The expert fella said that if the Protean hadn’t yanked the plane into another universe, he may simply have crashed it into the Pacific Ocean and then swum away—Proteans being good swimmers.
Seemed pretty reasonable.
If you’re an idiot.
Well that little interview led to a few other claims of accidents that had been purposely caused by one of the little fellows. A ferry in the Philippines had capsized when most of the passengers had panicked and rushed to one side of the boat. Some crew member now claimed that he’d seen a hairy beach ball yell “Man overboard!” and that was what caused the capsize. Fifty more innocent people killed by the FFs.
Yeah. Right.
’Course, only one section of the media went this far. When TV stations interviewed people who had seen or interacted with a Protean, most of them seemed to like them. However, in some of the sensationalist media it was clear that any human being who suddenly disappeared was a victim of the FFs. Whether those who got abducted had been killed or mailed off to the FF alternative universe was hotly debated on a couple of the cable channels. Most of the people on Fox News thought they’d been mailed off to an alternative universe to be made sex slaves. Kinda strange thing to do for creatures who seemed to have no sex life.
* * *
Because of all this nonsense about FFs that was getting aired, I thought we should take another look at our decision not to do any interviews. I gathered everyone together in the living room for one of our family conferences. Lita had come up with the idea that the kids should be in on all decisions that affected the whole family so the boys were there too; Lucas sitting on the arm of the couch near Lita, and Jimmy on the floor leaning up against the couch at Lita’s legs.
“Louie and his friends aren’t able to defend themselves,” I says. I was in my rocker, rocking.
“Oh, they could if they wanted,” Lita says, sitting on the couch and jiggling her leg nervously. “My guess is that they just haven’t gotten around to it.”
“But most of the people being interviewed are government types claiming the FFs are doing nasty things.”
“We can’t stop that,” she says.
“The people who have nice things to say about them don’t usually make it on TV. But because they know we’ve spent a lot of time with Louie, the media will put us on.”
“They’ll put us on,” says Lita, “but have you thought what it would do to our lives?”
“I just think that when a friend is being attacked we’ve got to defend him.”
“That’s right,” says Lucas. “I’m tired of the lies they’re telling about Louie.”
“Me too,” says Jimmy.
“I understand that, boys,” says Lita, “but these creatures don’t need our help. They’re a thousand times more intelligent and powerful than we can even conceive of. They’re literally superhuman. They don’t need our help.”
“And usually our kids don’t need our help, but we give it to them.”
“Not the same. Louie is superhuman, Lucas and Jimmy are children.”
“I want to do something,” says I.
“We do too,” says Lucas.
“Right,” says Jimmy.
Lita reaches down with her left hand and caresses the top of Jimmy’s head.
“I understand that,” she says, “but I worry that we’re getting into something way over our heads. I worry that we don’t have the faintest idea of what he and his friends are up to. They can speak as if they are humans, but as Louie has told you, ninety-nine percent of what they’re about has nothing to do with human life.”
“I know.”
“No matter how different they are,” says Lucas, “we know they’re good.”
“We think they’re good,” says Lita.
“They are!” says Jimmy.
Lita smiled and again caressed the top of Jimmy’s head. Then she stood up and came over to me at my rocker. My bald head got caressed too.
“If you go on TV and talk about what we know about Louie and Molière, our whole family will be famous. The boys’ lives will be turned topsy-turvy. I like our lives the way they are.”
“We’ve got to tell people the truth about Louie and the FFs,” says Lucas.
“If you won’t do it, Mom, I’ll go on TV and talk,” says Jimmy.
“Okay, okay,” says I, taking Lita’s hand in mine but still rocking in my chair. “Lita’s right that our lives will be turned a bit upside down, but the boys are right that we want to let people know how special and good and fun the FFs really are.” I turned to look up at Lita. “So do you think, sweetheart, that you could let us take the risk and let me agree to appear on television?”
She was silent a moment, then squeezed my hand and walked to sit back down on the couch.
