“I can’t believe it!” Lou grabs Momo’s leather jacket, yanks her back. “Ernie’s here!”
He is standing bulky and pigeon-toed under murky parking lot lights. He curls his lip. His hard eyes glint behind cigarette smoke. He shouts, “Loo ain’t nothing but an English toilet!”
The parking lot is dusty, the night beyond, vast. Music pumps loud and hard inside the propped red doors of the windowless club. A burly bouncer glowers in the doorway. Blue lights pulse behind him.
Momo leans close to Lou. “Let’s get out of here.”
Lou nods. “Good idea.”
They saunter back among the empty cars.
Momo is suave and svelte. Her lipstick is red. Her eyes shine blue. Her jaw is angular. Her hair is pixie trim.
Lou is softer at the edges, her face like a heart. Her lipstick is pink. Her hair is long blond. Her eyes are misty hazel.
“This is a skanky place anyway,” Momo says. “Dickface isn’t following us is he?”
“Not so far. Just don't run. It stirs up his predator instinct.”
“Did he look that insane when you met him?”
“In a different way. He was wearing skin tight red leather. He looked like Billy Idol. He told me his name was Stiv.”
Momo raises her plucked brows. “What a difference a few years and a few hundred pounds makes.”
They giggle.
Lou slips her key in the lock, clicks her Honda open. She pulls in one last breath of the dry New Mexico air and climbs into the driver’s seat, leans to open the passenger door. “Now we just have to get out of here without him attacking the car.”
Momo snorts. “What’s he going to do, bite the tires?”
“Probably. One time I was backing out of the driveway and he ran up beside the car and smashed the window and crawled through it – the car was rolling the whole time.”
“You didn’t hit the accelerator fast enough. Tonight if he gets anywhere near us, step on it and don’t let up till he’s eating dust.”
“I ought to just run him down.”
“Nah – the cops wouldn’t like it. But if he jumps on the car you can do whatever you want and plead self-defense. I’m your witness.”
They circle toward the exit.
He looms large and swollen in the dusky yellow light. His belly pushes out from beneath his X-tra large green bowling shirt. He is wearing gray sweat pants and the black patent leather wing-tips he wore with his groom’s tuxedo four years ago. His wildly curling blond hair is combed into a manic pompadour. He sucks his cigarette so the cherry flares bright, drops it on parking lot gravel, twists it out with one shiny toe.
Lou presses the accelerator.
Momo shudders. “That was creepy.”
“I’ll just be glad if he doesn’t follow us.”
Momo’s carefully penciled eyes widen. “How could you have ever been married to him? He is so far beneath you it’s like from here to Atlantis. It’s like that time I went out with whathisface – that guy who plays bass for the Garden Weasels.”
“You were smart enough not to marry that cretin.”
Momo shrugs. “He never asked me. I hate it when they don’t even ask.”
Lou shakes her head. “I hate it when they do. The worst is when you have to say no and they cry about it.”
“You’re so lucky. No guy’s ever cried when I turned him down.”
Lou gives a feminine grimace. “Believe me, you don’t want it to happen.”
“Why not? Those assholes always make me cry. Who cried when you dumped him, anyway?”
"Remember that ammunition nut? The one that liked to explode dynamite in his backyard for fun?"
Momo grins. "No! The one with all those machine guns in a hidden compartment at the back of his closet?"
Lou nods grimly. "Flung himself face down on the couch and bawled. It was ugly. I dropped that little velvet box and ran – nearly tripped over my feet trying to get out the door."
They are traveling out of town on a winding gray shoulderless road with a double yellow line down the center. The headlights shadow gnarled groves of pinons.
Lou keeps her eyes on the road. “It’s our own fault there are so many prick-faced men in the world. If none of them were getting any they’d have to get their shit together real fast or our whole species would be extinct in one generation.”
“None of them are getting any from us anymore.”
Lou smiles. “You said it. I didn’t really want to go to a place like that anyway. I’d rather go back to your house and smoke a fatty and listen to some music.”
“Me too.”
A full moon spills a silver sheen on the rolls and swells of the countryside.
The night darkens around them with a strange roar like a hot air balloon, a crack like dull thunder overhead.
Momo looks out the window. “What was that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see anything.”
They blink, aware again of the dull grumble of the Honda; the whoosh of heat from the vents.
