One Door Away from Heaven

Curtis can conceive of no way in which anyone’s head could be blown off cleanly. Decapitation by any means is a messy event.

He has no difficulty understanding why Grandma’s deadly salsa is locally famous, but he can’t comprehend why anyone would buy it. Yet several jars are missing from the geometric display, and as he watches, two more are sold.

This seems to indicate that a portion of those gathering in the meadow are suicidal. The dog has discounted the theory of a serial-killer convention, since she detects none of the telltale pheromones of full-blown psychosis, but Curtis is equally unenthusiastic about a gathering of the suicide-prone, regardless of their reasons for considering self-destruction.

In addition to beverages, snacks, and the infamous salsa, the hay wagon also offers T-shirts bearing strange messages. NEARY RANCH, one declares, STARPORT USA. Another shirt features the picture of a cow and the words CLARA, FIRST COW IN SPACE. Yet another states WE ARE NOT ALONE - NEARY RANCH. And a fourth insists THE DAY DRAWS NEAR and also features the name of the ranch.

Curtis is interested in Clara. Although he’s familiar with the entire history of NASA and with the space program of the former Soviet Union, he’s unaware of any attempt to place a cow in orbit or to send one to the moon. No other country possesses the capability to orbit a cow and to bring it back alive. Furthermore, the purpose of sending a bovine astronaut into space completely eludes the boy.

A book is displayed for sale beside the T-shirts: Night on the Neary Ranch: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. From the title and the cover illustration—a flying saucer hovering over a farmhouse—Curtis begins to understand that the Neary Ranch is the origin of a modern folk tale similar to those told about Roswell, New Mexico.

Intrigued but still concerned about the suicidal types that are at least a portion of this gathering, he again trusts Old Yeller’s judgment. She smells no prospect of exploding heads, and she’s eager to sniff her way through the fragrant throng.

Boy and dog enter the meadow without being challenged at the open gate. Evidently they are thought to be with attendees who rented a space and legitimately established camp.

In a holiday mood, carrying drinks, eating homemade cookies, lightly dressed for the heat, people stroll the close-cropped grass in the aisles between campsites, making new friends, greeting old acquaintances. Others gather in the shade under the awnings, playing cards and board games, listening to radios—and talking, talking.

Everywhere, people are engaged in conversation, some quiet and earnest, others noisy and enthusiastic. From the scraps that Curtis hears as he and Old Yeller amble through the field, he concludes that all these folks are UFO buffs. They gather here twice a year, around the dates of two famous saucer visitations, but this assemblage is related to some new and recent event that has excited them.

The campsites are organized like spokes on a wheel, and at the hub is a perfectly circular patch of bare earth about twelve feet in diameter. The meadow grows all around this circle, but the earth within is chalky and hard-packed, not softened by so much as a single weed or blade of grass.

A tall, thickset man, about sixty years of age, stands in the center of this barren plot. Wearing bushman’s boots with rolled white socks, khaki shorts that expose knees as rough and hairy as coconuts, and a short-sleeve khaki shirt with epaulets, he looks as though he will soon embark on an expedition to Africa, to search for the fabled elephants’ graveyard.

Eighteen or twenty people have gathered around this man. All appear reluctant to venture into the dead zone where he stands.

As Curtis joins the group, one of the new arrivals explains to another: “That’s old man Neary himself. He’s been up.”

Mr. Neary is talking about Clara, the first cow in space. “She was a good cow, old Clara. She produced a tanker truck of milk with low butterfat content, and she never caused no trouble.”

The concept of troublemaking cows is a new one for Curtis, but he resists the urge to ask what offenses cows are likely to commit when they’re not as amiable as Clara. His mother always said that you’d never learn anything if you couldn’t listen; and Curtis is always in the mood to learn.

“Holsteins as a breed are a stupid bunch,” says Mr. Neary. “That is my opinion. Some would argue Holsteins are as smart as Jerseys or Herefords. Frankly, anyone who’d take that position just don’t know his cows.”

“Alderneys and Galloways are the smartest breeds,” says one of those gathered around the dead zone.

“We could stand here all day arguin’ cow smartness,” says Mr. Neary, “and be no closer to Heaven. Anyway, my Clara wasn’t your typical Holstein, in that she was smart. Not smart like you or me, probably not even as smart as that dog there”—he points at Old Yeller—“but she was the one always led the others from barn to pasture in the mornin’ and back at the end of the day.”