“Yes, you can go,” she said.
“Me too!” says Jimmy.
“No, not you or Lucas.”
“But, Mom!”
“Billy will speak for all of us.”
“Louie will think we don’t care,” says Lucas.
“He’ll know you care,” says Lita.
I stopped rocking and stared for a moment at the rug. Needed vacuuming.
“Come to think of it, Lita,” I says. “Louie will know that the boys love him, but the world won’t. The best thing we might do is have Lucas and Jimmy on stage with me showing that Louie never did anything except have fun with them, and that they don’t have an ounce of fear of him.”
“Yeah,” says Lucas.
“If I were to say nice things about Louie, people could decide it’s just an old fart brainwashed by the FFs, but if the kids talk about Louie, people will believe them.”
“Please, Mom,” says Jimmy.
“You’re right,” she says. “If we’re going to do it, the boys will make better advocates than either you or I.”
“Hoorah!” says Lucas.
“You come too, Mom,” says Jimmy.
“No, Jimmy,” says Lita. “I’d come across as a pedantic lawyer and turn people off. You and Lucas and Dad are down-home sort of people—good for TV.”
“No, you should come too,” says Lucas.
“I’m willing to let you guys do it,” she says. “Quit while you’re ahead.”
“Okay,” says I. “Let’s see what we can do.”
“Hoorah for Mom,” says Jimmy.
“Amen,” says I.
THIRTEEN
(From Billy Morton’s MY FRIEND LOUIE, pp. 84–88)
The TV show was scheduled for October 31st, Halloween night. Don’t you love it? I’d told the ABC guys that the interview had to be in front of a live audience. When they protested, I told them I knew they could doctor any taped interview so that the biggest jerk in the world could seem almost intelligent, and a bright and well-informed guy could seem like an ignoramus. I might be an ignoramus, but I wanted to be my own ignoramus and not one they created with a lot of tricky editing.
Two days before show time, Louie shows up with a new FF friend. We knew our house was being watched every hour of every day, so Louie had to do a bit of maneuvering to get in. He snuck in as a giant package of toilet paper inside one of Carlita’s six bags of groceries.
The other FF was named Gibberish—not by any human, but by his alien brothers. Apparently he was notorious in Ickieville for doing things at random. He got his name from the FFs because he often likes to speak at random, and it comes out as what humans call “gibberish.”
In fact, Louie told me that here on Earth FFs call their own universe “Ickie” or “Ickieland” because Gibberish came up with it. At random of course.
Louie and Gibberish wanted our help in trying to disguise themselves as human beings. So far no FF had managed to pass for a human being if actually looked at closely. Louie and other FFs could assume the shape and movements of a human but couldn’t get rid of their fur, since these million thin hairs are their means of absorbing and communicating sensory information. And they couldn’t change the color of the hairs e
xcept with dyes or paint. So they have to cover their bodies with clothing, but of course can’t cover their faces without seeming strange. And they hadn’t figured how to get eyes to work. They could wear dark glasses all the time, or pretend to be blind, but that would be a bit limiting. They thought of disguising themselves as Muslim women dressed in burkas wearing dark glasses, but realized it wouldn’t be such a good choice for creatures sometimes suspected of being Islamic terrorists. And abandoning their dark glasses and letting only their eyes—or lack of eyes—show seemed pretty stupid when it was the eyes that they were having most trouble with.
So that afternoon down in our basement Lita, me, and the boys tried to see if we couldn’t turn Louie and Gibberish into convincing human beings. After we’d gotten both Louie and “Gibbs,” as the boys began to call him, to assume the short, skinny human shape that was the best they seemed able to do, we realized that the only clothes that might fit them were those scattered over Lucas’s bedroom floor.
“Why can’t you guys make yourselves any bigger than midgets?” I asked Louie.
“We can pump ourselves up bigger,” says Louie, “but only for about ten minutes. Then we have to deflate.”