Momo pushes the power button on the radio. The dial lights up, rectangular green with digital numbers, 104.1. Guitars spill out, a singer with a voice like a purring tiger.
The car jerks, as if a strong wind has jolted it momentarily off its tires.
Lou steps on the brake. “What the hell was that?”
Momo’s eyes are wide like bloomed daisies. “I don’t know, but there’s a shadow on the field – like an airplane. Only I think it’s flying really low.”
Lou cranes her neck to see out Momo’s window. She catches a glimpse of a massive wide-winged shadow slipping between the moon and the earth. “It looks more like a glider.”
Lou pulls into the bumpy scrub grass on the roadside. She puts the gearshift in neutral, yanks the parking brake erect. She steps onto the cracked pavement, tilts her face to the sky and the dark silhouette above her. Long wings flap, crack like distant thunder. But it isn’t a bird. Can’t be.
The creature circles elegantly back towards them, stretching the length of its slender neck, snapping its pointed tail. Its beak is long and sharp at the end. It has a large triangular top knot on its head, like the pope. Or a pterodactyl.
Lou springs back inside.
Momo is still watching the sky. “Oh my God!”
Lou shifts into first gear with a nervous grind. “Do you think that thing would attack the car?”
“What is it? It looks like a dragon!”
“Or a pterodactyl. It couldn’t be, could it?”
Momo shakes her head emphatically. “Pterodactyls are extinct!”
It swoops over them again as they pick up speed.
Its shadow is lost in the headlights.
Up ahead, the creature lowers itself ungainly to a telephone pole. It folds its wings like a dark cloak, stands taller than a man.
Lou slows as they get closer. “What the hell is that?”
“Speed up.”
“I want to see it.”
“Lou, speed the fuck up!”
The creature spreads its long wings, flaps clumsily to take the air once more, spiraling gracefully upward into the star specked sky. It circles back in their direction.
“No, Momo, look. How many chances do you get to see a pterodactyl?”
“I’ll marvel about it in the morning – if we ever make it back to my house!”
The car shakes again.
Lou grips the steering wheel tightly, her knuckles white, her pink nails pressing into the fleshy part of her hands. “It’s trying to pick up the car.”
Momo takes a deep breath, her pale slender hands brace against the dash board. “Okay, okay, we have to calm down. We have to be logical.”
“All right. Take a deep breath.”
The car rocks again.
Lou peers ahead. “It’s trying to get us.”
Momo shakes her head. “No, no, it can’t be. It must be something the government made. It won’t hurt us.”
Lou's eyebrows come together. “The government manufactures pterodactyls?”
“It’s some sort of war thing. The ‘Men in Black’ are going to come and tell us we never saw it and everything will be fine.”
“If it were going to pick up the car it already would have. Calm down.”
“All I know, Lou, is that this is modern times. I mean, the road is still here so it’s not like we got caught in a time warp that took us back to the Jurassic Age, right?”
“Yeah, there is definitely still pavement.”
Momo nods. “Yeah, pavement. Just a few more miles and we’ll be home.”
The car rocks on its tires, crosses the yellow line, swerves back, the wheel spins crazily. “Shit shit shit!”
They plunge into the ditch. The engine sputters and dies.
Lou turns the key.
The car rocks again. Two screams pierce the interior. The radio jangles softly. They sit still and rigid for a moment.
“Maybe if we talk to it in a loud voice it will go away,” Momo says.
“Are you insane?”
“Possibly, but if you see a bear or a mountain lion or something you’re supposed to talk in a loud voice and scare it away.”
“I don’t mean to be negative, Momo, but this thing could eat bears and mountain lions.”
Momo cracks her window. “All right you big mangy bird thing, beat it! Do you hear me? We aren’t afraid of you and we’ve had just about enough, so scram or we’ll shoot you right out of the sky! We’re humans! We have guns!”
The night falls silent. They peer at the moon bathed landscape, dark pinons and dappled hills.
Lou turns the key in the ignition. She pushes the gearshift into reverse. The wheels spin. “Shit. I think we’re stuck.”
“Is the bird gone?”
“I don’t see it, do you?”
Momo cracks the door cautiously.
Headlights flood in behind them.
“Oh, thank God,” Lou says. “Maybe someone will help us.”
“Lock your door, quick, until we know who it is.”
A moment later, Ernie leans down and grins at them through the window, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, a stray curl dipping over one eye. “Well, well, well, looks like you girls are in a bit of a jam.”
