Over the Hill and Out of this World
And it still hurt. Bert stooped over and rubbed his backside. It had been three days since the incident and he still couldn't stand up straight. Not the he really could before mind you. Wilbert James McDonough was 74 years old, widowed, and living with his son Greg's family in Lebanon, Oregon. So far he had lived plain and normal life. Living in Lebanon nearly his whole life, Bert had graduated from Oregon Agricultural College and made his business in grass seed. He got married, had two kids, and managed to send both of them to college. His older son, Greg, had taken over the business and there was nothing left for Bert to do, but kick back and retire. Or so he thought.
It had come unexpectedly late last Tuesday. Bert had just passed out at 9:30 after watching a vicious combination of Antiques Roadshow and the History Channel. When suddenly he awoke in a cold round room. His frail, naked body was shaking and his mind felt like it was waking up from a deep dream. Strapped to what felt like a cold operating table, Bert couldn't take account of his surroundings. He was strapped face down. Suddenly, he felt a rush of air caress his withered ass, and, listening intently, he could make out the sound of light footsteps coming from behind him. That was the last of his clear memory before awaking with a sore bum and a craving for prune juice.
The majority of men would shake this feeling off. Yet, Bert was like no other man. He had lived through World War II, the civil rights movement, Kennedy, disco, and the greatest boom in grass seed this side of the Rocky Mountains. He knew that this was no dream, it was aliens.
"Aliens?" Greg commented sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Dad, your back hurts because you're 74, not because you were secretly examined by aliens last week."
"It's not my back that aches its my backkkkkk." Bert held on to the last sibyl of the word hoping his son would get the drift. Instead, Greg rolled his eyes, drank the last of his coffee, and told his father that he really had to be heading out to work. "Not that you usually listen much to me anyway." Bert sighed and slowly stood up from his chair.
He wanted some prunes.
Which was unusual because Bert had despised the foul fruit every day of his life since his older brother made him eat one on a dare. Yet, lately, he couldn't seem to take his mind off of the sweet succulent fruit that he usually found repulsive. In fact, the other day he had eaten a whole bag of them at his poker buddies house and had regretted it for hours later that night. Bert wasn't sure why he suddenly developed these food cravings, but he had a few guesses and all of those had to do with aliens.
It wasn't that Bert was some nut job obsessed with the end of the world. In fact, he was a very educated man. He was also a devout Methodist and had baptized each of his children in the same church that he exchanged vows with his late wife. It was just that Bert looked up to the starry sky every clear night, which happened occasionally, even in Oregon. On these clear nights, when Bert looked to the skies above his grass seed fields, he thought only of how big the universe was. Surely he could think of nothing more depressing than his little planet floating out there alone. He knew there had to be more life out there since Roswell in 1947. Bert was a child at that time, but the incidence had made a strong impact on him. It was this childhood fascination that allowed him to hold on to the strange desires and dreams.
Unlike his buddies at the rotary club (which Bert loved because it was the only place he went to on a regular basis where people didn't speak about aches and pains or who was going to be the next to die), he believed that the sudden changes they were going through was more than just age. It simply didn't make sense that so many people would have the same dream. More than that, when Bert walked to the grocery store yesterday he could find no prune or fiber related products. Upon asking the kid who worked there, Bert learned that those products had been flying off the selves and that there was a nation wide prune shortage. The last group of seniors had been borderline aggressive when they asked for them. Bert rocked back and forth in his wicker chair. There must have been something that was connecting all these events. Now, he wasn't sure exactly what it was, but he was positive Roswell could be found at the source. After this conclusion was made, Bert leaned as far back as he could in his chair and sighed. Something had to be done.
The answer was simple. Bert had been planning on taking a vacation anyway. He had a little money left and it was more than enough for a greyhound ticket and a few nights in a local New Mexico Best Western. He quickly penned a note to Greg and took his 1988 white Toyota Tundra down to the Corvallis greyhound station.
The bus arrived late, as usual. It would take eight or nine stops (depending on the strike condition in Redding), but Bert was on his way to Roswell. Looking to the left and right Bert picked the empty seat away from the kid with the dyed black hair and the short woman with the nose ring. What happened to the days when these buses where filled with clean cut students? Bert sighed and attempted to read his new James Patterson Novel. Within thirty pages he was sound asleep.
