Closed Encounters
I knew he was an alien from the start, when he sat down next to me in the "movie theater," his leather jacket squeaking against the duct-tape upholstery. Danny was content to talk to the girl next to him, so instead of fuming that my host hadn't chosen to sit next to me, I set about figuring out what brought a space alien to watch stoner flicks in San Francisco. He reminded me of Will, but at that point everyone reminded me of Will. He was too tall for the theater's shoddy seats, and his head drooped forward as though struggling to carry his mass of dark curls. It was the perfect disguise: the poetic rebel who could sit in a corner and record every human nuance.
Apparently Danny thought the best way to introduce me to San Francisco was to take me to a "private screening." I assumed this meant something chic. An hour after landing in the city, I found myself in the middle of the Library of Bible, if it were run by a obsessed schizo film buff.
I sat on my knee and turned to face Danny. He winked at me and said to Mitchell, his roommate, "Hailey's from Atlanta. I bet she's never seen anything like this."
"Oh golly mister," I returned in my best southern belle. I stood and flourished into a deep curtsey. "Thank y'all for invitin' me. This is so much better than watching them moving pictures on the back of Billy Joe's barn!" Of course, I ended it by laughing and slapping Danny's shoulder. He'd been making fun of me for being "Southern" for three years, ever since we graduated college. Nevermind that I was from Cleveland.
Danny sold the night as "a matinee for stoners." "An ironic movie marathon." And, "The perfect way to forget about an ex." The owner picked a different theme every week, and that week's was afterschool specials preaching the horrors of drug culture. Half of the seats were torn from busses, and the other half were folding chairs.
"How retro," The Alien said.
"Huh?"
He spoke from behind a thick nose and deep eyes, which made his sunken cheekbones that much more noticeable. Tight black pants, wallet attached to a chain... the classic Upper Haight Hipster, I would come to learn.
"That projector." He pointed to the scuffed film projector propped up like a cannon. "It's an Eiki LC color video projector LC-300. You're not from here?"
I was caught off guard by how abruptly he changed subjects. "Danny and I went to school together. Are you from the Bay Area?"
"I'm from all over," he said. He never made direct eye contact with me. Instead, his eyes snaked around the room, taking in the ironic motivational posters, the tattered movie screen, and the precariously leaning towers of film reels.
I'm not sure why I decided he was from another planet. Maybe it was his complete lack of social decorum. I found myself wondering what star he called home. What was it Will was always talking about? Alpha Centauri? All that time I spent teasing him about his love of Science Fiction, yet I couldn't remember any other stars.
"What brings you to this establishment?"
"Just visiting friends," I lied. Come on, it will be fun, Danny had encouraged me after I'd spent an hour complaining to him about The Breakup. Come visit us in San Francisco. Seeing some old friends in a new place will be good for you.
The lights dimmed, and what commenced was a 3-hour marathon of low budget '70s films decrying the dangers of weed. In the grand finale, a documentary about "the perfect drug," cavemen wearing spandex leopard print did backflips while a narrator boomed about Since The Beginning of Time, Man Has Sought The Perfect Drug. Their favorite way of showing someone's high was to zoom in close to his face and show planets and stars whizzing around his head. The narrator's line: "Timmy's head is lost in the clouds. Literally." The crowd hollered. The Alien nodded appreciatively.
----------------------------
"Danny, who is that guy?" Mitchell whispered as we walked through the Mission District. The Alien had followed us from the screening, and now that we were out on the street, I wondered if the few words I'd spoken to him had been interpreted as an invitation.
"Oh, he's cool," Danny said. "He's Youtube famous, or something. He has a web show where he talks about music. Or something. I don't know."
Three things will always trigger excited discussion between Danny and Mitchell: philosophy, French, and music. God help you if they're drunk — they'll argue philosophy and music in French. Mitchell immediately spun around and asked The Alien about his internet fame.
I trotted up to Danny and slipped my hand around his elbow. College memories flowed through the touch: it was how we walked to and from The Village, him with his long step, pocketed hands and slumped shoulders, me walking twice as fast to keep up with his gait while also holding on for dear life, and us constantly reminding people we're just friends. Danny's downward grin felt like a gentle pat on the head.
"I release a weekly videocast where I take a classic song and compare it to a new release. It gets approximately 50,000 hits."