“We’re women,” Momo says. “And we’re fine. Go away.”
“Didn’t I tell you you’d need my help some day, Lou?”
Momo leans across Lou. “She doesn’t need your help.”
“Roll down the window,” he says. “Come on. You know I can get in anyway if I want to. Might as well save the wear and tear on the car.”
“You break it, you’re paying for it,” Lou says.
He looks up. The cigarette falls from his mouth. For a moment he is speechless, gaping, eyes wide. “What the-“ Two huge clawed talons close around his shoulders. He is jerked upward. His patent leather shoes kick at the window, rise out of sight. His high pitched scream fades.
Lou turns to Momo’s pale face. Her eyes are wide. She dissolves into giggles holding her sides, tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Momo – of all the things I fantasized happening to him – this is so much better!”
Momo breaks into laughter. “Get a hold of yourself! This is serious!”
Lou wipes her eyes. “I know! It’s dreadful! Horrible!”
“We have to get out of here before that thing comes back.”
“The car is stuck!”
“What about his? He doesn’t need it.”
They crack their doors, peer out. The big black sky is empty save the moon and stars.
They duck low and run to the truck. The engine is running, the headlights still beam. The radio blares heavy chainsaw licks. Momo slides into the driver’s seat, moves it up. Lou slams the passenger door.
“God, it reeks in here,” Momo says.
Lou moves her shoes through the pile of fast food bags and wilted paper cups on the floor. “He’s still a disgusting slob.”
Momo shifts into drive. The tires squeal on long lonely pavement. She turns off the radio. “I’m sure I’m going to wake up any minute now. Tell me this is a dream.”
“If you’re having this dream, I am too.”
“Shit.”
Lou leans back. “I used to imagine pounding a metal stake through his skull – right between his eyes – slowly – while I told him all the reasons why I hated him so much.”
Momo moves her eyes briefly from the road. “Maybe this is your dream.”
Lou opens the console between them. “Maybe he has some drugs or something.” She pulls out a box of condoms, a dagger with a skull-shaped handle – red rhinestones in its eye sockets, a pair of handcuffs. “Aha,” she finds a small piece of folded paper, opens it, puts a finger in the white powder, rubs it on her gums. “Cocaine. Just what we need.”
“I think I have enough adrenaline pumping through my veins to keep me high for the next ten days.”
Lou tosses the cocaine back into the console. “It isn’t like him not to have a joint stashed somewhere.”
“I am never doing drugs again. I know the acid I did when I was seventeen caused this whole thing. Somebody told me if you’ve done acid more than seven times you are legally insane – that makes me insane at least 70 times over.”
“You can’t believe everything people tell you.”
“Look, there’s that diner we passed on the way in.”
Lou smiles. “It’s light in there and there are lots of people.”
“We’re finally back to reality.” Momo turns the wheel into the parking lot.
The UFO Diner is all chrome and neon on the outside. Flying saucers made of red tubed lights flash above the sign. The plate glass reveals a bright interior, waitresses in aprons carrying trays with long glasses of iced tea, a cooler with cream pies on carousels.
The glass doors push open into a gift shop. Little green men with huge black eyes on key chains or stuffed, their arms open, long fingers reaching. Glow-in-the-dark flying saucer Frisbees.
“The only seats are at the counter,” Momo says.
They sidle among conversations, slip onto red vinyl stools.
Lou pulls a napkin from the holder and blows her nose.
The waitress behind the counter, rolled dimpled arms like sausages, leans down. A large opalescent moonstone hangs prominently on a silver chain between her cleavage. Her nametag says “Odetta.” “You girls look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Momo flips a cigarette into her mouth, purses her lips to light it, turns the brown plastic ashtray right side up. “Actually, we’ve just seen a pterodactyl.”
Lou laughs nervously. “Momo, you’re such a kidder.”
The man next to Lou, wearing a flannel shirt and a gray beard, one blue glass eye staring wobbly upward, leans over, his real eye focused intently. “Was it a pterodactyl or a pternadon?”
Momo shrugs. “One of those big flying dinosaur things.”
Odetta nods as if she knows exactly what Momo is talking about. “Like on that show, ‘Land of the Lost.’”
“No,” Momo says. “Those were sleestacks.”
“Can I get you some coffee, hon?”
“Just water for me,” Lou says. “And a chocolate malt.”
