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The Extraterrestrial Highway

Arthur Winfield Knight

        The short order cook brought the guy sitting at the counter an alien burger and said, “There’s a man out there who says he’s waiting for you.”
    “I’ve been expecting him,” Garth said.
    “He’s wearing a suit and tie, even though it’s a hundred degrees out there.”
    “I know.”
    “He must be crazy,” the cook said. He was wearing a green checked shirt that was two sizes too small for him, and he was probably in his sixties. Weight often came with age.
    “He’s just single-minded,” Garth said. He had a broken nose and thinning blond hair and he was wearing a black T-shirt with the name of a whorehouse in northern Nevada on it. The Mustang Ranch was world famous. “I hoped he wouldn’t find me here.”
    Someone else came into the inn. He was probably in his seventies and was wearing a blue denim shirt and Levi’s. He sat two stools down from Garth and ordered an alien burger.
    Rachel was the only town on The Extraterrestrial Highway. Ninety-eight humans lived there, but no one knew how many aliens. It was anyone’s guess. Thousands made pilgrimages to the place, searching the sky for flying saucers, each year. The Little Alien Inn was the only place to eat. There was a sign out front that said Earthlings Welcome and it pictured someone’s idea of an alien.
    There was a door at the far end of the inn that said “Evidence Room. Warning. Top Secret Research Facility. Use of Deadly Force Authorized. Area 51.”
    Garth imagined the man in the suit and tie standing next to what was supposed to be the remains of a flying saucer. It looked as if someone had welded a lot of tin cans together.
    When he’d come into the inn, a group of Japanese men wearing Hawaiian shirts stood next to a huge telescope, wiping their faces with white handkerchiefs when they weren’t searching the sky. It was azure.
    Some dirty looking kids who were naked screamed in a wading pool between two trailers. You could hear the aluminum siding crack and buckle in the heat. Rachel was one of the most dismal places Garth had ever seen, but he’d miss it.
    “What do you do around here?” the old guy asked.
    “We wait a lot,” the cook said.
    “For what?”
    “For the aliens to come back.”
    Maybe that was why Garth had come here. He’d been waiting for the man in the suit and tie for a long time. He hadn’t meant to take the money from the casino in Vegas. Hadn’t meant to keep it. It was just one of those things.
    Garth finished his alien burger, his hands shaking. He sipped a lukewarm Coors, peeling the label with the thumb nail on his right hand. The bottle was sweating.
    It was probably ninety degrees in the place, even though a swamp cooler thumped in a back window.
    Garth got up, looking out the front window. The glare was tremendous, but he could see a gun metal blue 50^th anniversary Thunderbird convertible parked next to the wrecked space ship. It hadn’t been there when he’d arrived, so he assumed it belonged to the old guy. Fewer than ten thousand had been made, so it was collectable. He would not look upon its like again.
    “Nice car,” Garth said, going back to the counter. He wouldn’t be going for a ride anytime soon. He left a ten dollar bill next to his plate.
    The old guy nodded. “Thanks.”
    Garth walked back to the door that said Evidence Room. He stood there, reading the small print. “While on this installation all personnel and the property under their control are subject to search and seizure.” He wasn’t in a hurry to leave, so he kept reading. “It is unlawful make any photograph, film, map, sketch, picture, drawing, graphic representation of this area or equipment at or flying over this installation.”
    The cook waved a greasy towel at Garth when he went to the front door, standing there a long minute. “See you around.”
    “I don’t think so,” Garth said, then he went out into the desert’s glare.

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