Brilliant Gooey Technicolor Globs of Interstellar Fun
Note: This was a project that lasted for a few months back in 1991. I had the idea of writing little self contained stories that also functioned as chapters in a larger narrative. Its funny and irreverent and it succeeds at what it set out to do, and that's saying a lot for my writing. -steev
Ann Arbor blossomed into an enormous orange-red ball of flame on August 14. She said there was nothing left for her there and that she was leaving, going back to Missouri.
"What the Hell is in Missouri?" I demanded, stalling, for I knew that she was right. And even worse, I knew there was nothing there for me either.
We called them Jeebies, but they didn't call themselves that. When they called themselves what they called themselves it sounded like a man with no tongue making references to your ancestry with a handful of sand in his mouth. And maybe that's who they were. But at any rate, they had burned Ann Arbor- toasted it like old bread into a pile of ashes, with infrared laser beams from space. All people saw was the air turning vaguely pink, and then everything heated up. Ten minutes later, nothing but a big billowing firestorm, twenty miles in diameter. Marsha and I had escaped only because we happened to have been on our way to Urbana-Champaign to score a few sheets of Violet Lightbulb Surprise. We arrived there only to find the smoking ruins of one of the few groovy places in Illinois. Needless to say, the deal fell through.
They had done the same thing there, and at Berkely, Iowa City, Cambridge, and several other college towns- all the really hip places. Everyone said mean things about it, but not too mean- after all, when the Jeebies arrived three years ago in their big orbiting bagels, they gave us permanent cures for AIDS, Alzheimer's and Athletes' Foot, plus, of course, trial membership in the Galactic Pig Roast. Everybody at the UN and Congress called it the "Federation", but everybody knew that Pig-Roast was the most exact translation, after seeing Tom Brokaw expertly interview the hell out of Bizz-Gvort, the Jeebies' Foreign Roast Minister.
I could still remember the broadcast back in '03, 7 months after they first landed. Brokaw in his yellow rubber environment suit, obviously struggling with the artificial gravity aboard the Jeebie flagship, 1.7 times Earth's gravity. Bizz-Gvort, his 2-meter blue-green frame folded into what looked like a bean-bag chair, had two arms wrapped around his 30 centimeter tall head, and the other two gesticulated wildly as he spoke in his mouth-full-of-sand voice:
"We are, as I explained, the bastard son of your motherfucking grandfather's hamster-uncle." Well. that's the closest spelling I could come up with. "We are, however, a very young scuba-gear, relatively speaking."
Brokaw gave the camera his best condescending half-smile. Bizz-Gvort was one of only three Jeebies who had managed to learn any human language, and he still had trouble with some of his English. "Uh, you mean 'species', don't you? Chugbastardflugg?" Brokaw rattled off the word in fluent Jeebie. Their language had been easier to learn than sex for most Earthlings. In fact, dolphins had finally been proved intelligent 18 months ago when one overheard a group of Jeebie sightseers, learned the language, and immediately began discussing quantum electrodynamics with them.
"Yes, so sorry," said Bizz-Gvort, his shoulder tubes secreting yellow-green embarrassment fluid.
"That's all right, please continue," said Brokaw soothingly.
"Well, as I was saying, we are very small, new, and unimportant within the total organization of things. You see, we are but one in a thousand races that make up the Galactic... I believe you would say 'Fish-Fry'.... no, excuse me, it is more accurate, I think, to translate as 'Pig-Roast'."
Brokaw gave his little smile again, an apologetic smirk for his adoring audience. "Galactic Pig-Roast? Jalapenoistifi Vepp-Vepp Gudroshitphink lugowurp? Don't you mean-"
"Yes, those are the exact words, Mrs. Brokaw. I command you on your commode of the linguini."
"Why...thank you, sir, but, uh.... I'm not sure I understand. Galactic Pig Roast?"
"Precisely. That is what we call our interstellar government. A loose-knit, easy-going but hard-rocking coalition of politically diverse home-cookin' afficianadoes, consisting of, at last count, 1,071 intelligent, semi-intelligent, or hyper-intelligent species. And we are prepared to offer you humans and any other sentient life on this planet, trial membership."
Well, that now sounded very good to me. With my alma mater, my band, and my place of work all simultaneously incinerated due to what the Jeebies finally explained as a "clerical error", and Marsha, the only person I felt like sleeping with on this side of Lake Michigan, moving back to Missouri, I was convinced that my destiny lay in the stars- literally. The Jeebie interstellar freighter Gumbofucktitty was leaving for the Vega system in three days. Thanks to a demo tape and some fast talking, I was aboard and ready to go. Musicians are always in demand in that sector of the galaxy, or so my Jeebie friend Horace 27 had told me. (I called him Horace 27, which was short for Whore-assmotherfuckinglicktwatsiivinz.)
As the countdown approached zero, the huge craft shuddered atop the Pontiac Silverdome. The Jeebies had appropriated many of the large stadiums around the planet for launching platforms, though scientists were uncertain whether this was due to their convenient shape and architecture or because the Jeebies loved rock concerts and demolition derbies.
Soon the Jeebie word for zero filled the ship. It sounded roughly like blastocum. The anti-gravity drive kicked in slowly and I felt myself getting lighter. I waved out the porthole at Marsha far below in the parking lot, standing next to a big four-wheeler with a flame-job. But I knew she wouldn't see me as she stared up at the gleaming chromium biscuit twenty stories high.
Eventually we had lost all attraction to the Earth and the starship rose gradually, then with tremendous speed as the gravitic accelerators turned up to full power. I saw my planet recede into golfball-size in seconds, and I thought that I should probably be getting sick, but I wasn't. I was high, and getting higher, and I knew that a large, delicious adventure awaited me, like a homemade ham omelet on a sunny Sunday morning.