Space Whales
By Eric Staggs
The wizened woman dressed in the black and white habit seemed to hold the secrets of the world. She knew the right beer to drink, she knew fashion. Most amazing of all she knew about the space whales . . .
“The clouds hide spaceships,” the nun sitting next to me muttered.
“Excuse me?” I asked. It was late, or early, depending on how much you’d had to drink. The clock across the street said it was 5:32 A.M. I was at the train stop on the corner of Wicker Park and Hell. Old Bitch Winter was creeping in, and she seemed to have Chicago by the balls. I could smell grass and dog shit. This part of Chicago always smelled like grass and dog shit.
I was exhausted. I’d been drinking wine since 5:32 P.M. the day before. It was my birthday. Some people will argue that such feats of endurance are completely fictional. Other people will ask: what kind of wine was it? The train stop was abandoned, except for the nun and a few pigeons trying to figure out how to ask for change. As I mentioned before, I was in a rare state of drunkenness. I had not so much chosen to sit next to the nun as I’d just sort of flopped there. She seemed safe enough. I mean, she was a nun.
My torn T-shirt wasn’t keeping the cold out, but I barely noticed. My pants were shredded and my boots were scuffed. I’m guessing my eyes were a brilliant shade of red. In short, I looked like shit. As Keith Richards once put it, “I wasn’t looking too good, but I was feeling real well.”
“The clouds, they hide spaceships,” the nun said again. I looked at her and blinked my eyes. She was definitely a nun. She was old, hunched over, as old people often are. She wore the typical black and white penguin outfit, the nun’s habit. She reached into her oversized handbag. The enormous bag made her look even smaller. It was crafted from some coarse material, burlap or rawhide, I couldn’t tell which. She reached her small, old hand into the oversized bag and pulled out an oversized can of Sapporo, a Japanese beer. She casually tore the lid off and took a big gulp.
“The clouds,” she began again “they hide spaceships.”
“Spaceships? How do you know?” I asked.
“Can you prove they don’t?”
“No, I guess I can’t,” I answered honestly.
“Then what’s yer damn problem?” She took another pull from the giant can of Sapporo and passed it to me. Shrugging, I took the oversized beer from her undersized hand. The nun looked me up and down with hawkish eyes. Her gaze lingered on my torn jeans and black boots. “See, the clouds make it easy for them to fly around.” She smiled as she said this last bit: “They watch us.”
“You don’t think the airport radar would spot them?”
“They are smarter than that.” I tried to hand the beer can back to her, but she refused. Reaching into her oversized handbag, she produced another oversized can of beer. She tore the lid off and took a pull. “Ah! I can’t get enough of this Jap beer!”
I nodded my head in agreement, taking a pull from my own oversized can. “But God hates them motherfuckers!”
I nearly choked on my Sapporo. “The Japanese?” I asked cautiously, worried about what I might be stirring up.
“No, you bonehead, the spaceships.”
“You mean the aliens inside them?”
“No, the spaceships. God hates them fuckers. The aliens are the spaceships.”
“And God hates them?”
“Of course he does. The spaceships are alive. Like giant space whales, flying around in our clouds, stealing our coke. Fucking space whales.” It was about then that I’d started wondering when the train would show up.
The nun went on. It seemed the space whales were not the benevolent giants I’d immediately imagined them to be. It seemed they were vindictive beasts, enjoying the various degrees of suffering they witnessed from the clouds high above. Then, the conversation took an odd turn.
“You homeless?” she asked me, tossing her empty beer can on the tracks and taking another oversized can from her oversized handbag.
“Uh, no,” I said, finishing my own beer.
She instantly produced another and handed it to me. “Well, you look like it.”
“Uh, yeah, it’s like, the fashion, you know?” I shrugged my shoulders and drank my beer. How did she keep them so cold in that bag of hers?
“Fashion makes you want to look like a bum?”
“Uh, yeah, I suppose so . . .”
“At least you don’t have any shit in your face.”
“Huh?”
“You know, like those little hussies who look like they fell into a tackle box, face first.” Before I could respond, she produced a pair of binoculars from her bag and began to scan the early morning sky.
