Intelligent Life

My city spent a million dollars to build a sidewalk.

They call it a hike and bike trail but it's really just a well-lit meandering sidewalk laid beside an equally meandering drainage ditch, nestled between the backs of fences of several middle class neighborhoods, roaming for roughly two miles between the splash pad and then deciding to abruptly end at the east high school parking lot. (Considering my city is entirely flat, it's impossible to hike the sidewalk, unless you climb up a light post off to the side.) Pesky city streets interrupt the flow of the trail, resulting in the occasional auto-pedestrian contest (The car usually wins.), shaking up the otherwise monotonous business of the city (The victim’s family usually wins.).

Typically, I do not wake early but last Thursday I just couldn’t sleep, so I scuffled out of my vengeful bed, grabbed my Nike running shorts, dive bar tee shirt, black socks, Texans running shoes and geared up. I wasn't entirely certain what I was going to do this early in the morning in this outfit but I managed to amble down the hallway, car keys in hand and walked out the front door into the dark, humid morning.

Standing on the front porch, I considered walking back inside. There was plenty to keep me occupied inside. (So much work to do.)

No, Steve, no. Go run.

My next decision was do I walk to the trail (It was close enough.) or do I drive. Well, walking over would be like punching myself in the face before a boxing match so I got in the truck, selected some choice Kid Rock to pump me up. Nothing after Devil Without a Cause. (It all went to shit after that album.)

After getting sonically wired on the short drive from the house to the parking lot, I stopped my truck near the splash pad, locked her up and started walking across the street to the head of the trail. (It's deserted so, crossing the street, I don’t have to play dodge ball with the traffic.) Once at the top of the trail, the glorious sidewalk ahead of me, I pretend-stretch, synch the activity tracker on my wrist with the app on my phone, set for 4 miles and the app counts me down, 3, 2, 1. "Beginning workout." That sexy non-voice is so alluring this time of the morning.

I start off with the old man shuffle. Anyone at a normal walking pace would pass me. But there's no one out, normal or not, at this time of the morning. I trudge on. At one mile, the voice tells me 15 minutes have passed so I start going a little faster. When I described the trail as "well lit," I exaggerated. Seems like every five to six lampposts, there is an outage on one side or the other and I lose my shadow, such as it is, for a few beats. Occasionally I'll hit the daily double and the lights are out on both sides. And here's one now. Dark side of the moon, baby. Not a soul around. WOOF, WOOF, WOOF! I jump and turn a whiter shade of pale. The dog is behind a fence. My heart rate spikes. Freaking beast. I check the time on my wrist. My hand is shaking. I continue the run but the sudden scare has sent a chill through me.

The run to the second mile, near the high school, where I turn around and head back, is uneventful. There's a short yellow pole in the middle of the sidewalk's end, whose purpose I’ve never quite figured out, other than marking the two miles where I turn around. My overall time is a pretty awful, 28 minutes,so I want to do 12 minutes in the third mile and 11 minutes in the fourth.

I'm in the third mile now, heading for home, maintaining a fine altitude, all vital systems A-OK. My mind wanders. I pick up the pace ever so slightly. I'm about to hit the daily double again. I like my cruising speed and this time I'm braced for the dog alarm so I keep at it. I'm thinking about the end of the run, picturing myself walking back across the street to my truck when I see something in the darkness in front of me that causes me to slow and then stop running. There is a lighted path behind me and beyond the darkened lightposts where I stopped I can see the lighted path in front of me but now there is this thing that is hovering in the dark out where the lights on either side have given up. It is roughly eight feet off the ground. It is completely silent. I feel at ease and peaceful, looking at it. My breathing slows to match the sudden stillness of my body. I enter the darkness of the burned out lights laterally to get a closer look, although the closer look doesn't help me decipher this thing. Did it get smaller just now, move away from me? It's about half the size of a frisbee. I don't know if it normally glows or not but certainly in this enveloped darkness, it is glowing an off-blue blue. I expect a hum or a buzz or even an air disturbance but there is nothing. It is as though someone had painted a semi-blue glowing mini-frisbee in front of me. Part of me tells me this isn't happening. Not really. I take a step forward. The disc lowers toward me and it is within arm's reach. I'm tempted. (Curiosity killed the cat.) It makes a flip away from me and I see its underside. The underside of the disc is fascinating. There appear to be eight to ten circular, inter-fitted washers in descending size, rotating and circling at different speeds and in different directions with different markings. Some circles are lined with what look like well known trademarks, a swoosh here, an airline logo there; other circles have what appear to be hieroglyphics, all circling, all entrancing. I realize, again, that I could reach my hand out and grab this thing. It retracts away from me and then shines it's odd blue light from my head to my foot, almost nodding at me. It then rights itself, its undercarriage disappearing and then it is gone. I am certain it fled horizontally and then up vertically into the early morning sky but I cannot tell you honestly that I saw it do that. It had to have. But, for now, it is simply gone. As is the darkness. The sun is out and I have barely broken a sweat. I mutter to myself "that was weird" and I run, hard, good pace (but not 11 minutes) back to my truck.