“And I thought you were a super-creature,” says I. “And you can’t even grow to be a man for more than ten minutes.”
“Ishba palla subprana gurks,” says Gibberish.
By the way, you may wonder how we could tell the FFs apart. So far, the three we’d met were all about the same size and color and hair thickness, and their normal spherical shapes seemed identical. Yet me, Lita, and the boys had no trouble identifying Louie from Molière or from this new one, Gibbs. And none of us could figure how we did it. Somehow each one exuded something that identified it to us in a unique way.
It was Jimmy who solved the hairy facial appearance by rushing in with four or five masks he and Lucas had been given over the last few years. I thought Louie looked pretty good in a Dracula mask, especially with those cool teeth, but Lita liked the most neutral mask the kids had, an old one of President Bush the Worst. I don’t know how one of those ancient Bush masks got into the boys’ Halloween collection, but there it was.
So as an experiment, we got Louie to swell up to five feet six, quickly got him to put on pants and a long-sleeved shirt of mine, socks and shoes, some rubber skin-colored gloves, a wig that Lita dug up that she cropped to make the hair look hippy-like rather than female, and a Greek fishing cap of mine covering the wig. And the mask of George W. Bush.
When the laughter died down, we realized that this new creature didn’t look so much funny as it did like a zombie. The Bush mask was eyeless. Made him scary. Maybe it was a Halloween mask.
Jimmy dug up two marbles and Louie stuck them in under the mask so they showed through the eye openings. Gibberish said that FFs in other places had used grapes, ping-pong balls, lemons, golf balls and even eggs as eyes, but that they put in eyes only when they were trying to look like invaders from outer space—so that humans would feel more comfortable than if they showed up as eyeless beach balls.
Louie began showing off how he could move the two marble eyes as if he were looking at things. He was beginning to look vaguely like a human.
Except the mouth. There was no opening in the Bush mask where the mouth should be, just two painted lips. Lita grabbed some scissors and carefully cut a nice slit between the two lips. Louie showed he could more or less open and close his mouth. When he spoke to us he moved his lips in a pretty convincing way.
If you were blind or an idiot.
No matter how hard we tried, without teeth there was no way this mouth could be made to seem to be talking.
It was Lucas who produced a set of some very fake-looking false teeth. A minute later they were in place behind the Bush mask and showed up when Louie opened his mouth.
How did he look?
Like a man who should have had a lot of dental work done when he was a boy.
And then, as we were standing around Louie admiring our handiwork, a horrible thing happened.
Louie shrunk. His body suddenly collapsed into that of a four-foot-tall boy rather than a normal man. Unfortunately, his clothes didn’t shrink too. He now looked like a midget clown with a head twice as big as it should be and a face that made him look like a buck-toothed zombie.
Gibberish suggested it might be better if FFs settled for being either midgets or dwarfs. He then assumed the shape of a small round human being only a little over three feet high with a big head and big feet. We dug up some of Jimmy’s clothes, threw them on him, and in no time at all we had Gibbs looking like a Munchkin from The Wizard of Oz.
Gibbs and Louie then agreed that FFs spending all their lives as dwarfs probably wouldn’t accomplish anything except to make FFs easier to find.
Gibbs then suggested that FFs disguise themselves as small zombies or vampires—that way humans might keep their distance.
Lita said she didn’t think it would keep most human beings at a distance.
FOURTEEN
(From Billy Morton’s MY FRIEND LOUIE, pp. 90–98)
The television interview for ABC took place in one of their main studios in New York City. They produced the live audience demanded by our contract. About a third of them were media people, and the other two-thirds ABC got from an audience that had just been hired to laugh and applaud for some comedy guy who did interviews. Saved them money they said, and wasn’t forbidden by our contract.
