Lee Martin - The Mutual UFO Network

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Id like to thank the editors at the journals in which these stories first appeared:

The Mutual UFO Network and The Dead in Paradise in Shenandoah; Love Field and A Man Looking for Trouble in Glimmer Train and The Best American Mystery Stories, 2015; Belly Talk in The Southern Review; Bad Family in The Nebraska Review; White Dwarfs in Another Chicago Magazine; Real Time in Cimarron Review; Drunk Girl in Stilettos in The Georgia Review; Dummies, Shakers, Barkers, Wanderers in The Kenyon Review.

THE MUTUAL UFO NETWORK

THE LAST TIME I SAW MY FATHER, HE WAS IN OUR GARDEN TYING PEA vines to bamboo stakes. The vines, he told me, needed something to latch onto, something to climb; otherwise, they would snake along the ground and tangle and make a mess, and the one thing he didnt need, then, was a mess. You know what Im saying, dont you, Nate?

Right, I said. Keeping things in line.

Check. He winked at me. All our ducks in a row.

It was October. The scorching heat of summer had eased, and the fall rains had come. Each morning, we woke to drizzle, to the sound of water dripping from the eaves. The leaves on the red oaks were turning brown, as was the grass, everything fading to that camels dun that was Texas in autumn, only an occasional burst of red from a Bradford pear or a spritz of green from my fathers fall planting to give the world any color at all.

The pea vines would have another month before the first frost. Youll be back before then, my father said, and well put everything down for the winter.

I was going to visit my mother in Virginia, where shed moved when she and my father separated. I was going because I couldnt bear to be with him even though, in the spring, Id made the decision to stay.

You dont have to love him, my mother had told me. Theres no law.

But the truth was I did love himat least, thats what I called the ache that stuck in my throat every time I saw him, when he thought he was alone, tip his head and cover his face with his hands. Or each morning when I came into the kitchen and saw a place set for me at the breakfast table. A cereal bowl and juice glass and coffee cup, all turned upside down to keep out the dust. A cloth napkin rolled and held with a wooden ring. Most mornings, there would be a note held down with a spoon. APPLES IN THE FRIDGE, it might say in my fathers small, labored handwriting. PAPER SAYS RAIN. DONT GET CAUGHT IN THE WET.

Sometimes I stood at the window, hidden by the thick folds of the drapes, and watched him on the lawn, picking stray bits of cypress mulch from the grass or the carpet juniper that ran along our front walk. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled, plucking up any shaving or scrap that had washed out from our flowerbeds. Then he got to his feet and stood there, hands on his hips, surveying the lawn until he saw something hed missed. Often, he kept at it until dusk came, and I had to go to the door and call to him.

Dad, Id say, its almost dark.

Hed be on his knees again, bent over as if he were praying, and his voice, when he answered, sounded so far away. Just a while longer, hed tell me. Im getting everything ship-shape.

How could I not love him, when he was trying so hard to bring our lives back to normal?

Then one day our neighbor, Mr. Laskey, said to me, Nathan, I see your old man crawling around on the grass. The last three days Ive seen him. Did he lose something?

Mr. Laskey, a retired chef, was the only one in the neighborhood whod still speak to us. I told him about the mulch and how my father liked to keep it off the grass. Hes particular, I said. He wants everything to be just right.

A souffl I can understand, Mr. Laskey said. But mulchhow long is life?

That evening, my mother called, and as soon as I heard her voice, as shy as a girls, I knew Id do whatever she asked.

Come out here and see the mountains, she said. You cant imagine how beautiful the leaves are. Stunning. Ive made a room for you. And theres a good college. You could start next termwell, Im not asking. For a long time, I didnt say anything. The phone lines were full of static, and I could hear the fuzzy echoes of other peoples conversations. Nate, Nate, Nate, my mother finally said with a sigh. Did I do wrong? When I left your father?

Dont ask me that, I said.

You can make a mistake and go back and change it, she told me. You dont know that when youre young.

The pea vines were only a few inches tallno more than half a footand staking them was a delicate job. First, my father had to push the bamboo sticks into the ground, close to the vines, but not so close that the sticks would damage the roots that were claiming a hold. Then he had to tie the vines to the stakes. His fat fingers fumbled with the slender shoots and the strips of nylon hed cut from some of my mothers old pantyhose. He had to lean each vine over so he could tie it to a stake without pulling the roots from the ground. He used nylon, he said, because it was flexible and wouldnt choke the vines. It would give them the little bit of support they needed while still allowing them to grow.

Do you want me to help you? I said. Ive got time.

No, I dont want you to help me. He was crouched down, his head bowed, the straw of his gardening hat darkening from the drizzle. I believe Im quite capable of doing this job.

But he was having a rough go of it. Each time he tried to tie the vine to the stake, the nylon got wrapped around his fingers or the vine slipped away from him. I crouched down beside him and smelled the wet dirt and heard the grunts of his breath.

Just let me hold the vine, I said.

I reached out and took the pea vine, and when my father tried to knock my hand away, the vine came out of the ground. I felt its roots, the thin white fingers, loosen their hold, and then there was the most incredible lightness at the end of my arm, and my fathers lips quivered with an uncertain smile. He looked like he was waiting for a punch line, not sure whether the joke was going to be funny.

Im sorry, I told him.

Sure, he said, his grin vanishing. Now you say it. Right when youre on your way out the door.

The trouble started that winter when I went out at night and hid myself close to windowscrouched down behind shrubbery or heat pumpsso I could watch our neighbors in the warm light of their homes.

I never saw anything that they would have been ashamed for me to see. I can honestly say that: no quarrels, no lovemaking, no quirky habits. I told them that later, when I went from door to door, confessing what Id done and explaining how Id meant no harm or insult. Id only wanted to be close to them. But, of course, by then, it didnt matter what I said. I was criminal.

Mostly I saw them watching TV, eating sandwiches at the kitchen counter, rinsing dishes in the sink. Mrs. Poe liked to crochet. Miss Nance read the evening newspaper. Mr. Dean built model airplanes. Miss Stevens marked her students lessons and ornamented them with bright stickers or gold stars.

Mr. Laskey was my favorite. He cooked. I watched him in his kitchen, a long white apron tied around his neck. Even outside, I could smell oregano and tomato sauce, cinnamon and nutmeg. Or at least I convinced myself I could, eager as I was to breathe in the scents, take in the sights of settled, honest living.

In my own home, my parents operated a mail-order business called The Mutual UFO Network. My father transferred computer-generated images to videotape and created illusions of spaceships streaking across the night sky. He took out ads in magazines and sold his videotapes to customers around the world who wanted proof that what theyd suspected all along was indeed true: there were visitors from other planets, and they were watching us.