I would come to learn that The Alien, with his encyclopedic knowledge of all counter cultures, could play 6 Degrees of Separation with anything. He could chart Coltrane to Coldplay, or Marilyn Monroe to Marilyn Manson. Eventually he'd end up talking about porn in the same detached Jane Goodall voice. My ears tuned in when he segued from David Bowie to 1930s stag shows.
"The thing about these stag shows is the intimacy of it. With modern porn, you have a complete lack of closeness. It's all about the stimulation and immediate gratification. You have your fetishes and your guilts. These movies are more like burlesque, or belly dancing. It's hard, much harsher than a dancer in a Turkish restaurant, but there's a sensuousness to it that is absent today. I attribute part of it to the black-and-white film technology. It's similar to the difference between painting an odalisque and doing a body shot off of a stripper."
He talked about body shots the same way I would describe my cat to Will when we ran out of things to talk about. Oh, he's being cute again. He's taking his stuffed mouse and flinging it across the room, and then pouncing on it. Aww, and now he's doing a line of coke off of Bambi's huge breasts, and...
"That's what I think when I compare his Ziggy Stardust phase to the indie pop coming out of Portland today."
By that point, I'd stopped listening again. I can't remember any of the conversation until we finally reached their apartment. Danny's elbow was far more important.
-------------------
"Ok, you have to see the Opium Den."
"But we just got here," I said. My heart was still racing from the final uphill walk followed by two flights of stairs. Danny had an ambitious definition of "walking distance."
Danny laughed. "No, our opium den. Well, there isn't any opium, but still." I realized he meant a room inside his apartment, and thanked my lucky stars.
"Opium dens," The Alien said, tasting the word. "I'd like to observe one of those one day."
Danny and Mitchell plopped my bags down in the landing next to a pink tricycle that I didn't ask about. Danny grabbed my shoulder and led me through their apartment, which consisted of one long, narrow hallway with rooms pinching off every six feet. The Opium Den referred to a windowless room crammed beneath the building's stairwell. It could have served as a deep closet, or a bedroom for someone you didn't like. They had found gleaming gold polyester rugs to hang from the walls, and red faux velvet to stretch across two mattresses that took up the whole floor. In the corner were speakers, a turntable and a stereo. He was right: no opium. But, there were several coke cans that I was sure were filled with ashes.
"Great, isn't it?" Danny said as he fell back onto a mattress.
"It's wonderful," I said. I think I meant it.
The Alien sat down next to Danny. I found my body language clenching up – I crossed my arms, bent my back and couldn't decide where to stand. I suppose I shouldn't have been pissed off at an alien's lack of social skills. He was here studying humans for a reason. I wished, though, that he had the sense not to take the only open spot next to our host.
Mitchell took it upon himself to turn on the stereo, flip off the lights and bust out a pipe.
"Didn't you learn anything from the movies?" I laughed.
"Exactly!"
From what I hear, real opium dens don't have glow-in-the-dark star stickers covering the ceiling. That didn't bother Danny and Mitchell. Dozens of green shapes glowed from above. Danny had told me Mitchell was an astronomy buff, so I wouldn't have put it past him to arrange them in actual constellations. I wondered if The Alien could find his home planet on their ceiling. I didn't ask — I was too busy pretending to enjoy the music.
I recognized the song. I recognized the song! I jumped next to Danny and fluttered my hand on his shoulder. "Danny! Do you know who this is?"
The Alien cocked his head. "It's interesting... ever notice how 'this', when said without a subject, always refers to what music is playing?"
Danny mock-fluttered both of his hands across his face. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god," he pretended to squeel, and then spoke seriously. "It's Stereolab. Like it?"
"Oh, right!" I tried to keep my excitement up, despite the fact that I'd been about to say "Radiohead."
"Eh, they're ok," Mitchell said, "They're overrated, but they're still really good."
Danny pulled himself up to sit cross-legged in the middle of the mattress; in the process, he made sure to pull me down next to him. It was an uncomfortable position, crammed between him and the polyester wall, but I didn't argue.
Instead, I got stoned. At first I attempted a brief refusal: "I'm job hunting." I saw Danny's shrug, and thought about the bliss of no responsibilities, no futures, no worries. They were doing fine: Danny worked in an electronics store and Mitchell in an art gallery. So why not? It's remarkable how quickly old friends can relight your old habits.