“How old are you?” she asked, hawk eyes still scanning the sky. I explained to her how I’d just turned 24. She nodded slowly. “You drunk?” she asked mercilessly.
“Yeah.”
“Well I’m not. Come on. You need a birthday cupcake and I need more of this goddamned Jap beer.” Grabbing her bag and a cane she didn’t seem to need, she stood, tossing her empty on the train track, a splash of beer hitting the electric rail, sending up blue sparks. She winked at me and cackled.
As we walked under the train platform to the convenience store, she explained to me that I was one of the last few born before the space whale invasion. She told me you couldn’t trust anyone, anyone born after 1981. The eighties, she told me, were a decade of ignorance and excess. We didn’t understand AIDS and cocaine wasn’t addictive. Good times for us, great times for the space whales.
“See, they came for the coke,” she said as we entered the convenience store.
“I suppose. Coca-Cola probably doesn’t ship to wherever they are from,” I said innocently.
She looked at me sternly. “Don’t be a wise-ass, birthday boy.”
“Sorry, I meant–”
She cut me off. “You know how much coke it takes to get a space whale high? Do ya?” She prodded me with the tip of her cane. “A fuck of a lot, birthday boy, a fuck of a lot.”
Anyway, as she told me of the vices inherent in the space whale social structure, she grabbed a pack of Hostess cupcakes and another four-pack of Sapporo. I stood next to the freezy-machine, listening to it churn and hum. It was loud. Kurr-chunk. Kurr-chunk. Kurr-chunk. I studied the thing, and saw tubes, running up from the top, disappearing into the ceiling. That’s when the trouble began.
“Where the hell are you two going?” the kid behind the counter asked. It was a reasonable question, considering I looked like I’d just been thrown out of a Sex Pistols concert and the nun had given him a hundred dollar bill for two cupcakes and a four-pack of Sapporo.
“Back to the train stop,” she answered him evenly. “Gotta keep an eye on those space whales.”.
“Those what?” the kid asked, handing her ninety-three dollars and seventeen cents.
“Those fucking space whales. Not that it’s any of your business, but it’s his birthday, and I needed more of this Jap beer, so that’s why we’re here. Got it pizza-face?”
“Hey lady, relax. What’s your problem with whales? They are like, you know, the oldest species on our planet! And they never hurt anyone!”
That did it. “Bullshit! Those moaning sea cows were the advance invasion! The oldest species on our planet? Bullshit! Those fucking space whales are ruining our planet! And you, you godless piece of shit, what fucking year were you born?”
In one smooth motion, she dumped the Sapporo and the cupcakes into her oversized bag and, with the same hand, drew a long, mean looking switchblade. I was stunned by the efficiency with which the nun wielded the knife. I think the store clerk was too. She lunged over the counter and grabbed the kid by his nose ring.
“I said, ‘What year were you born?’”
“Ouch! Come on, lady! W-what the hell are you doing?” The kid squirmed.
“Birthday boy,” the nun snarled at me, “lock the door.”
“Uh, sure,” I mumbled and hurried off to do her bidding. As I threw the bolt on the double-glass door, I had a moment to consider the situation. I wasn’t even sure this woman was a nun. Though she seemed to have all the abilities of a nun. That is, she was cold, merciless, and she was able to get people to obey her instantly. But I had no real proof and it looked very much like she was about to commit a felony. And, so far, I was assisting her without hesitation.
“Now, get behind the counter, find something to tie this sympathizer bastard up with!” Without a word, I did just that. I found an electric extension cord and pulled it out of the wall. With a plaintive “waaa” sound, the freezy- machine stopped churning its brightly colored, frozen treats.
“Oh, come on, not the freezy-machine! The Blueberry Blast will melt and it stains! Look at my uniform!” The kid tilted his head toward a bluish stain half covered by his nametag, which incidentally read ROD. Feeling the mood take hold, I couldn’t help but join in.
“Rod? That’s a bullshit name isn’t it? Sympathizer!” I jabbed the kid in the ribs with my knuckle as I tightened the electrical cord. He felt bony, emaciated.
