Chapter 7
Everett Scarborough awoke, the ringing of his telephone slicing through his headache. He groped for the phone, picked it up, and muttered into the receiver, “Yes?”
“Good morning, Mr. Scarborough,” a voice began. “This is Lieutenant James Daniels of the Montgomery County Police. We were asked to make sure you were okay. We’ve had a patrol car pass your house at half-hourly intervals last night, and we saw no irregularities, but we’re calling this morning for courtesy’s sake.”
Scarborough looked at his alarm clock. Five minutes before eleven o’clock. He had a headache, but he suspected that it was as much from his facial wounds as it was from the Scotch. Still, it hurt.
“Yes, Lieutenant, thank you so much for calling. I’m just fine. In fact, I’m sleeping in.”
“Don’t blame you, sir, and sorry to wake you up. We’ll be checking in this afternoon. You’ll be there?”
“That’s right, and I really appreciate your concern.”
“Just doing my job, Dr. Scarborough,” said the lieutenant, his voice betraying an air of hard-boiled self-importance.
Scarborough hung up the phone, dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom, where he opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out his supply of Veganin. He punched two white tablets through the foil and took them with a glass of water. Every time he went to England, he made sure to stock up on the pain reliever, which consisted mostly of pure aspirin, but also contained trace-elements of codeine, a nonprescription drug in the United Kingdom in small amounts. They erased his Scotch headaches in a matter of minutes—and perhaps, that was what they’d been designed specifically for. He imagined some Scot chemist with a morning hangover, experimenting for just the right cure for the headache ... Well, anyway, they worked for him.
Scarborough took off his bandage, and he took a short, hot shower. Short, because he wanted to get downstairs as soon as possible, to talk to Diane. He still couldn’t believe what she’d told him the night before, but he realized now that he’d overreacted. He wanted to make amends and hear out her story. There was more than one way to skin a cat. And this was one hairy cat! By the morning light, however, his self-confidence had returned, and he knew that since such a thing could not have actually happened to Diane, it logically followed that he could prove to her, carefully and patiently, that she must have had some kind of illusion. Drug-induced, perhaps. He didn’t like to think about Diane taking drugs, although he knew she probably did. A lot of bright kids dabbled. Why not Diane? Phyllis had tried LSD in the sixties, as a college professor, and although he didn’t brag about it much, Scarborough had actually had a period, after he’d met Phyl, in which he’d let her prod him into smoking marijuana, though truth to tell he’d never cared much for the stu
That was it. After he discussed her “experience” with her patiently, wisely, and thoroughly, he would tender the subject of her possible ingestion of illegal substances that might have tilted her mind toward this “delusional complex,” as he had dubbed the psychological phenomenon. He would not be disapproving or even patronizing. He would simply offer it out as a possibility.
Scarborough examined his wounds. No stitches had been necessary, fortunately; and already the several wounds had scabbed. He put on the bandage anyway, making sure that it was loose enough to allow enough air on the wound. Then, he put on a flannel shirt and a pair of faded jeans—his usual Saturday attire, since he usually did some garden work on Saturday—and went downstairs.
Even from the steps, he could smell the bacon, the muffins and the fresh-perked coffee. He smiled to himself, and felt much better. Even alien abductions and potshots from wackos could not stop Saturday morning breakfast.
Diane was sitting in the dining room, reading the Washington Post, drinking coffee. In front of her was a stack of freshly baked blueberry muffins, jam, and butter.
“Hi, Dad,” she said contritely. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” he said, leaning over and kissing the top of her head, his one expression of affection that had stayed the same since she was a very little girl. He went to the side table, and poured a cup of coffee from the electric percolator. He added some milk and sat down beside her.
“I fixed some bacon. How do you want your eggs?”
“Scrambled,” he said, smiling. “Just like this poor old head.”
She touched his arm. “Yesterday was bad, wasn’t it? And I didn’t help much. Sorry.” She looked away, sipping at her coffee. Then she got up to go fix his breakfast, and stopped in her tracks. “This man who shot at you—I forgot to ask you, did they catch him?”