The atmosphere of the room fell somewhere between excitement and nostalgia. Or perhaps it was excitement from nostalgia. Conversations swelled and fell, ranging from crepes to politics to movies to philosophies. We talked about other people at the screening, and Danny and I laughed as we pretended to offer deep insights on the other movie-goers. A girl with red fishnets peeking through her torn jeans was obviously a star roller derby player. The trollish man working the projector probably pleasured himself in that very spot when the boss wasn't looking. The couple that sat in the corner? On a date, but she wasn't into him. Each new story recalled our old hobby: sitting in a public place and making up backstories for strangers.
"Remind me to show you the roof tomorrow," Danny said.
The air itself in the room felt heavier. We could open a bottle of wine and act classy, or The Alien could show us the stars. As nice as it was to laugh in an a tiny overpopulated room, we had so many more options. "Why not now?"
"Shhh, this is a great song."
Eventually, each tract of talk fell away, leaving only a vacuum of music. It was during these pauses that The Alien would speak up, usually about the music itself.
"Have you ever noticed that there are only a few different ways for a song to end?"
When no one responded, The Alien continued. "It can crescendo until it cuts on a strong note, it can fade away while repeating the chorus, it can drift out on a soft tone, it can hit a major chord..."
I felt sorry for him. The Alien looked so alone. I could see that he'd been analyzing our conversation, looking for a place to jump in. "There are only so many ways that things end," I offered. "We repeat them over and over, and yet we think each one is special."
The Alien nodded. "Correct. You want something new, but you want it to be the same. You fall into patterns. Sometimes it satisfies, sometimes it doesn't. Everything is the same, but different."
Danny put his hand on my knee. The music rolled into a rush of electronic tones. I watched The Alien lean against the wall and close his eyes. I pushed thoughts of Will and Atlanta from my head, rested my cheek on Danny's shoulder, and decided to smile.
-------------
I stared at the new ceiling and wished it was the sky. This one didn't have stars, or even fake ones. I felt Danny's heavy breathing as he pressed against my back. He had his arm around me, and I could still feel the way his hand had traced up and down my waist as he fell asleep. I'd hoped I would fall asleep soon after. But now, warm sweat had turned to a chilly film, and I wished I'd taken the time to put my clothes back on before Danny passed out.
Music no longer played in the Opium Den. The Alien had fallen asleep, and Mitchell disappeared to talk on his cell phone. "It's time to go to bed," Danny had whispered in my ear, and I smiled and followed him.
There was a reason we never dated in college. We fell into the same pattern, always turning to each other during times of frustration with the opposite sex. Our hookups felt like uncorking a champagne bottle, and ended just as quick. He never tried to make things more serious, and I never asked him to. When I told him about meeting Will, not too long after we graduated, Danny made a big show of congratulating me. Then he ignored me for the next two years.
I pulled his arm off of me and gently rested it on his side. Carefully, I raised myself on my arms and crawled over him. I felt like a spider. I reached the end of the mattress – just a mattress, no bedframe – and rolled off. I'd at least had the presence of mind to roll my suitcase into Danny's room, and tried to unzip it as quietly as possible. My preferred PJs, a tank top and rolled up boxer shorts, were at the bottom. Of course.
The alien was spread-eagled on the mattresses. He still wore his leather jacket, and his mouth had fallen open to accomodate his snoring. I tapped his foot, and he snorted awake, his eyes opening as wide as his mouth. "Hi," he said without looking at me.
"Come on. I want to see the roof."
I found the back stairwell in a room connecting to the kitchen. Three narrow flights of stairs each had the character of that floor's tenant. A cat door, old movie posters, empty flower pots. I almost allowed the door at the top to clang shut before realizing it probably locked automatically. That would explain the Danny's tattered copy of Atlas Shrugged lying on the steps. He'd always said it was most useful as a doorstop. I wedged the objectivist tome into the frame, and we stepped outside.
San Francisco made sure to let me know how dumb I was to not bring a coat. Danny never mentioned how cold it got at night, with wind constantly whipping in from the bay. I rubbed my hands along my exposed shoulders, but I wasn't foolish enough to expect The Alien to offer me his jacket. That would be the human thing to do. He didn't.
