The Enigmatologist (19 page)

I
wondered what else they could do.

He
sighed deeply and said that before they left for Earth, his people were given certain
abilities that aided in colonization. They could alter their appearance to
resemble the indigenous life of whatever planet they were colonizing. They
could heal from wounds and had learned to slow their aging process. Jonathon
Deerfoot
confessed that he was roughly three hundred years
old. He also said that they could communicate telepathically and could send
their minds anywhere they chose, that they could even affect our dreams, which
is how he was able to visit me in Texas, and how they were able to convince the
Lincolns that the ghost of their late son wanted them to send someone to find a
spirit army, but they couldn’t control the minds of others. Instead, he said,
they were given an advanced pheromone system, enabling them to release pheromones
that affect our moods, making us calm, afraid, or amorous, all with merely
their scent.

I
asked him why they had chosen Earth to colonize. Jonathon
Deerfoot
said they chose planets where the indigenous population was still in its
technological infancy. These planets were easy to infiltrate because the
inhabitants hadn’t developed the mechanisms to detect the colonists, and that
by the time they did, his people were already positioned to take over.

I
asked if he intended to make war on humanity. He told me that I misunderstood
him, that they didn’t colonize through violence, the way we had been colonizing
the West. They colonized through an involved, selective breeding process,
creating a new species that would eventually replace humanity. However, the process
took time, and it was often centuries before they prepared a world for the next
wave of colonists. They had colonized thousands of planets this way, and it
brought peace to many troubled sectors in the galaxy.

I
asked him if humanity should have a choice in the matter. He asked me which
would I prefer, peace, or the destruction of the planet. I told him, if those
were my options, then I’d choose peace, but there are some who will not make
that concession, that their independence is important to them, even if it means
their demise.

Jonathon
Deerfoot
said there will come a time when the
planet’s population is connected telepathically, and that this connectivity
will help them realize that they are not isolated groups, separated by land or
language, religion, or access to resources, but that they are one people, the
inhabitants of a planet whose unified efforts toward their advancement are
stronger than a few, loud voices demanding autonomy. He said this is why they
chose to colonize Earth, so that one day we will understand the peace that
comes from unity.

And
then I realized that my initial assessment of our conversation was correct. We
were discussing my desire to marry Louisa. Jonathon
Deerfoot
wanted me to mate with Louisa so that our children would be the first
generation of a new species.

I
asked him why he chose me for this. Jonathon
Deerfoot
said when they initially visited the
Lincolns’s
dreams, it was to convince them to send someone who his people hoped would be
suitable for crossbreeding. After my visit to the White House, they visited
Mrs. Lincoln again. When she told them she’d sent me to find them, they
searched my mind while I slept and found I was someone who was relatively
intelligent, with a gentle temperament, ideal qualities for a crossbreeding
candidate.

I
asked if Louisa knew about their plan. He said she did. I then asked if she
altered her pheromones so I would fall in love with her. Again, he said she
did, but quickly added that Louisa volunteered for this mission because she
loved me, that she fell in love with me the first moment she entered my mind,
and she only used the scent because she was unsure that I would reciprocate her
feelings.

I
told him she didn’t need to do that. I would have fallen in love with her
regardless, and added that I will love her until I die.

Jonathon
Deerfoot
smiled and walked me outside.

My
wagon was waiting for me, stocked with enough supplies to last several months.
Louisa sat on the bench seat, looking beautiful. She had a flower behind her
ear.

I
pulled myself onto the wagon, next to my bride. There was no official ceremony.
Louisa told me that their culture did not require formalities, that devotion of
the heart was enough for a union.

We
decided to ride north to Denver City, in Colorado territory. On our way out of
town I asked Louisa if she would miss her family. She looked at me and said
that they would always be with her and she could visit them anytime she wished.
I asked her how she could do this. She replied by tapping the side of her head
and saying, the same way she fell in love with me.

John flipped back a few pages and found it buried in a
paragraph. Her name made the surrounding scribbles inconsequential. He
overflowed with joy and hope, anxiety and inadequacies. He read the section
again, making sure he’d read correctly.

Rosa Jimenez.

Archibald had written her full name.

John
put the journal away as the sheriff turned onto I-25, an interstate road
running north-south, separating town from wasteland. But the road had failed to
keep decay from consuming homes, mobile or otherwise, and parts of town had
broken and drifted into endless desert. History decomposing.

“This is where the world comes to die,” John said.

They turned east, onto Highway 104, then onto a dirt road,
and stopped in front of a rusty fence, waist-high, with thin, iron bars running
its length. It looked fragile, like an autumn leaf breaking between fingers,
red flakes ready for ground. The old gate was sealed with a chain and a rusty,
unbolted
Masterlock
. John got out, opened it. The hinges
screeched under pressure.

They followed bald earth for a few miles, unsure if they
were on a road or were lost, two more victims of the desert. Then, on the
horizon, a growing blackness absorbing everything, grass, light, dirt.

Professor Gentry’s home.