“No. Not yet, as far as I know. But I’m sure they will. By all evidence, the fellow was not a professional. He fired an automatic handgun from the balcony, for God’s sake! The guy was a nut, whom I upset. In case you haven’t noticed, I upset a lot of nut cases, a lot of loonies. I’ve been getting more threatening letters lately, too. I just put it down as an example of the growing mass psychosis in this country. But I never thought that someone would actually take a shot at me!”
“Well, I just hope that they get the guy.”
“There’s never security at these things ... Never the need before. Now, I guess there will be. Too bad. But I meant to ask you ... how did you get here last night? That flying saucer land you?” He smiled, but she grimaced at the lame joke.
“I flew, but in an airplane. I took a cab from the Bethesda Metro station.”
“I figured as much—but there was always the possibility that one of your local friends picked you up at the airport.”
“No. No one knows I’m here so soon—except for you. And Tim, of course.” She touched his bandage gently. “I’m afraid for you, Dad. Maybe you shouldn’t go on this lecture tour.”
“Got to, dear.” He sipped at his bracing coffee. “I have to push my book. There’s got to be some antidote to this whole new UFO upsurge ... Which reminds me, we have to talk.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for the way I reacted last night, but you have to know I was under a lot of strain. Diane, I will listen to this odd story of yours ... And I will help you and Tim in whatever way I can.”
“Oh, Daddy!” she said, her face suddenly lighting up. “I knew you’d come through.” She hugged him hard, then bounced away happily. “I’ll just fix your eggs, and then I’ll tell you the whole crazy story.”
“Crazy is the word for it, all right,” Scarborough said, getting up and dragging his coffee over to the phone. “We’ll straighten the whole thing out, I promise you.”
He dialed Abe Novak’s home phone number by memory. Better talk to him as soon as possible, and arrange for special precautions for the upcoming speaking tour. Abraham Novak was his speaker’s agent—he worked in conjunction with the publishers when Scarborough had a book to push. In the past years, Novak not only had gotten his fee up—Scarborough pulled down a healthy 10,000 bucks for a simple speech, and much more for his special show, which was more expensive to produce and needed “roadies”—he had also been successfully booking Scarborough for several years, book publicity or no book publicity. In fact, Dr. Everett Scarborough had become a national figure, a symbol of logic and science to match Isaac Asimov or Carl Sagan, although much more handsome, much more charming and witty. Last year, in fact, he’d even received movie offers ... which he’d turned down. What he really wanted was a PBS show. Scarborough had more than enough money to suit his chosen lifestyle. What he craved was a place in the history of science—perhaps in history, period. Besides, he enjoyed immensely his role as gadfly to the perpetrators of scientific folly, arch villain to the champions of pseudoscience.
“Yes?” a voice answered.
“Abe. This is Ev Scarborough. I guess you heard about last night.”
“Everett! Everett, man, are you all right?”
“Sure. A few scratches.”
“Yeah, I was just going to call you. Sheesh, if Henry hadn’t of called me, I would’ve seen it in the papers! Who would’ve thought?”
Abraham Novak lived in Long Island and worked out of a Manhattan office. He and Scarborough knew each other socially before Scarborough had hit the lucrative lecture trail. It was only natural that the curly haired, frenetic booking agent and he should hook up. They had always known that they would make a great team in work, just as they made a great team in bridge.
“They’re starting to crawl out of the woodwork, Abe,” said Scarborough.
“You’ve mentioned the letters you’ve gotten. Any of them ever hint of what happened last night?”
“A few, but nothing I took seriously.”
“Babe, you’re in a scary new world here. I guess we’ve just been lucky so far.”
“We’ll just tack on security measures, right?”
“Sure, eventually. Right now. Though, we postpone the speaking tour.”
“What? Abe, we can’t do that! I’ve got to push my book!”
“Why not? You got your radio and TV tour out of the way two weeks ago. Your book is on the lists, what more do you want?”
“I need to get out and speak with the people, Abe. That’s what I need.”
“You need it like you need a hole in your head. C’mon, Ev. You’re the vaunted man of reason. Give it some thought. First, we ain’t got time to do up security right for all the dates. Second, every psycho saucer-nut in the country is probably going to be ‘inspired to copycat that goof last night. Third. I don’t want to lose a goose that lays golden eggs—and can match me drink for drink at any bar. Sorry to get all blubbery here, pal, but I don’t want to lose you.”
“You said postpone. How long?”