Clouds marbled the sky, but I could still see a few stars peeking through. They weren't nearly as impressive as the cheap imitations in the Opium Den, and even less so than the 1970s special effect galaxies that swirled in a head literally stuck in the clouds.
"Why are you here?" I asked The Alien.
"What?"
I shook my head at my girlish fantasy. I could try to get answers from the man I'd decided was an alien, or I could go back downstairs and fall asleep on the couch. Or with Danny. Danny sounded more comfortable, and that was the problem.
Oh well. "Do you come in peace?"
"No. I'm giving a lecture at Berkeley."
I laughed, impressed that he could learn humor. What followed was a long pause, and with no music playing, The Alien had nothing to awkwardly fill it with.
"I don't think I like it here," I said.
The Alien looked like he was thinking. Or perhaps searching through his databases. I felt absolutely sure that whatever I was looking for, he could draw the answer from his vast astral knowledge.
"You've only been here for a few hours," he said. "I have to travel a lot. Some people appear to love the first few hours in a new place. Some don't. Perhaps you're one of the ones who don't."
"Who doesn't," I corrected. I hopped from foot to foot in an effort to keep warm. I wasn't even wearing shoes, and the gravel on the rooftop was cold. ""I don't think that's it. I mean, I think I wanted to prove to myself that things are over with Will. This way, if he calls me and invites me over, I can say 'Sorry, I'm in San Francisco.'" I left out the part where I could add, with Danny.
He didn't ask me who Will was. He seemed unsure how to hold himself, or how close to stand to me.
"May I ask a question?"
"No," I laughed. Then, when he didn't pick up on the joke, I added: "Ok, go ahead."
"Why are you afraid of going back to Atlanta?"
He could tell that? "It's this boy. I need to move on with my life. But... well, last time we broke up, and the time before that, we ended up getting back together."
"Why?"
"Because I love him, and he wanted to."
"Just wanted to?"
"I guess I just need some space," I said.
"That should be easy. Space is the one thing we have a lot of. Failed relationships are all about space. Too much, too little. He wants more space than her. She wants more space from him. They live in too small a space. There's too much space between them when, say, he lives in Prague and she lives in Albany. She's just moved to a new space. He's spaced out all the time."
"I wouldn't say it failed."
"Liar," The Alien said.
He stepped closer, and I felt my heart jump. I forgot about the cold. The Alien reached out a hand and, placing his palm on the back of my neck, drew me up onto my tiptoes. I could feel the stubble on his chin as we kissed, and the unsure movements of his knuckles as he kneaded my hair. I felt all of the anxiety shift around my body, filling me until it became excitement. And then, disappointment.
I pulled away and patted his arm. San Francisco's biting cold returned. "Thanks," I said, but I shook my head. The excitement had vanished, replaced with tiredness. The Alien was just another guy. He was present, with no sense of future, and no idea what to do with me.
The anxiety gone, I felt my sense of time and space shift. Everything became clear as my mind moved from present to future. I thought, I will go downstairs. The Alien will leave. I'll lock the door behind him. I will curl back into Danny's bed. He will roll over and put an arm around me, but he won't remember it in the morning. I'll smell his cauliflower breath and the smoke trapped in his hair. I'll stare at the ceiling, content that it's a ceiling.
I'll thank The Alien years later, when I find his Youtube profile. I won't know if he reads it or not, or if he remembers me. I will refer to him to my friends as The Alien, which they'll assume refers to his citizenship. I'll write stories about him, and about Danny, and about Will.
I will wake the next morning and make breakfast, and chastise Danny for not having any eggs. I'll go to the beach. I'll enjoy the rest of my escape. I will return to Atlanta, and while on the plane I will gaze out the window at the night sky, enveloped by stars above and lights below. I'll land, and find Will waiting for me, and it will be the last time we kiss. That night, it will be the last time we make love. We'll do it while listening to music, and I'll laugh when his playlist flips to a theme from some Sci-Fi movie. I'll smile while calling him a nerd. I'll know that the next morning I'll gather my toothbrush and flip flops, but at that point I'll simply lie there, content with finality, as the song hits it's last high note before fading out. The same as every other ending, but this time, different.