“Easy, birthday boy,” the nun advised, “we gotta interrogate him.” Interrogate . . . of course. Because this pimply brat seemed to be in-the-know about this space whale invasion. He’d given all the signs. Support of whales. Whiney voice. Born after ’81. This kid was in trouble, I realized, as I watched the nun lower her switchblade and produce two more beers. I took mine and tore the top off. By now, all thought of sleep was gone. I had been heading home, but no, not anymore. Here was something important I had to do.
I found myself in the back room of a convenience store, with a nun who never seemed to get drunk, and a space whale sympathizer. She began the interrogation slowly at first. Name, rank, pod of origin, that sort of thing. I had to admit, for a few minutes, I’d thought we’d made a mistake. He seemed to have all the answers. He even claimed not to know what she meant by “pod.” As I watched the interrogation, I realized she was an old pro. With a skill that only a Catholic nun could summon, she deftly twisted the kid’s words around, making him flustered and angry. No confession per se, but we both knew she was on to something. The nun pulled me aside.
“Birthday Boy, we don’t have all day. It’s almost six A.M. We gotta move on. Why don’t you go get us some more Sapporo?” I turned to leave the supply room. “Take your time,” she called after me.
In my addled state, I did exactly that. I meandered through the store, tearing open candy bars and munching them as I went. Then I sort of got distracted. I saw they had Tsing Tao beer. Chinese beer. The store stocked all the regular crap, but they had Chinese beer too. I wondered if the nun would like that as well? Deciding that perhaps now was not the time to ask, I grabbed three more four-packs of Sapporo and moved to grab some chips.
That’s when I heard the sound again. Kurr-chunk. Setting down the vinegar and cheese flavored chips, I walked over to that ominous freezy-machine. The blue and red cylinders were spinning again. Crawling out from behind the machine was Rod. All I could blurt out was, “Hey!” Rod turned and looked at me. His face was a mask of teenaged rage.
“You shit-heads almost screwed everything up!”
Kurr-chunk.
I stood there. Where was the nun? Where the hell was I? Rod started to move toward me. “You think a nun and a moron can stop us?”
Holy shit!
Rod seemed to grow a foot and fill out, gaining size and mass as he stepped closer to me.
Holy shit!
Fear, that age-old motivator of heroes and cowards alike, finally kicked into high gear. In a complete panic I tore the flimsy cardboard packaging of the Sapporo cans apart. Tearing the lid off the first can like it was a hand grenade, I hurtled it at Rod. The can hit him in the chest. There was a golden-white spray of beer and foam. Rod kept coming. Frantically, I opened and threw another can of Sapporo. Then another. I pelted him with no less than twelve cans of Sapporo. There was beer everywhere. Rod was soaked, which of course made him angrier.
I turned to run, but slipped on the flood of beer. I careened into the shelf of candy bars, sending them flying in all directions. I scrambled to my feet, but Rod was between the door and me. I couldn’t leave the old nun anyway, I decided. Rod lunged towards me. He tackled me harder than any high school bully had ever done. I went down like a freshman nerd.
The first punch in any fistfight is always the most crucial. Two things will happen when you hit a man in the face. The first possibility is that he will collapse completely under your might. The ringing sound, the sharp pain that becomes a throbbing ache, the dizziness, these of course are contributing factors. The second possibility is that your opponent will blink twice, and hit you right back. After my feeble swing and Rod’s incredibly powerful counter, it seemed obvious I was of the first type and he was of the second type.
Unwilling to take another blow of that magnitude to my already bleeding, and likely broken, nose, I used that two seconds between punches to find another way out. Flailing wildly, my hand found a nearly full can of Sapporo. I grabbed it and covering the opening with my thumb shook it frantically.
The foaming jet struck Rod right in the eyes. Reflexively, he covered his face and cried out. I rolled him off me and ran for the back room.
Rod was right behind me. I heard him stand, heard the wet squeak of his sneakers on the beer covered floor. As I rushed past the freezy-machine, I spun and, using adrenaline soaked muscles to their fullest, I braced my back against the wall and pushed at it with my legs.
“Not the freezy-machine!” Rod growled.
It started to go over, but Rod and his super-human strength caught it. I didn’t care. I turned and kept running. The back room was just as I’d left it, but the nun was lying on the floor. Christ on a crutch! Rod had killed the nun!
