beautiful under the veils, and the men fight to the death with curved daggers over a look or a harsh word. Blood falls like rain in the marketplace from quartered lamb strung like a clothesline from window to window above. Men chasing the dragon are stacked like cordwood in the alleys behind the opium dens.
She drank beer, grimacing at the taste. She contemplated the row upon row of bottles behind the bar. She glanced at her reflection and saw crowsfeet already, the beginnings of a double chin.

"I read where they say there might be life on Mars," Larry said. "Some kind of algae on the mountains."

"Katmandu," she said.

"Imagine that: algae on the mountains."

"Prayer wheels spinning like tops. Colorful parades."

"Makes you wonder what sort of things Martian algae might think about."

"Priests in flowing, bright red robes herding llamas. High mountain temples with gates of polished brass and jade."

Larry turned to the man on his right, a bored-looking carpenter wearing a flannel shirt flecked with sawdust. "What about you?" Larry said. "You ever wondered about life on other planets?"

END

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