Jimmy Jack and the Smartman

  Chapter 8 - Blinking Lights

  "It won't be enough, Kurt Larry. They're talking back and forth with those aliens now. Blowing the radio to bits isn't going to make those aliens forget about having heard from the smartmen."

  Kurt Larry sighs at my observation. "Those bombs were the best idea I could come up with."

  "I give you credit for making them," I reply. It's a miracle that Kurt Larry didn't blow himself to shreds when he crafted the bombs still stored in his garage. It's good to give a man the credit he's due. "The bombs just won't solve the problem. We have to think of something else."

  Ray Ray chuckles. "All the smartmen in their bubbles would laugh to see us now, sitting on this ridge, trying to outthink them. They would all think it's pretty rich."

  "All the more reason we have to try," I reply.

  Joe Bob finishes a beer and looks skyward as a streak of light races across the horizon. "I'll admit it. The light show sure is something."

  Kurt Larry, Ray Ray, Joe Bob and I are sitting on a bench placed at the front of one of the giant radio's footings, a position on the mountain ridge that offers an excellent view of the night stars while we sip at the beers we pull out of Ray Ray's styrofoam cooler. The smartman never told us to expect to see them so soon, the smartman never hinted they would arrive so soon after contact, but we know those aliens, whatever they look like, have made it to our humble world. We watch as lights blink and pulse in the dark night - pinks and lavenders, blues and greens, oranges and reds. We all the guess the flashing lights come from those flying sauces trying to signal and communicate with all the smartmen housed in their plastic bubbles. Sometimes, I get the feeling there's just one huge spaceship brimming with floodlights hovering over our heads. Other times, I think there must be a fleet of small saucers zipping around to smudge light trails over so much of the sky. I have to agree with Joe Bob. There's something amazing, something beautiful, in the way all those lights twinkle.

  Sometimes when I watch those lights blink amid the stars, I still get to feeling a little sorry for Yogi. I pity him for his frailty that keeps him caged in his plastic bubble, preventing him from sharing a seat with us on the bench and looking through his own eyes at the display twinkling overhead. He's probably hunched over his computer screen, frantically trying to count all the alien winks and flashes, obsessed with the notion that every light hast to be a key to unlocking an extraterrestrial language. Watching all those lights, I don't think I would want Yogi's brains for anything. My friends and I might be idiots. We might not have as much pink matter locked within our skulls, but I'm happy that my intelligence doesn't keep me from appreciating the splendor of the light show those aliens deliver us on cloudless nights.

  Yeah, sometimes I feel a little sorry for Yogi; but then that terrible shrill fills my skull whenever I do.

  "I wonder what they're trying to tell us," comments Joe Bob.

  "Do you think aliens play sports? Do you think aliens have races with their flying saucers? Would there be a alien man? Would there be an alien woman? Do they eat meat? Or leaves? Or maybe they eat rocks?"

  I shrug. I've never heard Ray Ray ask so many questions.

  Kurt Larry snorts. "Well hell, Ray Ray, they're probably not talking about any such things. They're probably all just talking numbers. You all know how crazy the smartmen are about their numbers."

  "Yeah. You're probably right," Ray Ray sighs. "Still, I wonder if all those green, little aliens buzzing around in their saucers might be as scared of us as we are of them. My grandma used to always say something like that whenever there was a snake in the yard."

  Ray Ray's comment sparks an idea in my brain. Perhaps I used Yogi as a crutch for too long.

  "You're a genius, Ray Ray." I slap my friend's back.

  "Don't make fun of me, Jimmy Jack. The rest of you are struggling to make sense out of all of this too."

  "In a way, you have." I wink.

  Kurt Larry squints at me. "Then fill the rest of us in, Jimmy Jack. What is it you think Ray Ray's helped you figure out?"

  "Those aliens are as unsure of us as we are of them," I start. "Like Ray Ray says, who's to say they're not as scared of us as we are of them. All that twinkling and blinking, all those colors, might just be the aliens getting a feel for the smartmen. The aliens might not even know the rest of us are down here. We can't let the smartmen talk to the aliens for us. We have to get into the conversation."

  Joe Bob shakes his head. "What would we say?"

  "I don't know," is my only answer. "Something that will make those aliens think twice about answering the smartmen's call. Something that will make those aliens take more time to consider helping Yogi and his pals out of their bubbles."

  Kurt Larry winks. "Or something to maybe just scare those little, green aliens away."

  "Maybe," I return. "We just have to think of something to say that will keep those smartmen in their bubbles."

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