I rushed towards her, slipped and fell, cracking my knee on the hard floor. “Uh, nun-lady?” I asked weakly. I touched her shoulder. “Um, ah…” How the hell does one address an unconscious nun?
Rod was swearing. I saw the freezy-machine settle back in its place. The steady kurr-chunk sound resumed. I knew I had to think this through. This nun was a professional space whale hunter. She had to have a gun or a laser or something like that in her bag. I looked around, saw it sitting innocuously by the chair we’d tied Rod to. I grabbed it.
“Don’t you have any damn manners?” rasped the nun. I turned my head in shock.
“You’re done for now!” It was Rod, carrying what looked like a penknife in one hand and a bottle of Tabasco sauce in the other. He shook the bottle in an obscene jerking motion. So, this was it.
“Use my cane, idiot,” said the nun. I grabbed the cane, thanked God it was nearby, and stood to face Rod. The cane had a slightly curved handle and one of those big rubber tips on the other end. Rod lunged with his penknife and as I swatted his arm aside, he brought his left around and splashed me with the Tabasco sauce. It burned. Actually, saying Tabasco sauce in my eyes and bleeding face wounds burned is like saying, “Yeah, the sun gets pretty hot.”
I think I swore at him. The smell of vinegar and pepper clung to me. I know I stumbled backwards, almost tripping over the nun’s oversized handbag. Rob stabbed forward again and I stepped aside, avoiding the thrust. I raised the cane high over my head, brought it crashing down on Rod’s back. The cane cracked. Splinters of wood flew in all directions. “Idiot,” the nun said from behind me. Then, I realized why.
There was a sword in the cane.
I shook the cane wildly to free it of the ruined wooden scabbard. Rod seemed unfazed by the blow to his back. He tried his Tabasco bottle again, jerking and splashing, but missed, sending a red gout of burn into the air. By the time Rod realized what the cane was, it was too late. I slashed at his left hand and sent the Tabasco bottle flying. There was a pungent burst of zesty sauce as it shattered on the floor. Clumsily, I slashed at Rod’s chest. His shirt tore open.
I think it was then that I really understood what I was dealing with. There was no human torso, no chest and stomach. In its place was a hard chitinous shell, white, with crusts of green. Shock took hold and I stared at the first alien I’d ever seen.
Rod took advantage of my state and slashed the back of my hand with his cruel penknife. I dropped the sword cane. Rod stepped closer. Covered in Tabasco, beer, potato chips and freezy-flavoring, he was a sight to behold. When the nun quietly stood behind Rod, I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was obviously tougher than I’d thought, probably, tougher than me. When she quietly picked up the sword cane and spun it around in her hand like an expert, I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was obviously a skilled warrior. When she lopped Rod’s head off with one clean swipe, I wasn’t surprised. I’m a quick learner. A milky fluid squirted out of the base of Rod’s neck, and the body collapsed. Its limbs began to shrivel and suck into the hardened torso like a turtle.
“A barnacle.” She muttered.
“W-wha?”
“A barnacle. A spy, birthday boy, a spy.”
I stared. “For the space whales?”
“Did you hit your head? Gimme that beer.”
“But why? Spying for what?”
“Well, more likely this is where the cocaine is left for the space whales. This kid must have some kind of delivery device somewhere. Maybe that freezy-machine he’s so protective of. You’re lucky we met. We’ve got a lot to do.”
“But, why do we care if space whales have cocaine or not?” I asked. I regretted it instantly. She turned on me, her hawk-like eyes narrowed. She downed her Sapporo. “You’ve got a lot to learn, birthday boy.”
“Space Whales” is copyright © 2005 Eric Staggs and appears here for the first time with the author’s permission.
Eric Staggs’s unusual writing style and unique sense of humor come from an eventful life dotted with monsters, muses, and plenty of luck (good and bad). Having studied subjects ranging from world mythology to film to literature, Eric enjoys nothing more than a good story. Currently, Eric is finishing an interdisciplinary degree in screenwriting / fiction writing. His latest project is a feature length screenplay for Educational Documentaries, Inc., based in Illinois.
