Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

begin to get the hang of. I thought perhaps it was a kind of password, a phrase like, “Are you a friend of Bill Wilson?”— an invitation to declare yourself if you’re in the club. I didn’t, but Roger was undaunted. He went right ahead and told me about his deep and abiding interest in UFOs. He didn’t stop there either. He wanted to know what I thought of all that.
    I thought it was weird.
    But I said it wasn’t something I’d thought much about. And then it occurred to me to ask him why he was interested, if he’d ever seen one, or what. I can still remember his exact words.
    “Not exactly,” he said, “but I’ve been present at at least three meetings of the Interplanetary Council.”
    Whereupon I nearly choked on my cioppino.
    “Mm— what’s that?” I tried to keep my voice casual. He looked at me seriously.
    “It’s what it sounds like.”
    “And where were the meetings?”
    “They were— well— not in this galaxy.”
    “But how did you get there? I mean, it’s impossible, even traveling at the speed of light.”
    “You just travel at the speed of thought, that’s all.” So there I was, right in Tadich’s, as safe and warm a harbor as you can hope to find in this galaxy, talking about the Interplanetary Council. Well, hang on to your hat, I thought; might as well enjoy it. I made the poor man tell me every detail.
    Unfortunately, he didn’t know too many because he couldn’t remember his trips to the other galaxy, he just knew about them because the story was written in the Akashic Records, which, according to him, chronicled everyone’s lives, both current and past, from time immemorial. He was really vague about where
they
were, but he did know that they comprised such a huge library that it took ten thousand sentient beings (of who knew what description) to keep track of them. Which didn’t strike me as nearly enough if the Interplanetary Council implied what I thought it did.
    He knew about all this because he had friends who were in daily contact with extraterrestrials and who lived a kind of shadow existence that shaped life on Earth. The setup reminded me of the premise of Slaughterhouse Five, in which, if you recall, a race of aliens called Tralfamadorians control the lives of Earthlings.
    Roger described a few potentially earth-shattering disasters his friends had averted by using technologies not dreamed of by most of us, and then he swore me to secrecy on the details. After that, he told me how I fit into all this.
    It was the funniest thing, actually. One of his friends, that same person who’d invented some of the futuristic technology, was involved in a legal battle over patents, and I was the lawyer who could get him out of it.
    “Oh, gosh,” I said, “I’m afraid I couldn’t handle something like that on a pro bono basis.”
    Roger looked absolutely horrified. “It won’t be pro bono. Stewart’s loaded. It’s just that… you’re the one.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “I don’t. Stewart does. When I got back to Seattle, I told him about the psychics, and he said, ‘I already know about her.’”
    “How did he know?”
    “Stewart knows lots of stuff. You’re gonna love this guy— I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
    Somehow, I just wasn’t interested.
    I still don’t know if Stewart is a real person or the imaginary playmate of an adult with a child’s imagination. Or if Roger DeCampo has somehow been victimized by a gang of screwballs who’ve managed to convince him they have daily commerce with extraterrestrials.
    Or if, as Chris flatly declared, “He’s crazy.”
    “Well, I’m not so sure. I’ve called the college where he teaches, and he really does teach there. I’ve seen pictures of his kid, so he’s real. And I even have a book he wrote.”
    “A published book?” She looked down her ski jump of a nose.
    “Uh-huh. A comparison of Eastern religion with Western monotheism. I thought it was good.”
    “A crazy person could write a book.”
    “A crazy person isn’t supposed to be able to function, and he does that perfectly well. He’s very interesting when he’s talking about his subject— meaning religion, not UFOs.”
    “Look, anybody who sees little green men is out there.”
    “But the thing is, he doesn’t. Only his friends do.”
    “He’s a fruitcake, partner. And sometimes I’m not so sure about you.”
    “Me?”
    “After all, you went on a blind date with somebody recommended by a stranger on the