I knew he was an alien from the start, when he sat down next to me in the "movie theater," his leather jacket squeaking against the duct-tape upholstery. Danny was content to talk to the girl next to him, so instead of fuming that my host hadn't chosen to sit next to me, I set about figuring out what brought a space alien to watch stoner flicks in San Francisco. He reminded me of Will, but at that point everyone reminded me of Will. He was too tall for the theater's shoddy seats, and his head drooped forward as though struggling to carry his mass of dark curls. It was the perfect disguise: the poetic rebel who could sit in a corner and record every human nuance.
Apparently Danny thought the best way to introduce me to San Francisco was to take me to a "private screening." I assumed this meant something chic. An hour after landing in the city, I found myself in the middle of the Library of Bible, if it were run by a obsessed schizo film buff.
I sat on my knee and turned to face Danny. He winked at me and said to Mitchell, his roommate, "Hailey's from Atlanta. I bet she's never seen anything like this."
"Oh golly mister," I returned in my best southern belle. I stood and flourished into a deep curtsey. "Thank y'all for invitin' me. This is so much better than watching them moving pictures on the back of Billy Joe's barn!" Of course, I ended it by laughing and slapping Danny's shoulder. He'd been making fun of me for being "Southern" for three years, ever since we graduated college. Nevermind that I was from Cleveland.
Danny sold the night as "a matinee for stoners." "An ironic movie marathon." And, "The perfect way to forget about an ex." The owner picked a different theme every week, and that week's was afterschool specials preaching the horrors of drug culture. Half of the seats were torn from busses, and the other half were folding chairs.
"How retro," The Alien said.
"Huh?"
He spoke from behind a thick nose and deep eyes, which made his sunken cheekbones that much more noticeable. Tight black pants, wallet attached to a chain... the classic Upper Haight Hipster, I would come to learn.
"That projector." He pointed to the scuffed film projector propped up like a cannon. "It's an Eiki LC color video projector LC-300. You're not from here?"
I was caught off guard by how abruptly he changed subjects. "Danny and I went to school together. Are you from the Bay Area?"
"I'm from all over," he said. He never made direct eye contact with me. Instead, his eyes snaked around the room, taking in the ironic motivational posters, the tattered movie screen, and the precariously leaning towers of film reels.
I'm not sure why I decided he was from another planet. Maybe it was his complete lack of social decorum. I found myself wondering what star he called home. What was it Will was always talking about? Alpha Centauri? All that time I spent teasing him about his love of Science Fiction, yet I couldn't remember any other stars.
"What brings you to this establishment?"
"Just visiting friends," I lied. Come on, it will be fun, Danny had encouraged me after I'd spent an hour complaining to him about The Breakup. Come visit us in San Francisco. Seeing some old friends in a new place will be good for you.
The lights dimmed, and what commenced was a 3-hour marathon of low budget '70s films decrying the dangers of weed. In the grand finale, a documentary about "the perfect drug," cavemen wearing spandex leopard print did backflips while a narrator boomed about Since The Beginning of Time, Man Has Sought The Perfect Drug. Their favorite way of showing someone's high was to zoom in close to his face and show planets and stars whizzing around his head. The narrator's line: "Timmy's head is lost in the clouds. Literally." The crowd hollered. The Alien nodded appreciatively.
----------------------------
"Danny, who is that guy?" Mitchell whispered as we walked through the Mission District. The Alien had followed us from the screening, and now that we were out on the street, I wondered if the few words I'd spoken to him had been interpreted as an invitation.
"Oh, he's cool," Danny said. "He's Youtube famous, or something. He has a web show where he talks about music. Or something. I don't know."
Three things will always trigger excited discussion between Danny and Mitchell: philosophy, French, and music. God help you if they're drunk — they'll argue philosophy and music in French. Mitchell immediately spun around and asked The Alien about his internet fame.
I trotted up to Danny and slipped my hand around his elbow. College memories flowed through the touch: it was how we walked to and from The Village, him with his long step, pocketed hands and slumped shoulders, me walking twice as fast to keep up with his gait while also holding on for dear life, and us constantly reminding people we're just friends. Danny's downward grin felt like a gentle pat on the head.
"I release a weekly videocast where I take a classic song and compare it to a new release. It gets approximately 50,000 hits."