From a distance it shined like black steel. As they drove
closer, they saw that it wasn’t steel, but old tires, steel radials.

Stopping in front of the tire wall, they got out of the
squad car. Professor Gentry hadn’t built a home, he’d built a fortress. Out of
used tires, staggered and mortared. The wall was over twenty feet tall, at
least fifty yards wide, running in a circle, like a structure in John’s Found
Object Architecture 103 textbook.

John put his hand on it and pushed a little, testing its
sturdiness. He could climb it like he did the trees in
Cheesman
Park when he was younger and his mother would take him there for weekend
picnics of baloney sandwiches, Shasta lemon-lime soda, and off-brand pudding
pops, and tell him stories about his father, hoping John would grow to love the
vanished man based on her recollections and not recent events. Instead, John
would run and climb the oaks and maples, escaping story time. John slapped the
tire wall and decided against climbing it. Whatever hermit lived on the other
side was hiding from something, possible everything, and they needed his help.

“So, how do you think we get in?” Sheriff Masters asked.

“Knock,” John joked, pointing to another iron gate that
led inside, only this one looked new, a crisp, metal barrier. It was the height
of the wall and solid steel. On the left side of the gate was a small speaker
with a little red button with the word ‘Press’ on it.

The sheriff pressed it. Nothing happened.

“I knew this was a waste of time,” John said, walking back
to the car, convinced that Mrs. Morris intentionally gave them the wrong
address so he’d be forced to go back to her home, and she could tell him about
her dream Roswell getaway, an all-inclusive vacation including
crotchless
spacesuits, alien themed sex toys, and
scrapbooking.

“Hello,” said a crackly voice from the speaker.

“Uh, hello,” the sheriff said.

“You have to…button…talk.”

“Oh, okay,” the sheriff said. He pushed the button and
began speaking. “Hello, Professor Gentry? My name is Sheriff Masters. I’d like
to ask you a few questions.”

“There’s no…here by…name. Please…away.”

“Professor Gentry, we’d really like to ask you some
questions about Elvis and the government.”

“Like…said, there’s no one…name. Please...away. Thank
you.”

“Professor Gentry, Mrs. Morris seemed certain you were the
guy to talk to. Could we please come in for a moment? It’ll only take a
second.”

“Mrs. Morris? Why…you say so. Get…your car…park next to…”

The speaker buzzed and they heard sound of iron gears
turning, like a giant watch winding. The large iron gate slowly opened,
revealing a hill covered in dry New Mexico grass, brown and dead.

A small mobile home sat on top of the hill like an old man
in a beach chair watching alternative news reports on his phone. Aluminum-foil-wrapped
bars barricaded windows. Several satellite dishes of mixed sizes were planted
on top of and around the home. They were pointed skyward, receiving
transmissions. A stone path led from the bottom of the hill to the trailer.

“Jesus. This place looks like a meth lab,” John said.

“Where the hell did he say to park?” Sheriff Masters
asked, driving through the gate, scanning the brittle weeds and compressed
rubble in the lot.

“I don’t really think it matters. Just park over there.”
John pointed to an old, beat-up Chevy pick-up rusting at the foot of the hill.
They’d hiked halfway up the path when the door opened.

A large head with thick gray hair emerged from behind the
screen door. A dense beard climbed his cheeks, covering over half of his face.
Pop-bottle glasses guarded the only hairless skin. His eyebrows, like fuzzy
pipe cleaners, swept across his forehead as he scanned his yard, suspicious of
something that wasn’t there.

“Professor Gentry?”

“Sheriff Masters?” he asked. “Were you followed?”

“No.”

“You sure?” He scrutinized the yard sealed in
Goodyears
, Michelins, Firestones, and other brands.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“Yeah, right. They always follow. Who’s that with you?”

“John Abernathy, Professor. Nice to meet you,” John said,
attempting to compensate for whatever phantom threat had put Professor Gentry
on edge.

“Abernathy?” Professor Gentry stepped onto the yard. He
was short, around 5’3”. Thick, black hair poked above the collar of his black
t-shirt like weeds next to a fence. “Son of a bitch.”

“
Cape Canaveral
. Nice.” John pointed to Professor
Gentry’s black t-shirt. The logo and setting of the popular sixties TV show was
printed on it.

“You know, I used to work for the actress that played
Lieutenant Megan Strata. She had a pair of Bichon
Frises
.
Adorable animals, but noisy. They barked at everything.”

“What exactly are you a professor of?” John asked.

“Elizabeth didn’t tell you? Good. I knew she could keep a
secret.” His eyes darted between Sheriff Masters and John. “I’m not a professor
of anything. I’m a dog walker.”

“A dog walker?” John said, thinking he shouldn’t be
surprised that Mrs. Morris would trust a phony professor over common sense.

“But you wrote that book?” the sheriff said.

“I was Elvis’s dog walker. He called me ‘The Dog
Professor.’ I used it on my books so the fans would know it was really me, not
some imposter. Let’s get inside. I’ll explain everything. Elizabeth sent you to
me because there are things you need to hear.”