“Lincolnshire reds are smart cows,” says a stocky, pipe-smoking woman whose hair is tied in twin ponytails with yellow ribbons.

Mr. Neary gives this rather formidable lady an impatient look. “Well, these aliens didn’t go huntin’ for no Lincolnshire reds, now did they? They come here and took Clara—and my theory is they knew she was the smartest cow in the field. Anyway, as I was sayin’, this vehicle like whirlin’ liquid metal hovered over my Clara as she was standin’ exactly where I’m standin’ now.”

Most of those around the circle look up at the afternoon sky, some wary, some with a sense of wonder.

A young woman as pale as Clara’s low-butterfat milk says, “Was there any sound? Patterns of harmonic tones?”

“If you mean did me and them play pipe organs at each other like in the movie, no ma’am. The abduction was done in dead silence. This red beam of light come out of the vehicle, like a spotlight, but it was a levitation beam of some type. Clara lifted off the ground in a column of red light, twelve feet in diameter.”

“That is a big levitation beam!” exclaims a long-haired young man in jeans and T-shirt that announces FRODO LIVES.

“The good old girl let out just one startled bleat,” says Mr. Neary, “and then she went up with no protest, turnin’ slowly around, this way and that, end-over-end, like she weighed no more than a feather.” He looks pointedly at the pipe-smoking, ponytailed woman. “Had she been a Lincolnshire red, she’d probably have kicked up a hell of a fuss and choked to death on her own cud.”

After blowing a smoke ring, the woman replies, “It’s next thing to impossible for a ruminant animal to choke on its own cud.”

“Ordinarily, I’d agree,” concedes Mr. Neary, “but when you’re talkin’ a fake-smart breed like Lincolnshire reds, I wouldn’t be surprised by any dumbness they committed.”

Listening, Curtis is learning a great deal about cows, although he can’t say to what purpose.

“Why would they want a cow anyway?” asks the Frodo believer.

“Milk,” suggests the pale young woman. “Perhaps their planet has suffered a partial ecological breakdown entirely from natural causes, a collapse in some segments of the food chain.”

“No, no, they’d be technologically advanced enough to clone their native species,” says a professorial man with a larger pipe than the one the woman smokes, “whatever’s equivalent to a cow on their planet. They’d repopulate their herds that way. They would never introduce an off-planet species.”

“Maybe they’re just hungry for a good cheeseburger,” says a florid-faced man with a can of beer in one hand and a half-finished hot dog in the other.

A few people laugh; however, the pale young woman, who is pretty in a tragic-dying heroine way, takes deep offense and glowers the smile right off the florid man’s face, “If they can travel across the galaxy, they’re an advanced intelligence, which means vegetarians.”

Summoning what socializing skills he possesses, Curtis says, “Or they might use the cow as a host for biologically engineered weapons. They could implant eight or ten embryos in the cow’s body cavity, return her to the meadow, and while the embryos mature into viable specimens, no one would realize what was inside Clara. Then one day, the cow would experience an Ebola-virus type biological meltdown, and out of the disintegrating carcass would come eight or ten insectile-form soldiers, each as big as a German shepherd, which would be a large enough force to wipe out a town of one thousand people in less than twelve hours.”

Everyone stares at Curtis.

He realizes at once that he has strayed from the spirit of the conversation or has violated a protocol of behavior among UFO buffs, but he doesn’t grasp the nature of his offense. Struggling to recover from this faux pas, he says, “Well, okay, maybe they would be reptile form instead of insectile form, in which case they would need sixteen hours to wipe out a town of one thousand, because the reptile form is a less efficient killing machine than the insectile form.”

This refinement of his point fails to win any friends among those gathered in the circle. Their expressions still range between puzzlement and annoyance.

In fact, the pale young woman turns on him with a glower as severe as the one with which she silenced the man holding the hot dog. “Advanced intelligences don’t have our flaws. They don’t destroy their ecologies. They don’t wage war or eat the flesh of animals.” She directs her liquid-nitrogen stare on the pipe smokers. “They do not use tobacco-type products.” She focuses again on Curtis, her eyes so cold that he feels as if he might go into cryogenic suspension if she keeps him in her sights too long. “They have no prejudices based on race or gender, or anything else. They never despoil their bodies with high-fat foods, refined sugar, and caffeine. They don’t lie and cheat, they don’t wage war, as I’ve said, and they certainly don’t incubate giant killer insects inside cows.”