“Couple months. We’re just talking a little time-displacement here. All your dates will understand after what happened last night. Besides, they’re not going to really want you until you’re properly prepared, anyway. They don’t want dead bodies littering their stages.”
Scarborough had a disquieting thought. “They’re not going to think I’m afraid, are they?”
“After last night? I understand that you got right up and kept the crowd in control, Ev. That’s a hero. It’s an idiot who goes in knowing there might be bullets waiting for him.”
A very reasonable suggestion, although truth to tell, Scarborough hated the idea of having geared up for this, his most elaborate lecture presentation, only to have to wait a couple of months to place it on the track. Still, it made a lot of sense. Maybe he could do a few more TV and radio dates to make up for the lost publicity. Although come to think of it, if the incident had made the national papers—well, that was publicity, wasn’t it? He suddenly felt much better about the whole thing.
“When you put it that way, Abe, I guess it sounds much better. But you’ll deal with all the hassle involved.”
A sigh issued from the other end of the phone. “That’s my job, Ev. So you take it easy, guy, and I’ll be in contact.”
They exchanged final pleasantries and Scarborough hung up. His public relations people could handle all the other stuff, he supposed. He’d release a simple statement to the press, and then do just what Abe suggested: lie low for a while.
Lie low, and deal with this odd business his daughter had dragged in.
He went back to the table and sipped at his coffee, considering how he was going to handle Diane. It took but a few thoughts; he’d consider her claims in the way he dealt with everything else in his life: rationally.
She brought in his bacon and eggs, along with a side of buttered toast. He thanked her and started eating while she settled in a neighboring chair. “So, should I start in on you now, or do you want to finish your breakfast?”
Even the few mouthfuls of food he’d managed to get down had improved his spirits tremendously. “Go ahead; I’ll listen while I eat.”
She reiterated what she had told him the night before, filling in details. As she spoke, Scarborough found it difficult to remain his usual rational self. He realized that he felt betrayed. That his own daughter should have one of these silly experiences—but then, when he thought it out, it actually made a kind of skewed sense. Diane’s consciousness had always been drenched in rather mystical things. Even as a child, she lived with invisible companions, had her own private fairy world. And after all, at its core, alien abductions were simply the mystical experience du jour. Really, it wasn’t that surprising for Diane to come home with this story.
Not only that, but this was apparently a different kind of alien abduction. Not at all as bizarre. Neither Tim nor Diane boasted stigmata from their experience—no scars, no holes in their necks or heads—that seemed the general rule in these abductions. Come to think of it, neither were they as upset or frightened or confused. It seemed a very positive thing, this UFO experience, more like a Maslovian peak-encounter shrouded by amnesia, leaving only vague lingerings of ecstasy.
Scarborough pointed this out.
“Yeah!” said Diane, excited. “Tim mentioned that as well. That’s why we’re not really sure what happened.”
“Where’s Tim now?”
“He’s spending the weekend looking for a good hypnotist in Kansas City. I’m going back on Monday. Daddy, now that you’re not going on this speaking tour—“
“You eavesdropped on my conversation with Abe, huh?”
“I overheard it. I caught the gist—and I think you should wait awhile before you go out again.”
He nodded. “That’s what’s happening. So, I suppose you want me to go out with you and your beloved, chasing the wild extraterrestrials ... “
“Oh, Daddy, would you? You’re the best ... And you know, you haven’t been out in the field for a while.” She sparkled with enthusiasm, her blue eyes shining as bright as her beautiful light hair. For a moment, Scarborough was almost swayed. But he’d made up his mind, and even the power of his daughter’s personality could not persuade him otherwise.
“I was in the field for work on Above Us Only Sky last year, Diane. And the results were just the same as always, from the first time I started investigating UFO sightings twenty-five years ago. No conclusive evidence. Nada. Zip. And I don’t care to waste my time on another case, even though my daughter is involved, because I know I’ll find exactly what I’ve always found ... nothing.”
“Daddy. You’re so stubborn! Just give us a few days ... if only to be with me. This could be very important and exciting.”
“Diane, you’re the princess of self-dramatizers. Every waking moment is the most exciting part of your life. Even though I’m not going on my tour, I have a lot of other work to do. I can’t waste it hunting snipe.”
She stood up, her eyes suddenly molten with fury. “Ooh! I hate it when you’re so patronizing!”