I would come to learn that The Alien, with his encyclopedic knowledge of all counter cultures, could play 6 Degrees of Separation with anything. He could chart Coltrane to Coldplay, or Marilyn Monroe to Marilyn Manson. Eventually he'd end up talking about porn in the same detached Jane Goodall voice. My ears tuned in when he segued from David Bowie to 1930s stag shows.
"The thing about these stag shows is the intimacy of it. With modern porn, you have a complete lack of closeness. It's all about the stimulation and immediate gratification. You have your fetishes and your guilts. These movies are more like burlesque, or belly dancing. It's hard, much harsher than a dancer in a Turkish restaurant, but there's a sensuousness to it that is absent today. I attribute part of it to the black-and-white film technology. It's similar to the difference between painting an odalisque and doing a body shot off of a stripper."
He talked about body shots the same way I would describe my cat to Will when we ran out of things to talk about. Oh, he's being cute again. He's taking his stuffed mouse and flinging it across the room, and then pouncing on it. Aww, and now he's doing a line of coke off of Bambi's huge breasts, and...
"That's what I think when I compare his Ziggy Stardust phase to the indie pop coming out of Portland today."
By that point, I'd stopped listening again. I can't remember any of the conversation until we finally reached their apartment. Danny's elbow was far more important.
-------------------
"Ok, you have to see the Opium Den."
"But we just got here," I said. My heart was still racing from the final uphill walk followed by two flights of stairs. Danny had an ambitious definition of "walking distance."
Danny laughed. "No, our opium den. Well, there isn't any opium, but still." I realized he meant a room inside his apartment, and thanked my lucky stars.
"Opium dens," The Alien said, tasting the word. "I'd like to observe one of those one day."
Danny and Mitchell plopped my bags down in the landing next to a pink tricycle that I didn't ask about. Danny grabbed my shoulder and led me through their apartment, which consisted of one long, narrow hallway with rooms pinching off every six feet. The Opium Den referred to a windowless room crammed beneath the building's stairwell. It could have served as a deep closet, or a bedroom for someone you didn't like. They had found gleaming gold polyester rugs to hang from the walls, and red faux velvet to stretch across two mattresses that took up the whole floor. In the corner were speakers, a turntable and a stereo. He was right: no opium. But, there were several coke cans that I was sure were filled with ashes.
"Great, isn't it?" Danny said as he fell back onto a mattress.
"It's wonderful," I said. I think I meant it.
The Alien sat down next to Danny. I found my body language clenching up – I crossed my arms, bent my back and couldn't decide where to stand. I suppose I shouldn't have been pissed off at an alien's lack of social skills. He was here studying humans for a reason. I wished, though, that he had the sense not to take the only open spot next to our host.
Mitchell took it upon himself to turn on the stereo, flip off the lights and bust out a pipe.
"Didn't you learn anything from the movies?" I laughed.
"Exactly!"
From what I hear, real opium dens don't have glow-in-the-dark star stickers covering the ceiling. That didn't bother Danny and Mitchell. Dozens of green shapes glowed from above. Danny had told me Mitchell was an astronomy buff, so I wouldn't have put it past him to arrange them in actual constellations. I wondered if The Alien could find his home planet on their ceiling. I didn't ask — I was too busy pretending to enjoy the music.
I recognized the song. I recognized the song! I jumped next to Danny and fluttered my hand on his shoulder. "Danny! Do you know who this is?"
The Alien cocked his head. "It's interesting... ever notice how 'this', when said without a subject, always refers to what music is playing?"
Danny mock-fluttered both of his hands across his face. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god," he pretended to squeel, and then spoke seriously. "It's Stereolab. Like it?"
"Oh, right!" I tried to keep my excitement up, despite the fact that I'd been about to say "Radiohead."
"Eh, they're ok," Mitchell said, "They're overrated, but they're still really good."
Danny pulled himself up to sit cross-legged in the middle of the mattress; in the process, he made sure to pull me down next to him. It was an uncomfortable position, crammed between him and the polyester wall, but I didn't argue.
Instead, I got stoned. At first I attempted a brief refusal: "I'm job hunting." I saw Danny's shrug, and thought about the bliss of no responsibilities, no futures, no worries. They were doing fine: Danny worked in an electronics store and Mitchell in an art gallery. So why not? It's remarkable how quickly old friends can relight your old habits.