“Yeah,” John said, “I know what she wants me to hear.”

“Now, we can stand out here all day while they listen to
us.” Professor Gentry pointed up. Instinctively, they followed his finger.
“Don’t look. Or you can come inside where it’s safe.”

Sheriff Masters turned to John and shrugged his shoulders
as if to say, ‘We came all this way, might as well.’ Professor Gentry ushered
them in. He grasped the aluminum handle next to his door and climbed up the
steps. Standing in the doorway, he surveyed his dirt and rubber yard one last
time before closing his trailer’s door.

Unlike
Leadbelly’s
trailer, this
place was spotless, like a laboratory. The kitchen appeared to be ordinary, a
yellow stove, tan linoleum, plastic cabinets designed to look wooden. However,
the living room refused to be unremarkable. A series of monitors hung from the
walls, displaying a live feed of the outside wall, the endless desert beyond.

Professor Gentry offered them seats at the kitchen table.

“So, you know Elizabeth?” He smiled and gazed past them.
“She does the most incredible thing with her tongue.”

“
Aagh
, I don’t want to hear
that,” John said, convulsing.

“She starts by taking out her false teeth.”

“Professor Gentry,” the sheriff interrupted, sounding
official, “Mrs. Morris told us you were the man to talk to about Elvis.”

“Well, it depends on what you want to know. You want the
propaganda, the endless lies fed to you since birth? Or would you rather hear
the truth, the truth they don’t want you to know?”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Sheriff Masters asked.

“The government, of course,” Professor Gentry said, pounding
his fist on the kitchen table. “They’ve been trying to silence me for years.
Why do you think I moved all the way out here? To keep them out, to keep them
from spying on me.”

John had run into Professor Gentry’s type before. Whether
they were passing out flyers on his college campus, at the farmers market
trying to get signatures for unnecessary legislation, or feeding pigeons in the
park while wearing a tinfoil hat, they always believed that there was a mammoth
conspiracy moving and shaping society, machinations that only they could see,
and that it was their duty to educate and recruit everyone they met to their
cause. At first, John humored them, listening, nodding, pointing out obvious
holes in their logic, but he got tired of hearing comments like, ‘but don’t you
see’, or, ‘you just don’t get it’, or, ‘you’re all
sheeple
’.
Now when he encountered someone with an irrational conspiracy theory, he either
ignored them or walked away. To John, all Professor Gentry needed was a tinfoil
hat.

“Now,” Professor Gentry said, leaning back and folding his
hands across his stomach, covering the image on his t-shirt of Kennedy Space
Center floating through the Milky Way, “why don’t you tell me what this is
about?”

“Mrs. Morris took a picture of a man she believed was
Elvis. I was hired to come down here, investigate it. Turns out he was just an
Elvis impersonator. Said he was leaving town, didn’t want any trouble.
Apparently, he was murdered before he could leave.”

“Murdered?” Professor Gentry leaned forward, his hands on
each side of the table, anchoring himself like his curiosity defied gravity.

“I’m not surprised. It’s not the first time they’ve killed
to cover up the truth.”

“That’s not the strange part,” Sheriff Masters said. “When
we got to his place, it was crawling with government types, Air Force, NASA.
What does NASA have to do with
Leadbelly
or Elvis?”

“Unbelievable.” Professor Gentry shook his head, and
slapped the table with both palms. “You two have stumbled onto the biggest
conspiracy in modern times and you don’t even know it. Let me tell you
something. There are scientists out there who correctly believe we’re not alone
in the universe. They’ve spent careers searching the cosmos for intelligent
life. Then, there are those who believe intelligent life has been searching for
us. What’s more, they’re all part of a clandestine branch of the Air Force, a
very secretive unit, whose sole mission is to study alien life both in the
skies and here on Earth. They’re trying to keep the existence of extraterrestrial
life a secret, while at the same time attempting to
weaponize
their findings.”

“And how do you know all this, Professor?” the sheriff
asked.

“I was Elvis’s dog walker. He’d go out with me when I’d
walk Brutus, Snoopy, Baba, Sherlock. I walked all of them. He told me
everything about the government and UFOs. He even showed me some of his
journals, the field reports he filed for the Air Force.”

“He trusted you with all that?”

“People trust their dog walker more than their babysitter.
But Elvis, he was one of them, a government agent. In 1960, after he was
discharged by the Army, Elvis was recruited by an Air Force officer named Major
Hollister.”

“He’s a colonel now,” John said. “He was at
Leadbelly’s
trailer today.”

“I walked his dog when he came to Graceland, a piece of
shit toy poodle named
Astro
. Can you believe that?
He’s looking for little green men and he names his dog
Astro
.
What a dick. Anyway, he recruited Elvis into the Air Force, personally
overseeing his training, turning him into an ‘intergalactic covert operative’,
that’s what Elvis called it. Colonel Hollister, he said Elvis was his greatest
achievement. Let me show you something.”