“Look, there’s no reason to get upset, Diane. This is just a phase you’re passing through like all the rest! Don’t you think I’ve been around these twenty years to watch them all, from diapers onward! I’m sorry. And by the way, it really wouldn’t look very good if this ever leaked out to the press. I can just see the National Intruder headlines now: ‘UF—NO! Investigator’s Beautiful Daughter Raped by Aliens!’ “
“A lot you’d care if I was!” she said, still fuming.
“Okay, let me run over this with you, Diane, since you refuse to read my books on the subject. I apologize if I sounded patronizing. I apologize if I overreact to these things sometimes—but you have to admit that this is even wilder and a lot more personal than when you thought you were a resurrected astrologer from ancient Lemuria.”
“Oh, Daddy, I was just a junior in high school then! I’m a mature woman now! With every bit of your intelligence—and Mom’s to boot! Give me some credit, okay?”
“Credit extended.” He pushed the breakfast plate away, only a slice of toast uneaten. “To the matter at hand.
“In 1969, my four years of work for the air force on their Project Blue Book finally closed the case; the conclusion was that earth was not being visited by flying saucers holding beings from another planet in our galaxy, another galaxy—or even another dimension. I have personally investigated almost three hundred of the strongest sightings in the last twenty-five years. You are welcome to examine my files on every last one. The most significant ones have been written up in my books on the subject. In all these years, all these cases, not only have I not found anything resembling extraterrestrial artifacts, I have also discovered that virtually every bit of evidence has either been hearsay, un-provable—or simply hoaxed.”
“But all the people who’ve seen them—experienced them! Dad, you can’t deny that something’s out there! Now, I can prove nothing in my case. And I can’t really actually prove I love you, scientifically. But I do love you ... And something did happen to me!”
“Wait a minute. I’m not finished yet. I’m not saying that nothing actually happens to people. But I think that every case can either be explained by natural causes, psychological causes—or, most commonly, a combination of the two.
“Weather balloons, large stars ... planets ... clouds ... ball lightning ... fireballs ... Goodness knows if we really understand all the meteorological phenomena that can happen on this planet. Diane, I’ve heard accounts of them all. And people won’t go for the natural explanation. No, in general, they see something weird, and wow! They’ve seen flying saucers! Culturally, we’re predisposed. Naturally, all the hoaxes just compound the problem. This whole Billy Meier thing in Switzerland, for example—a guy hangs a model of a saucer in front of a Super-8 camera, then tells the world some female ET has taken him back in time to talk to Jesus! I mean, come on!”
“But this doesn’t have anything to do with that, Dad. I’ve told you my story. And you don’t believe it. It’s as simple as that!”
“Let me tell you a story, dear,” Scarborough said, grasping at a last straw. He spoke gently and sincerely, his tone promising love and understanding to his daughter. “Last year, I went to one of those New-Age conventions—incognito. I had a mustache, a wig—I wore scruffy clothing, and even changed the color of my eyes with colored contact-lenses.”
“Daddy! You never told me this before!” she said, clearly quite amused at the notion.
“Well, I guess I wanted to find out what the credulous were really like. I guess you’re aware of the phenomenon that quantum physicists are talking about these days: even observation changes the observed. Well, I know that when these saucerites see me, they have immediate reactions—I wanted to see what they were like without my sour face interrupting their fun.
“Anyway, I went to see a speech by a lady who ran a UFO magazine. You’d think you’d get lots of information about sightings at such a speech, wouldn’t you? Well, no such luck. What I got was a shy lady who spoke about feeling ‘not of this earth’ since she was a child. She spoke of feeling ‘odd’ in a physical body. Naturally, when she learned of the possibility of creatures from the stars, she was fascinated. Did she even question the possibility that there were no visitors from the stars! No, of course not. She was not only ready for them, she sought them out.
“Now, I thought that someone in the audience would point out the fallacy of this as a basis for intelligent and responsible journalism. But no one did. In fact, the predominant attitude of people was not only a fascination with the subject ... but a predisposition toward belief, even a preparedness for the general announcement that aliens had contacted the government! They were all involved in an almost religious belief-system which they reinforced amongst themselves.”
“Daddy! That’s wild! If they’d known you were there, they would have crucified you!” Diane seemed very intrigued at the whole notion.