The atmosphere of the room fell somewhere between excitement and nostalgia. Or perhaps it was excitement from nostalgia. Conversations swelled and fell, ranging from crepes to politics to movies to philosophies. We talked about other people at the screening, and Danny and I laughed as we pretended to offer deep insights on the other movie-goers. A girl with red fishnets peeking through her torn jeans was obviously a star roller derby player. The trollish man working the projector probably pleasured himself in that very spot when the boss wasn't looking. The couple that sat in the corner? On a date, but she wasn't into him. Each new story recalled our old hobby: sitting in a public place and making up backstories for strangers.
"Remind me to show you the roof tomorrow," Danny said.
The air itself in the room felt heavier. We could open a bottle of wine and act classy, or The Alien could show us the stars. As nice as it was to laugh in an a tiny overpopulated room, we had so many more options. "Why not now?"
"Shhh, this is a great song."
Eventually, each tract of talk fell away, leaving only a vacuum of music. It was during these pauses that The Alien would speak up, usually about the music itself.
"Have you ever noticed that there are only a few different ways for a song to end?"
When no one responded, The Alien continued. "It can crescendo until it cuts on a strong note, it can fade away while repeating the chorus, it can drift out on a soft tone, it can hit a major chord..."
I felt sorry for him. The Alien looked so alone. I could see that he'd been analyzing our conversation, looking for a place to jump in. "There are only so many ways that things end," I offered. "We repeat them over and over, and yet we think each one is special."
The Alien nodded. "Correct. You want something new, but you want it to be the same. You fall into patterns. Sometimes it satisfies, sometimes it doesn't. Everything is the same, but different."
Danny put his hand on my knee. The music rolled into a rush of electronic tones. I watched The Alien lean against the wall and close his eyes. I pushed thoughts of Will and Atlanta from my head, rested my cheek on Danny's shoulder, and decided to smile.
-------------
I stared at the new ceiling and wished it was the sky. This one didn't have stars, or even fake ones. I felt Danny's heavy breathing as he pressed against my back. He had his arm around me, and I could still feel the way his hand had traced up and down my waist as he fell asleep. I'd hoped I would fall asleep soon after. But now, warm sweat had turned to a chilly film, and I wished I'd taken the time to put my clothes back on before Danny passed out.
Music no longer played in the Opium Den. The Alien had fallen asleep, and Mitchell disappeared to talk on his cell phone. "It's time to go to bed," Danny had whispered in my ear, and I smiled and followed him.
There was a reason we never dated in college. We fell into the same pattern, always turning to each other during times of frustration with the opposite sex. Our hookups felt like uncorking a champagne bottle, and ended just as quick. He never tried to make things more serious, and I never asked him to. When I told him about meeting Will, not too long after we graduated, Danny made a big show of congratulating me. Then he ignored me for the next two years.
I pulled his arm off of me and gently rested it on his side. Carefully, I raised myself on my arms and crawled over him. I felt like a spider. I reached the end of the mattress – just a mattress, no bedframe – and rolled off. I'd at least had the presence of mind to roll my suitcase into Danny's room, and tried to unzip it as quietly as possible. My preferred PJs, a tank top and rolled up boxer shorts, were at the bottom. Of course.
The alien was spread-eagled on the mattresses. He still wore his leather jacket, and his mouth had fallen open to accomodate his snoring. I tapped his foot, and he snorted awake, his eyes opening as wide as his mouth. "Hi," he said without looking at me.
"Come on. I want to see the roof."
I found the back stairwell in a room connecting to the kitchen. Three narrow flights of stairs each had the character of that floor's tenant. A cat door, old movie posters, empty flower pots. I almost allowed the door at the top to clang shut before realizing it probably locked automatically. That would explain the Danny's tattered copy of Atlas Shrugged lying on the steps. He'd always said it was most useful as a doorstop. I wedged the objectivist tome into the frame, and we stepped outside.
San Francisco made sure to let me know how dumb I was to not bring a coat. Danny never mentioned how cold it got at night, with wind constantly whipping in from the bay. I rubbed my hands along my exposed shoulders, but I wasn't foolish enough to expect The Alien to offer me his jacket. That would be the human thing to do. He didn't.