Lucas, Jimmy, and me were ushered into a neat room where they served coffee, tea, and Diet Pepsi. A very nice man who looked like he normally sold used cars came in and briefed us about how our mikes would work, and the two boys had a lot of fun putting them on and then speaking in big deep fake voices—a bit soprano still, I’m afraid. The car salesman offered me wine or beer, but I had wisely drunk some bourbon from my flask in the limo on the drive in and didn’t want to contaminate the good mood I was in.
The limo ride was interesting. First time for me. Enough room for me and the kids to play ping-pong if they’d provided a table, but this was probably an economy model limo. Carlita enjoyed it too. Rode a lot smoother than our Grand Caravan, which seems to have been scientifically designed to pick up every flaw in any highway—down to the last pebble.
Lita, I should mention, was now eight months pregnant. She’d bought a lovely maternity dress and her belly stood out round and firm. And she glowed like any pregnant lady should. The baby, we knew, was neither a boy nor a girl.
It was Louie.
He said he wanted to see the show, and that was the best idea we could come up with to get him in. When we got to the studio a nice lady security guard congratulated Lita on her pregnancy, asked if she could touch her tummy, and announced that she had felt the baby’s heartbeat.
Probably just Louie burping.
Except that he never burped.
Just Louie having fun.
* * *
Soon the stage was set. Jimmy, Lucas, and me were sitting in comfortable chairs, make-up carefully applied beforehand making me look at least two weeks younger. Between us and the interviewer was a low coffee table with three glasses of water and a vase with some nice white flowers in it. The interviewer was one of those smooth, good-looking guys with a great baritone voice who can make a game of tic-tac-toe seem earth-shaking. He had a great smile that would have made me trust him with my life if I hadn’t known a dozen guys just like him who would put me in front of a firing squad even if I was their papa.
I looked out into the audience and saw Lita sitting in the front row, happily pregnant, and waving to the boys. They waved back and we were all happy as could be.
Very dangerous condition to be in if you’re a human being about to be part of a TV show.
Bells began to ring, some little guy came out and told the audience to shut the hell up and keep their eyes peeled for signs that read “Applause” or “Stay Silent” or “Laugh Loudly.” Someone then raised a sign saying “Applause” and the audien
ce burst into thunderous appreciation. Makes you know how God must feel.
Then the little guy left, the lights on the audience dimmed, the lights on us and the interviewer got even brighter, and the interviewer—his name was David Babbitt—broke out into a big grin. Jesus, he looked happy—like a shark who’s just spotted a bleeding kid in the water.
“We are here tonight,” Dave intoned in his deep baritone voice, “with three individuals who are among the few on Earth who have had a Protean live in their home for more than a day or two, in this case more than a week. We have here Mr. Billy Morton, a fisherman from Long Island, and his two sons, Lucas… the older boy, and Jimmy. Let’s give them a round of applause.”
Applause.
“Mr. Morton, let me start with you,” Dave went on. “How did you first encounter this alien?”
“Caught him in my fishing nets,” says I. “And when we threw him overboard he bounced right back up into the boat. Most fish don’t do that.” That got me a couple of chuckles from the audience.
“When did you first realize that this… creature was special?”
“When he followed me home and began using our computer,” says I. “Most fish don’t do that.”
Six more chuckles.
“Surfed the net faster than even Lucas here,” I add.
“And what did you first think of this alien, Lucas?” asks Dave.
“I thought he was cool,” says Lucas. “From the very beginning he began playing with us—soccer, tag, hide-and-seek. And he can change shapes.”
“How about you, Jimmy?”
“His name is FF,” says Jimmy. “Or Louie. He’s not an alien, he’s just someone different from us.”
“Ah… yes,” says Dave. “And why, Mr. Morton, do you think these aliens are causing so much death and destruction throughout the world?”
Just like that. “Why do FFs keep raping innocent children and poisoning well water?”—surprised he didn’t ask that.
“Well,” says I, “I’ve never seen a report of any FF hurting anyone that wasn’t absolute bullshit. ’Course the FFs don’t have drones and missiles and a thousand overseas bases so maybe that’s why they haven’t gotten into the killing business yet.”