“Well, it’s a big universe,” says Curtis in what he imagines to be a conciliatory tone, “and fortunately most of the worst types I’m talking about haven’t gotten around to this end of it.”

The young woman’s face pales further and her eyes become icier, as if additional refrigeration coils have activated in her head.

“Of course, I’m only speculating,” Curtis quickly adds. “I don’t know for a fact any more than the rest of you.”

Before Curtis can be frozen solid by the snakeless Medusa, Mr. Neary intervenes. “Son, you ought to spend a bunch less time playin’ those violent sci-fi video games. They’ve stuffed your head full of sick nonsense. We’re talkin’ reality here, not those blood-soaked fantasies Hollywood spews out to pollute young minds like yours.”

Those gathered around the dead zone express their agreement, and one of them asks, “Mr. Neary, were you scared when the ETs came back for you?”

“Sir, I was naturally concerned, but not truly scared. That was six months after Clara floated away, which is why we have two contact vigils here each year, on the anniversaries. By the way, some folks say they would come here just for my wife’s homemade cookies, so be sure you try ‘em. Of course, this year, it’s three vigils—this one impromptu because of what’s going on right this minute, over there.” Standing taller, wearing his African-explorer clothes with even greater authority, he points east, past the end of the meadow, toward the land that rises beyond a scattering of trees. “The uproar across the border in Utah, which you and I know has nothin’ whatsoever to do with no drug lords, regardless what the government says.”

Neary’s statement gives rise to expressions of a mutual distrust of the government from many in the growing crowd gathered around the dead zone.

Curtis seizes upon this shared sentiment as a way to redeem himself with these people and to polish his inadequate socializing skills. He steps off the grass onto the barren chalky earth and raises his voice to declare, “Gov’ment! Rule-makin’, power-crazy, know-no thin’ bunch of lily-livered skunks in bald-faced shirts!”

He senses that his declaration fails to win for him the immediate embrace of the assemblage.

His words have caused the group to fall silent again.

Assuming that their silence arises from their need to digest his words rather than from any disagreement with what he’s said, he gives them more reason to welcome him into their community. “Call me a hog an’ butcher me for bacon, but don’t you ever tell me the gov’ment ain’t a land-crazy, dirt-grabbin’ tyrant!”

Old Yeller drops to the ground and rolls onto her back, exposing her belly to the crowd, because she thinks that Curtis’s socializing requires an expression of submission to avoid violence.

He’s quite sure that Old Yeller misapprehends the mood of these people. The dog’s senses and preternatural perceptions are reliable in many matters, but human social interaction is far too complex for accurate analysis merely by scent and instinct. Admittedly, the pale young woman’s face hardens into an ice sculpture at the mention of bacon, but the others appear to have the open-mouthed expression of people absorbing a well-spoken truth.

Consequently, even as Old Yeller timidly exposes her belly, Curtis spouts more of what these folks want to hear, while hitching himself in a circle, mimicking the gimpy movement that made Gabby so endearing: “Gov’ment! Tax collectors, land grabbers, nosey do-gooders more self-righteous than any Bible-poundin’ preacher ever born! Stink-bug-lovin’ gov’ment bastards!”

The dog is whimpering now.

Surveying the encircling ufologists, Curtis sees not one smile, but several looks of astonishment and numerous frowns, and even what seem to be a few expressions of pity.

“Son,” says Mr. Neary, “I figure your folks aren’t amongst this group, or they’d be whuppin’ your butt for this performance. Now you go find ‘em and you stay with ‘em the rest of the time you’re here, or I’ll have to insist that you and your family accept a refund and vacate the meadow.”

Oh, Lord, maybe he’s never going to get the hang of being Curtis Hammond. He blinks back tears, as much because he has embarrassed his sister-become as because he’s somehow made a fool of himself.

“Mr. Neary, sir,” he pleads with utmost sincerity, “I am not some sassy-assed, spit-in-the-eye malefactor.”

‘This assurance, although it could not be more truthful or more well-intentioned, inexplicably causes Mr. Neary’s face to redden into a dark and ominous mask. “That’s enough, young man.”

In one last desperate effort to make amends, Curtis says, “Mr. Neary, sir, I’m not quite right. I’ve been told by a beautiful immensity of a lady that I’m too sweet for this world. If you asked me whether I was stupid or somethin’, I’d have to say I was stupid. I’m a not-quite-right, too-sweet, stupid Gump, is what I am.”