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I met an alien in Strawberry alley. Like a spider it had eight eyes. It breathed through its tail. We went to breakfast. I don't much like waffles so I had coffee. The alien thought coffee was a drug. It wore a bubble so that we wouldn't make it sick. It was bald. Maybe bald people are alien hybrids. My stepfather was bald. He fought in the First World War in France. He didn't get killed. Burt, the alien, didn't like waffles either, but it drank the syrup and ate artificial sweetener. It wanted to know why we had a president who was so dumb and so evil. I guessed that we wanted a president like ourselves. Burt wanted to know if there wasn't a school for it; presidenting. I thought not. The alien said that there were even schools for truck drivers and barbers and people who ream out clogged drains. Burt was perplexed that there wasn't a school for presidents. He told me that there was a pretty good president in New Zealand. My guess was that that was because they had pretty good people. Burt introduced me to Medford, another alien. It was eating breakfast, too. It liked toast. It also liked anchovies and mayonnaise. It didn't have regular hands, but hook things. The aliens said that they have sexes, twelve or thirteen. Medford wondered why we were afraid of queers and of queers getting married. I figured it was because people, especially men, see it in themselves. Medford thought that it was the same with child molesting. A third alien, Fair, was resting on an old plastic chair along the sidewalk. It held a bunch of flowers wrapped in wax paper. I could tell him from the others because he had a dimple where his cheek should be. I'm not sure it's right to call him a him. Fair observed that we're an unattractive species, all hairy and without any shivles or wallenzacks. Fair said that it was no wonder that we didn't like ourselves very much. We are always hurting ourselves and one another. I said that it was fear more than looks. I had to admit, however, that people do judge themselves and others by how they look. Medford persisted with questions about love. What could I say? It's some kind of disease that humans and other great apes suffer. It's not much like mother-love, more like a change of eye color that you're stuck with. You just can't get rid of it. They wanted to know about marriage. I offered that we don't like being alone and we like to have sex, but we don't like to feel guilty. That's when Burt brought up religion. Burt observed that it was a kind of punishment for the guilts that we think we should have. I couldn't disagree, but I thought religion was a little like marriage, too; so that we wouldn't feel alone. We recognize how weak we are. Medford wanted to know how we could tell the men from the women and why we cared. I admitted that men are pretty much unnecessary and that women would be better if they were cooperative androids. Fair boasted that "she" had a twin. She wanted to know if I had a twin. I confessed that I was twin-less. I explained that we were ambivalent about clones. They seemed "unnatural" and unusual. Unusual things, like unusual people make us uneasy. Burt invited us to his house - I'm just guessing that it should be called "he." Burt lived in an old Cadillac convertible parked near the bus stop on Highland Terrace. I couldn't help but notice how bad it smelled, like decaying leaves. Medford responded that I smelled badly, too. Medford had three different noses for smelling different things, so "she" (I guess Medford should be called "she") should certainly know. It was quite dark inside the convertible. For some reason light didn't come through the windows. Everything was coated in a warm stickiness like pine sap. A sound like bees making honey came up from the floor. The aliens liked getting too close. The darkness didn't matter. The aliens glowed, a kind of rust color, but their leg-like things twinkled more brownish. Burt had brought along some of the maple syrup from breakfast. He rubbed it where his armpits should have been if he'd had arms. Burt asked me to explain war. I admitted that it was as great a mystery as love, but in a different direction. I suggested that it was not just the last argument of kings, but also a sport where youngsters die for oldsters' profits. Fair liked to touch my skin with one of its stubby feelers. It thought that my flesh reassembled hog lard. It wondered if we ate one another. I assured him that we didn't do that in the way that he meant. I realized how convenient it was to glow in the dark; softly, shimmering, warmly. Burt said that it would never do for the human species to glow. We are much too frightened and apprehensive. We are always worried that someone or something will do something bad to us. We must have evolved from a very small, insecure creature. I figured it was a shrew or maybe a Chihuahua dog on an elephants' dance floor. Burt offered us bottled water to sip. We chatted about this and that. In a moment a pizza delivery man tapped on the window. Burt invited him in. He was old and pretty chubby. There hardly seemed room enough for all of us. Mr. Jones, the delivery man, didn't say anything much. He just listened to music through earphones. He watched the sexy way that Medford's legs twinkled. The aliens and I talked like serious Jewish men. We enjoyed the gooy warmth of the darkened interior. By lunch time we all agreed that we were getting hungry. We went our several ways. The aliens touched me here and there as they seemed to like to do. They said that I was a pretty good human being. For some reason their good opinion made me feel happy. Fair thought I should get my arthritis looked after. My joints made strange noises. It was drizzling on the way home. A homeless woman crawled into her cluttered crate. Some squirrels squabbled. The traffic seemed to travel in slow motion. I thought that it was pretty nice that aliens should care about us. I realized that I wasn't nearly as nice. I didn't much care about them, only as they related to me. I hadn't asked about their president. I hadn't sampled their breakfast fare. I'd just focused on myself. Now I started to wonder a little about how they told their twelve or thirteen sexes apart. Why they cared about it. A man stopped me. He asked if I'd talked to the aliens. He wondered if they were musicians. Musicians often think for themselves. I thought they were tourists. He didn't think anyone would care enough to visit us. I agreed that it seemed unlikely. The man walked along with me toward home. I realized that I was uneasy. I didn't trust him. Maybe I saw the predator in myself.
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