“That’s not all. I sat in on a lecture by none other than Dr. Fenton Leiberman.”
Leiberman was one of Scarborough’s archenemies—a UFO-ologist with a scientific degree who self-published his work and made a living touring and speaking about UFOs and the government cover-up. A good speaker, who used facts in a clever way, he was, nonetheless, in Scarborough’s opinion, an overweight geek in bottle-bottom glasses with a psychological paranoid hang-up that needed psychiatric treatment.
“Daddy! Leiberman!” Diane was aghast and thrilled. Fenton Leiberman had once challenged Scarborough to a fistfight after one of their debates.
“Yes. And he happened to be talking about then-President Ronald Reagan’s several remarks about a united earth, should aliens invade. Well, of course, being a UFO-ologist, he lapped this up! He didn’t see it merely as the mental meanderings of an old president going senile—he saw it as proof positive that “YES!” the president himself admits we are being contacted by extraterrestrials!”
Diane shook her head. “That’s all very interesting, Dad, but what does that have to do with me?”
Scarborough sighed. “Don’t you see, dear? Your father is a noted UFO debunker. First, it’s natural that you would want to rebel against the authority figure in your life ... I guess it’s part of the urge of achieving independence.
“Second—and maybe I’m being paranoid here, but I have to be careful of these kinds of things——people know who you are. People who would like to have me put up for ridicule. Suppose someone set you up for this ... Suppose it’s a hoax, meant to make me look very, very silly!”
Diane looked stunned and hurt. “You think ... you think that I would trick you! That I would do anything to, hurt you? You know I’d never do anything like that, Dad!”
“Of course you wouldn’t—not consciously, anyway. But believe me, there are plenty of people in this country, in this world, at this time, who would like nothing better than to have me held up as a laughingstock. And what better method than to fool a credulous, spacy daughter, and drag the noted scientist and debunker into his discrediting? Mind you, I’m not saying that this is the case. I’m just saying that it’s something I have to consider. I’ve a reputation to uphold.”
“And your reputation is more important than your own daughter, your own flesh and blood?”
“No. But like I say, you’ve merely been the victim of a hoax—or you’ve suffered a delusion of some sort.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably, about to move on to a touchy subject. “Um, dear, I don’t want to pry into private matters concerning you and your Irish hooligan—“ It was a long-standing fact that Scarborough did not approve of Timothy Reilly. “But have you two been indulging in psychoactive drugs lately? This is a matter that I’m going to have to explore in my next book, since it’s coming to my attention more and more that the age of UFOs coincides with the age of psychedelics ... “
“Daddy, you know what!” Diane said, standing up and pacing, throwing dramatic gestures about. “You’re simply impossible. Tim was right. He said that it would be useless to talk to you, that you’d never come back to help us out, that you’re too much of a tightass, that probably suppositories don’t melt in your rectum!”
Scarborough laughed. “Diane!”
“I should have listened to him! I should have just stayed in Kansas, explored this with Tim. I shouldn’t have bothered to come home to you.”
“That’s not true, Diane. You know I enjoy seeing you. You know I don’t mind giving you advice.”
“And you know what, Daddy dear,” she said, her own face reddening. “Here’s how much you can trust me—and you know that you can trust me. Because I know that there’s something in your past… something in Mom’s past ... God knows, something in my past… Things you won’t admit. Strange experiences, maybe even missing time. Mom told me about that business in Massachusetts you refuse to acknowledge, she told me before she died. I’m confused ... but maybe the hypnosis will bring that out too. But I’m not blabbing it, am I? I have the most damaging bit of information ... maybe the key to the very reason that you’re so obsessed with disproving UFO existence. I didn’t want to bring this up, but you’ve forced my hand!”
Scarborough was stunned. He had no idea that Phyllis had mentioned that nonsense to their daughter. It could only have been when she was very ill with the breast cancer, when she was out of her mind. He struggled not to show alarm to his daughter as he responded. “I’ve made no secret of the reason for my interest in UFOs. It’s in my very first book, for all to see. I may have seen one myself, and I have a proven psychological disposition toward experiencing cultural archetypes. But I deal with it all in a scientific, logical manner. And my mission is to prove it to others, Diane. You know that!”