After being awoken twice by other passengers complaining about his snoring, Bert decided that it was time for him to wake up and start enjoying the view. The bus was passing through what appeared to be endless miles of sagebrush and packed red dirt. Seeing this made Bert a little nervous, considering he had never been in a place without the familiar smell of grass seed and had never seen a sight without moist soil for grass to take hold in. He wondered if his family was worried about him, if his friends back at Rotary were laughing at him, and if he might have been wrong about the aliens after all. Bert was just about to stand up and ask the driver about his next stop when he heard a voice say,
"Are you Alien hunting too Grandpa?" The voice was dripping in sarcasm. It was coming from a short girl of what appeared to be high school age. She was wearing a bright pink and teal blouse, tight black jeans, and a pair of Chuck Taylors, which looked nearly identical to the pair Bert played high school basketball in. Her hair was swept over her right eye, and, despite her sarcastic tone, she was smirking.
"I like your shoes." Bert said in an attempt to make conversation as the girl sat down. "I had a pair like that when I was your age. Do you play Basketball?" The girl glared at him coldly, making Bert wonder what he could have possibly done.
"I don't play sports."
"Why not? I had a great time playing some hoops back in my day." I hope kids still use the word hoops, Bert thought. He wasn't sure why this girl had chosen his seat instead of all the other empty ones.
The girl sighed slowly, her shoulders bobbing "I wouldn't expect you to understand the scene."
"A scene?" Bert responded. He found the conversation a little awkward and realized that there was absolutely nothing that this girl and he had in common.
"Well, I'm really more of a hipster. You know, going to shows. I'm just coming back from a Decemberists concert" Seeing the blank frustration on Bert's face, she decided that it might be best to change the subject. "I'm Emma."
"Bert" He was beginning to realize that whether he liked it or not, this girl was planning on sitting next to him for the remainder of the trip. "What brings you to Roswell?"
"I'm heading home to good old Roswell." Sarcasm covered up the happiness in her voice "We had to move there cause Dad got a job working for the man." Bert's ears (or more like hearing aids) picked up. If Emma's father happened to work in Area 51 then that could be his first step on unraveling this mystery.
"Your father wouldn't happen to work in…"
"Area 51? I have no idea. He really never tells me anything. Don't look at me like I can read your mind or something. It's just that recently Roswell has turned into one big retirement home. Have you noticed, I'm the only one on this bus that's under a hundred." In fact, Bert had noticed and he believed that this strange convergence on Roswell could only act as support for his theory that aliens were behind the strange actions of the elderly community. It was then that he decided on running his theory by Emma.
"Brainwashed? You think that grandparents everywhere were brainwashed by aliens and that's the reason they're so crazy for bran muffins and shit?" Strangely enough, Emma wasn't laughing. Instead, she seemed genuinely interested.
"More or less." The kid was starting to grow on him. "How old are you anyway? Do your parents even know where you are?'
Emma sighed, and then, with a quick puff of air, blew her bangs back behind her ear. "Of course not! They hate it when I go to concerts, they say I'm too young."
"How old are you then?" Bert truly had no clue. He was at that time in his life when any one under 35 looked like a child.
"14 and its really not fair. My friend Jill was going to shows in middle school and I'm in high school and they still wont let me go." Emma slumped lower in her seat and started to pick the black nail polish off of her gnawed short fingernails. Then in the middle of her left index finger her face lit up. She started to flutter her hands in excitement and Bert pretended to have narcoleptic tendencies.
"Bert, I have just had a marvelous idea. It will solve both of our problems at once! I can get back at my parents for grounding me, which is sure to happen after all of this, and I can help you figure out your mystery. Hey, hand me your cell phone, I can call you if I hear anything about this from Dad."
"That's really not necessary." Bert said as Emma took his cell phone off the tray table. "I don't want you to get into anymore trouble with your folks. I think is best if you go home and I head over to the Best Western. We can deal with both our problems from there."
"Whatever you say Bert." Emma smiled in a way that implied she meant anything but.