“I want a limeade.” Momo ashes her cigarette.
Odetta turns their white coffee mugs up and fills them. “Sleestacks. Like the president.”
The man with the glass eye says, “Uh-oh, here we go with the damned conspiracy theories again.” He turns to Lou and Momo. “You’ll be sorry you put a nickel in her.”
“People need to know the truth,” Odetta says. “Did you girls know that the president is a reptilian alien? If you look real close at his picture, you can tell. Of course they doctor it up to get him to look more human. He’s amassing the dark forces. The only thing that can save us now is the Arcturans. They’re beaming positive light at us from their station on the moon. How about some grilled cheese sandwiches?”
“No, thanks.”
“She has receivers all over the top of her trailer,” Glass Eye says. “She’s a wacko, but she makes good coffee. So did you girls get caught in a tear in the space time continuum, or was the pternadon in this dimension?”
“There was pavement,” Lou says.
Glass Eye nods his head, his unmoored eye rolling up and down. “Interesting. Pavement. Hey, you ever see Bigfoot?”
Lou glares at him. “No. We haven’t seen anything. My friend is just a little nervous because we were being chased by a psycho.”
“Wow, a psychotic pternadon?” Glass Eye’s sagging cheeks seem to fall further. “That’s pretty strange.”
“Not a pternadon,” Lou answers.
“Oh, a pterodactyl.”
“No, she’s talking about her ex-husband,” Momo says. “A human psycho.”
Odetta sets two grilled cheese sandwiches, butter-coated white bread sizzling, ripple chips and pickles on the side, in front of Momo and Lou. “There’s nothing strange about that. Human psychos are a dime a dozen.”
“Hey! Somebody call 911! A guy just fell out of the sky out here!”
“What'd he fall from?”
“It looked like a weather balloon!”
Momo and Lou turn. The man who has just shouted disappears out the door, followed by a throng of people, including Glass Eye and Odetta.
They leave their seats, slink behind the crowd.
Outside, Ernie rolls onto his back. His clothing is torn. His face is gashed and dirty. Blood oozes from slashed wounds on his shoulders, his belly, his thighs. He squints up at Glass Eye. “You got a cigarette? I think I lost mine.”
“Move back,” Glass Eye says. “Give the man some room.” He kneels down, puts a cigarette in Ernie’s mouth, lights it. “What the hell happened to you?”
Ernie takes a long drag, blows smoke. The cigarette jiggles up and down as his lips move. “You expect women to be compassionate. You expect them to be loving. You expect them to be just like your mother.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Glass Eye says.
“But they ain’t like that,” Ernie says. “You buy ‘em a diamond and tell ‘em you love ‘em and then they watch you get ripped to shreds by a pterodactyl when you’re trying to get their car out of a ditch, and they laugh about it.”
“Yup,” Glass Eye says. “Women are like that. Cold to the core. There isn’t a one of ‘em who has a sliver of compassion.”
Several people murmur.
Lou starts forward. “Bullshit!”
Momo grabs her shoulder, drags her back among the dark strangers. “Be quiet!”
A woman with eye makeup and bangs like Cleopatra steps close to Ernie. She is wrapped in sheer glittering scarves. She has a tattoo of Isis, wings spread, on one bare shoulder. “Women are naturally compassionate! The question is what does a man do to a woman to bring her to the point where she can forget her true nature?”
Several women talk at once, “Yeah!” “No kidding!”
Odetta speaks up, “That’s easy. First he comes up, just oozing charm in a pair of tight leather jeans, tells you how beautiful you are and how he can’t live without you and the next thing you know you’re crawling around on all fours on a dirty orange carpet wearing nothing but a dog collar with rhinestones and begging for just one more Hershey bar while he sweet talks some other poor sucker on your pink princess phone.”
Glass Eye stands up, hands on his hips. “Here this poor guy’s just been attacked by a prehistoric bird and you crazy women are trying to blame him! Talk about no compassion!”
Momo grabs Lou’s sleeve. “Let’s get out of here.”
They break away from the crowd slowly, slip into Ernie’s truck, and creep back onto the highway.
Coming towards them, sirens rip the night with red lights. Momo pulls the truck over and they pass – an ambulance, a police car, a fire truck.
As she pulls back onto the road, she cracks her window; takes a cigarette from the inside pocket of her leather. “Un-fucking-believable.”
“Yeah. He was never going to help us out of that ditch.”