Clouds marbled the sky, but I could still see a few stars peeking through. They weren't nearly as impressive as the cheap imitations in the Opium Den, and even less so than the 1970s special effect galaxies that swirled in a head literally stuck in the clouds.
"Why are you here?" I asked The Alien.
"What?"
I shook my head at my girlish fantasy. I could try to get answers from the man I'd decided was an alien, or I could go back downstairs and fall asleep on the couch. Or with Danny. Danny sounded more comfortable, and that was the problem.
Oh well. "Do you come in peace?"
"No. I'm giving a lecture at Berkeley."
I laughed, impressed that he could learn humor. What followed was a long pause, and with no music playing, The Alien had nothing to awkwardly fill it with.
"I don't think I like it here," I said.
The Alien looked like he was thinking. Or perhaps searching through his databases. I felt absolutely sure that whatever I was looking for, he could draw the answer from his vast astral knowledge.
"You've only been here for a few hours," he said. "I have to travel a lot. Some people appear to love the first few hours in a new place. Some don't. Perhaps you're one of the ones who don't."
"Who doesn't," I corrected. I hopped from foot to foot in an effort to keep warm. I wasn't even wearing shoes, and the gravel on the rooftop was cold. ""I don't think that's it. I mean, I think I wanted to prove to myself that things are over with Will. This way, if he calls me and invites me over, I can say 'Sorry, I'm in San Francisco.'" I left out the part where I could add, with Danny.
He didn't ask me who Will was. He seemed unsure how to hold himself, or how close to stand to me.
"May I ask a question?"
"No," I laughed. Then, when he didn't pick up on the joke, I added: "Ok, go ahead."
"Why are you afraid of going back to Atlanta?"
He could tell that? "It's this boy. I need to move on with my life. But... well, last time we broke up, and the time before that, we ended up getting back together."
"Why?"
"Because I love him, and he wanted to."
"Just wanted to?"
"I guess I just need some space," I said.
"That should be easy. Space is the one thing we have a lot of. Failed relationships are all about space. Too much, too little. He wants more space than her. She wants more space from him. They live in too small a space. There's too much space between them when, say, he lives in Prague and she lives in Albany. She's just moved to a new space. He's spaced out all the time."
"I wouldn't say it failed."
"Liar," The Alien said.
He stepped closer, and I felt my heart jump. I forgot about the cold. The Alien reached out a hand and, placing his palm on the back of my neck, drew me up onto my tiptoes. I could feel the stubble on his chin as we kissed, and the unsure movements of his knuckles as he kneaded my hair. I felt all of the anxiety shift around my body, filling me until it became excitement. And then, disappointment.
I pulled away and patted his arm. San Francisco's biting cold returned. "Thanks," I said, but I shook my head. The excitement had vanished, replaced with tiredness. The Alien was just another guy. He was present, with no sense of future, and no idea what to do with me.
The anxiety gone, I felt my sense of time and space shift. Everything became clear as my mind moved from present to future. I thought, I will go downstairs. The Alien will leave. I'll lock the door behind him. I will curl back into Danny's bed. He will roll over and put an arm around me, but he won't remember it in the morning. I'll smell his cauliflower breath and the smoke trapped in his hair. I'll stare at the ceiling, content that it's a ceiling.
I'll thank The Alien years later, when I find his Youtube profile. I won't know if he reads it or not, or if he remembers me. I will refer to him to my friends as The Alien, which they'll assume refers to his citizenship. I'll write stories about him, and about Danny, and about Will.
I will wake the next morning and make breakfast, and chastise Danny for not having any eggs. I'll go to the beach. I'll enjoy the rest of my escape. I will return to Atlanta, and while on the plane I will gaze out the window at the night sky, enveloped by stars above and lights below. I'll land, and find Will waiting for me, and it will be the last time we kiss. That night, it will be the last time we make love. We'll do it while listening to music, and I'll laugh when his playlist flips to a theme from some Sci-Fi movie. I'll smile while calling him a nerd. I'll know that the next morning I'll gather my toothbrush and flip flops, but at that point I'll simply lie there, content with finality, as the song hits it's last high note before fading out. The same as every other ending, but this time, different.