“Admit it. The one thing that scares the great Dr. Everett Scarborough more than anything else is that there are extraterrestrials visiting this planet. Because that would open a whole can of worms ... Maybe a whole closet of skeletons ... And you want everything tightly sealed and catalogued and explained and well-lit. No room for mystery in the life of the Eminent Authority. No room for the mystical, the spiritual—because these things might just arouse some emotions in the Great Cold One, the Dean of Scientific Inquiry. Dr. Scarborough might just have to feel—really confront his emotions and, oh, that’s the most frightening possibility of all.”
“Diane! How can you say these things to me! I feel—and right now you’re hurting me!”
“I doubt it. You’ve been ready for this for years. You know exactly the words to say, the things to do—and your logic protects you. But Dad, I was here, I remember what it was like with you and Mom. Those days when you didn’t even speak with her or with me—those times when you were so aloof I didn’t even know I had a father. And the only time you really paid any attention to me was when I did something wrong ... Or worse, something that annoyed you. And heaven forbid that I should bring home a report card showing that I was less than Daddy’s little genius in math and science ... “
“Your IQ is something I’m proud of, dear. Your aptitude in both math and the physical sciences show great promise and naturally I want you to take advantage of them—“
“Bullshit.” Tears were dripping down from Diane’s eyes. “You just want me to be your little clone! Your little robot creation. Well, let me tell you, Mr. Wizard, I’m not a clone of you. I’m my own self. I know what I saw, and experienced. And I’m going to discover what happened to me. And if your precious position in the golden Academy of Science, your vaunted reputation in the annals of letters is besmudged a bit ... well, too fucking bad!”
Turning, she started running for the steps.
“Where are you doing, Diane?” he said, struggling to remain calm.
“I’m packing. I’m taking a cab. I’m going back to Kansas!”
“You can’t do that!”
“You keep on forgetting, don’t you? I’ve got my own money, Daddy. You don’t have my strings on that score. Mom left me enough to choose my own college and be independent while attending—and when I’m twenty-one, I’ll get the rest. You can’t control me, you can’t control my mind—I’m sorry I’m not the daughter you want me to be, and I’m sorry if I’m embarrassing you by having an open, exploring mind. Maybe if you weren’t so uptight about your standing in the scientific field, your precious reputation in the eyes of the public, your sterling career, then maybe you’d remember what science is really about, Dad. To learn, to venture, to discover. And you don’t have to worship a man who had an apple fall on his head to have a seeking heart, a questing mind!”
She turned and rushed up the stairs, sniffling back her tears and rage.
Scarborough followed her up a few steps, and then stopped when he heard the door of her room slam. He listened to the familiar sounds of luggage being tossed around.
“Damn you! You’re just like your mother—at her worst!” he cried up at her. “Do what you like, Diane. Say what you will about me to whomever you want, you ignorant, willful child!”
Suddenly, the door flung open and she was standing on the landing above, clutching her old giant panda bear, Colonel Blimp, its left eye still missing. “Oh yeah! Well, I’ve got a bit of news for you, Daddy, and you can choke on it. Guess who Tim wants to contact on this story? I told him no, but now that you’ve given me carte blanche, well, maybe I’ll reconsider.”
“I don’t care who! I stand on my achievements, my reputation and they’re all on the hard bedrock of science, of the proven.”
She screwed her face up almost comically, reverting to a rebellious, bratty girl. “Can you say, ‘Jake Camden,’ Daddy dear?”
“Jake Camden!” The name stopped him cold.
“I knew you could!” She threw the stuffed bear at him, and it knocked him down two whole steps. He looked back up, and she was gone, throwing luggage around again.
His mind went wild with a terrible fatherly rage he hadn’t felt since she’d run over his prized tulip-bed with her bike when she was nine years old. He wanted to run up the stairs and strangle the insolent whelp—or, at the very least, take away her allowance for a month. But he quickly caught himself. He knew he could do neither. Frustration welled up in him like a physical thing as he visualized what a man like Jake Camden would do with a story like this. Oh, Diane knew his vulnerable spots all right, and when she was mad, she would zero in like a dive bomber.
He took a deep breath.
“Just don’t catch any disease, all right, Diane?” he cried, then stomped back down, stormed to the basement door, flung it open, stamped down and put on his CD of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Loud.