The rest of that day was a typical Thursday. My niece Natalie calls me from high school, says her mother's car has a flat tire and needs a ride. I take care of that.

Friday I take it easy, early night.

Saturday morning my friend Cecilia calls me and asks if I want a drink at a downtown bar across the street from my office. Sure, I say, what time. We decide to meet at 2.

I finished my Saturday chores at my house, filled up the truck with gas and headed downtown. I walked into the bar at 2 and waited, standing, craft beer in my hand delivered by a tattooed dark-haired darling, Danni, I think she said. Cecilia comes in 25 minutes late on her cell, motions to a bar stool at the table behind me and whispers "wine" to Danni. I get the bar stool and place it behind Cecilia, still on the phone. I watch her seat herself and a few minutes later a red wine is in front of her. She takes a gulp, says goodbye to the phone and tells me she only has 30 minutes.

"What's up?," she asks. This is her code for me to talk about myself if I absolutely must but make it quick because she has a lot she wants to tell me.

"Nothing," I say. "You?"

"Fucking Jerome," she offers.

"Y'all break up again?," I ask, catatonically uninterested.

"Yes. I'm sad.”

I ask Danni for another Weekend Warrior. Cecilia is quiet.

"I don't want to talk about it. You really don't have anything? Nothing happened this week? You didn't piss somebody off that I know and love?"

"Not this week," I say back. "Stay tuned," I offer.

It's quiet for a few minutes.

"Have you ever had a close encounter, " I ask her.

"More recently than you, old man."

"No. With a U.F.O. A ufo?"

We fall quiet again. She switches to vodka and water.

“When my sister was 6 years old, she was standing in the front yard of our old family home,” I say, breaking the silence. We are not looking at each other. She may be texting Jerome. This is the story my sister told me when we were adults, not as kids.

“She heard an engine overhead and looked up,” I continue, “and she saw a Japanese Zero fighter plane, broadcasting a message in Japanese. Even though, she tells me, it was broadcast from the fighter plane in a foreign language, she heard it in English.”

Danni asks if I’m ready. I shake my finger “no,” with a laugh at nothing in particular, sweet intoxication setting in.

“What,” Cecilia asked.

“What what,” I ask back.

“Jesus,” Cecilia sighed,. “Your sister. What did your sister hear? What was the message?”

“Change your ways because the world is over.”

"Weird," she says, "I almost want to talk about Jerome now. What does that have do with this close encounter thing?"

I describe what happened on the trail.

"More weird," she offers. We order some more drinks, chat with Danni, watch music videos on the bar's television sets. She describes a looming decision she has to make (should make; soon) between Jerome and her ex-husband. She is conflicted. It is not the thirty minutes she said she had but we don't quite reach an hour either. She leaves. I start to finish off my beer, taking my time. On this particular dwindling Saturday afternoon, I know I am going to go across the street to my office to start prepping for Monday. Sunday is out, what with the conference championships in play, Bills, Packers, Buccaneers, Chiefs. I ask for the tab and Danni (We are the only ones left in the bar.) asks if I want one more to go along with the tab. I look at her, hesitating, while she walks away and comes back with a Weekend Warrior in hand, her fingers on the pop top. I smile and say, "Sure." She pops it open, puts it on the bar in front of me and walks away.

Setting sunlight comes through the front window, “HALIGAN’S” written backwards, illuminated. The rest of the place is dark. Danni and I are together, more or less, at opposite ends of the bar; she is out of the sunlight. I'm going to drink this one fast. (So much work to do.) Danni hikes herself up on the server's area behind the bar, gets busy with her phone. I like her company, even though we are not actually in each other’s company. I gulp down the first half of the beer she just brought me and start thinking about the trail again.

Did Cecilia believe me?

I lost an hour. Or more. Not at the bar.

I finished off my beer, paid Danni, and made it over to the office and got Monday prepared. I did find some surprises but not nearly enough to knock me off my mellow mood. I mean, Cecilia, Danni. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday.

I lost an hour (or more) on the trail. I didn't share that with Cecilia. I felt I had strained my credulity enough. When I went into the dark on the trail, it was because it was dark. When the object flew off, the sun was out. But I don't remember it getting bright. It was just bright. And then when I got to the office, my watch said it was still before 7:00 a.m. It must have stopped during the encounter because when I turned on my Mac, it said it was close to 9:00 a.m. I lost two hours.

The other thing I didn't tell Cecilia was that during the encounter, I saw the top of the disc. It turned to show me its top. I also saw myself on the sidewalk, somehow looking from beyond the disc, looking up at it. I saw Steve standing on the sidewalk looking up at the disc and Steve on the ground saw Steve in the air, just beyond the blue disc looking down on him. I didn't tell her that part, that the two Steves observed each other for—for how long? I forgot about losing two hours when I was talking to Cecilia. This part, the two Steves part, I didn't forget. I just didn't share it with her.

But at least now I knew what to do with Jerome.

The encounter changed me. When I turned 55, I got a little careless with what I said, who I said it to and how I said it. Cecilia told me I was "older, bolder and dumb." Then this happened and I just knew what to do next.

Change your ways because the world is over.