After the bus had made it's arrival in Roswell, Bert made his way to his hotel and started to think things over. Emma had disappeared almost instantly once the bus had stopped saying that school was almost over and, if she managed to catch the bus home, no one would be wiser. Bert couldn't say he was surprised at the girl's behavior; after all he had been quite the rebel at her age. What did strike him as surprising was her sudden interest in becoming friends with him. Bert would have just figured that she had just been lonely during the long bus ride if it wasn't for the fact that she was determined to help him out on his "mission".
Bert carefully unlaced his shoes, lay back on his bed, and began to flip through the television channels. He quickly got frustrated due to the immense number of channels. Turning the television off, he attempted to read more of his novel and true to form was quickly asleep.
The next morning, as Bert was sitting down to enjoy his coffee and complementary continental breakfast, he over heard his name mentioned over by the front desk.
"Yes, I'm here to visit my Grandpa. His name is Bert, Grandpa Bert." Turning slowly around in his chair, Bert spied Emma chattering to the concierge. She looked over his way and ran up to him giving him great big hug. "Play along," she whispered in his ear.
"Why Emma I haven't seen you since…Christmas?" Bert tried his hardest.
"Please. You going to have to try harder than that if we are going to pull this off." Before Bert had time to ask her what she meant she pulled out a small flat object. "This is my dad's entry key. With this and a little bit of bullshitting you can make it right into the heart of the Roswell complex." She was spinning around the Belgian waffle maker, obviously proud of herself.
"Does your father know about this?" Bert asked. He was trying to be a good role model, but to tell the truth he was ecstatic about this streak of luck.
" Of course not! I had to get back at them somehow for grounding me yesterday." After hearing that Bert stiffened up a little bit.
"Emma. What you just did was wrong and the Methodist in me doesn't like this one bit, however, if there's one thing I learned between buying my first shotgun and becoming the number one grass seed farmer in Benton County, its that not everyone plays by the Good Book's rules and if you plan to protect yourself, sometimes you have to go by your own book. And I'm pretty sure these aliens run by a whole another book, so what I'm trying to say here is…what you did was right for many. Even if on the outside it looks wrong." By the end of his speech Bert had raised his volume and lowered his voice. His booming was starting to cause the other hotel guest to turn around and glare.
"Thanks Gramps, but I really just wanted to get back at my dad."
The hotel had actually suggested it.
"How about a group tour of the infamous grounds around the Roswell government complex," chirped the over-weight bespectacled man at the front desk. "It will get you the inside the outer gates and show you a tour of the grounds. You can't go inside of course, that's for government employees only. Oh, and senior citizens get a ten percent discount!" After joining a large group of Hawaiian shirt wearing tourists, Bert found it fairly easy to slip into the main building. Emma had wanted to go, but Bert told her that he wouldn't allow it because it was too risky. In reality, Bert was planning on capitalizing on what he called "elderly invisibility". People tend to ignore you if you are under five or over seventy. They all assume you are meant to be there because of the mythos of the well-behaved old man. Bert walked through the white washed walls of the government building blending in perfectly with his not descript white shirt and dark colored tie. He had no idea exactly where he was going except to enter every authorized personnel door he saw. It seems that Emma's father is a higher up in the organization for his card key worked on almost every door Bert tried. As he was rounding the third guard station undetected he felt a rush of adrenalin that he hadn't felt since he tried to outrace a police officer on his combine back in eighty-seven. It was liberating to be doing something in secret, especially when so much was at stake. If Bert could figure out what the government was doing here at the Mecca of all alien sites, it might reveal an important clue into the changes in the elderly community. Bert walked into an immense deserted hallway lined with sterling sliver doors, which invoked a sudden sense of uneasiness in Bert. It was almost like he had been there before. Picking the fourth door into the hallway, he walked into the dark room and fumbling flipped the lights.
It was the room from his abduction, one and the same down to the bindingly bright lights and the cold examining table. The deja-vu was too much for Bert and he backed out of the room and rushed into the one next door. Flipping the lights he discovered that this room was identical to the last. Willing his heart to slow down, Bert took in his surroundings. The strange memories of his rectal violation had not come from a alien spaceship, but must have come from a room like this. As the wheels where turning wildly in this head, Bert begin to hear strange voices coming from the hall. He looked around wildly for a place to hide. He was pretty sure his age couldn't get him out of this one. Just in time he spied a cabinet for medical supplies. He crouched inside making hardly a noise with the exception of popping from his arthritic knees.
"Who left the lights on in here?" Muttered a voice form the doorway. Shutting off the lights he closed the door. Less than a minute later Bert heard the sounds of a cart being pushed into his room. The lights were turned on and he thought he heard a moan. When the cart passed the small slits in his locker he saw that on it was strapped what looked to be a elderly person and instead of being pushed around by aliens instead he saw a team of doctors huddling around him. No one spoke a word and with a nod the doctors began to operate on the down turned man. Now Bert had no medical training, but from all that pushing and prodding in places he didn't quite want to look he assumed that whoever was on that table was receiving serious anal attention. Being trapped in that small space made Bert's mind began to race. After all these years was Roswell simply a façade put up by the government? He had to tell someone but who would believe him. Bert could have cursed himself for not bringing his camera not that he would have been able to get past the guards with that, it was simply too large. If only he had one of those tiny cameras like Sean Connery had in those James Bond films. That's when it struck him. Don't most cell phones have a camera in them? Bert fiddled in this pocket, for once in his life happy to have a camera phone. He had protested one for years until one day his Toyota wouldn't turn over and he had to spend the night out in a neighboring field. After that his son insisted that he get one for his own "safety". Bert had been indignant then, but right now his mood switched to ecstatic. Flipping open the black phone he pressed a multitude of buttons and then stopped short. He had no idea how to work the thing. Despite being highly educated in all matters of farm machinery, Bert had no clue how to take a picture. He continued rapidly pressing buttons and mentally swearing when a tiny voice said "Camera Ready". Bert no longer just swore mentally. The doctors lifted their heads from their silent procedure and looked around the room. Bert flinched and began to take pictures praying to God that it was working. By accident the phone began to email the pictures off to the last number programmed into it. Bert looked up to notice that the silent men where moving closer and closer to his hiding spot. His body locked up and closed his eyes. What would they do once he was found he wondered? Would he be reunited with his wife in heaven? Bert wasn't quite sure that he was ready, by now she was sure to have found out about that affair thirty years ago. The locker door was opened and Bert was pulled out from within.
"Let me go you cronie bastards!" He thrashed about with all of his strength, but in the end he was pinned down and injected with a syringe. The brightness of the room was soon replaced by the darkness of unconsciousness.
Bert awoke with sore knees in his hotel bed. Slowly he got out of bed and made his way to his suitcase. He checked out today after what he recalled as a quick trip to visit his cousin. He switched on the television to a local news program. The story seemed to be a big one with large text on the top of the screen that read "Government cover-up at Roswell". The comely newswomen on the screen began her report with a standard serious look on her face.
"Late yesterday afternoon, our news station received a tip from a student at Washington High School, she claimed to have pictures from the Roswell government complex sent to her on her cell phone. These pictures from a unknown outside source where enough to get the interest of the American Association of Retired People who managed to sue their way into receiving rights to enter the building. What they found was beyond all of our imaginations. What we all expected to be a local government building or the center for an alien hoax turned out to be something much more sinister." Bert watched the crowd of reporters out side of he building with growing interest. "Inside the infamous facility was a government operation that has remained a secret for over fifty years. This is the national hub for the RRP or rectal recovery program." Bert snorted into this coffee. "It is from this building that thousand of other RRPs are managed. The government had been abducting all men and women above the age of 55 and taking them to these buildings. Here, they give them a colonoscopy and an injection that could only be described as brainwashing them to eat a diet promoting a healthy colon. This program was invented in the late 1940's when colon related diseases made up 85 of Medicare costs. I guess this was a outrageous solution that has managed to slip under the radar for years. Back to you Dave." Bert sat in silence for almost a full minute before he lapsed into laughter. These news people would do anything for a story nowadays, after all who takes news tips from a high school girl? He was shook he head condescendingly and went back to his suitcase. He was feeling a little hungry and fished around for his favorite snack. Finding the bag, he popped a few prunes into his mouth sat back on his bed and smiled.