What Alien?

Manny pushed himself up from the floor, onto a sitting position, and winced as pain shot to every part of his body.

Man does my head hurt. I feel like a dog crawled up inside of me and died, but only after it got drunk and threw up first.

He then tried to stand.

Yuch, there goes my stomach, better run to the restroom before it’s too … oh, oh, oops.

After he wiped his mouth with his sleeve he looked around the smelly room.

“Where am I anyway? This place looks weird. How did I get here? Oh... it’s my place. Why are there blood stains on the wall?"

He looked more closely at a stain nearest him.

Oh, it's tomato juice. What’s tomato juice doing on the wall anyway?

There were stains of all kinds everywhere. Empty bottles and cans were thrown on just about any place they could land. In one corner, he saw his favorite table split almost in half with cake strewn all over it and up onto the wall. Balloons were everywhere, mostly half inflated, none of which floated anymore. A banner hung from one wall that read, "Happ" on the top line, and "Birth" on the bottom, the rest was just gone.

And what was I doing laying here behind the couch?

Suddenly Manny grabbed his ears and grimaced. Someone was pounding on the front door, and, to him, it was like explosion after explosion.

“What the hell!” he yelled, “Stop it, stop it. STOP!”

He clutched at his ears trying to smother the sound.

"Manny!" came a voice from the other side of the door, "Open up!"

The explosions restarted as Manny stumbled to the door and snatched it open.

"WHAT?" he screamed, "And stop the freaking noise!"

"Manny are you OK?"

"Hey, JD, yeah, why?"

"Well, you know, the alien, man," said JD.

The spinning in Manny's head was slowing down enough for him to better concentrate on JD. His friend was one of those guys who was lost somewhere in between the seventies and eighties. He wore his hair long, and always unkempt. He wore only jeans, and his sandals looked so raggedy that one had to wonder why they didn't just fall apart. Plus, he always looked like he just woke up.

"Alien?" asked Manny, "What freaking alien, JD?"

"The one that came out of the rip and ruined the cake."

"There was a cake?" Manny scratched his head and gestured for JD to enter.

That’s when JD started looking around the room.

"Manny," he said very slowly, "it looks bad in here; even worse than last night."

"Huh, oh yeah. We must have had a blast."

"Like literally," said JD letting a small whistle, "What do you remember?"

"Well," said Manny scratching the stubble on his chin, "We started the party about ten. Victor and Doogy were here, and, oh yeah, they brought some girls with them."

Manny's eyes suddenly widened, "Hey, JD, did one of those girls and I ..."

"I don't know, Manny," said JD, "I was too busy trying to get the alien to quit dancing around the room."

"Dancing?"

"Yeah, he, uh, I think it was a he," said JD wrinkling his brow and squinting his eyes, "anyway, he kept on dancing around the room and I kept chasing him around trying to get him to stop."

Manny stared at his friend as though he had three heads.

"Wait a minute," he said to JD, holding his hand up, "Start from the beginning."

"OK, well, after the girls arrived Doogy and I went into the kitchen and were mixing the drinks for the party when suddenly there was a whooshing sound, so we then ran into the living room to see what it was."

"Uh, huh," said Manny.

"Well, just as we entered, we noticed this rip in the air.'

"Rip? In the air?"

"Yeah, a rip. You know, like when you tear a paper, except it was in the air."

"The air was ripped?"

"Yeah, that's what I said. Then from the rip, this alien walked into the room."

"Uh, how did you know it was an alien?" asked Manny incredulously, thinking he was being punked. He made cursory glances around the room looking for hidden cameras.

"You know, the head."

"Head?"

"Yeah, it was big and he had big eyes. A Grey. It was like in the movies."

Still not believing what he was hearing, Manny said, “Uh, huh. Go on."

"Well, he looked around and started smiling. We think he said ‘hello’ or something like that."

"He spoke?"

"Yeah, uh, I don't mean in English or anything like that. It was just some sounds that we took for 'hello.'"

JD stopped for a moment, probably deciding whether to go on or wait for his friend to ask a question, and then continued.

"Well, I walked over to him and offered him a beer."

"What did he do?"

"He took it and started drinking."

"He didn't check it out first," Manuel asked disbelievingly.

"Nope. He just grabbed the bottle, tipped it over his lips and guzzled the beer down.'

"What happened then?' asked Manny.

"Well," said JD slowly, and hesitantly, “That’s when it started getting wild. The alien popped back into the rip and then came out holding some bottles of his own."

"Bottles of what?"

"I don't know. He gave one to each of us."

"What happened then?"

"Manny, it was wild. Like it wasn't you. Maybe it was because it was your Birthday Party, but you opened the bottle and drank it down without stopping."

"I did?"

"Yeah, then you fainted away. Seeing that, the rest of us decided to drink the stuff more slowly. The alien, though, was drinking all the beer we gave him. He was so drunk he was running and dancing around the room. Then, all of a sudden, he just flat went and fell under the table on which the cake was sitting. We thought, at first, that he might have killed himself drinking so much when suddenly he sat up so fast that he broke the table in half and went right up into the cake."

"He went into the cake?"

"Yeah, and then he jumped up and started dancing again."

Manny backed up a bit, found the edge of the sofa, and sat down. This was too much for him. His head started spinning again.

"Is that all that happened," he asked JD, not really sure he wanted to hear more.

"Nope, that's the thing, it was like the little guy was just building up steam."

Manny looked around the room at all the destruction and mess, and asked, "What happened then?"

"We were having a great time," JD stopped for a moment and grinned, and then said, "That is after we pulled you over behind the couch.”

“You moved me behind the couch?”

“Well, yeah, you were in the way. The alien wanted to dance some more. We ran out of beer, so we gave the alien some liquor we mixed with tomato juice. You know, like a Bloody Mary, of sorts. The alien just seemed to get happier and started dancing faster. Well, then one of the girls started dancing with him and everything was going fine until the alien made a pass at her."

"Made a pass?"

"Well, actually, he grabbed her butt. She kind of let out this screeching sound turned and slapped the alien."

"What did the alien do?" asked Manny.

"He stumbled back and fell into his rip, and it sealed up."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"And all this mess?" asked Manuel.

"The alien." said JD flatly, "We left after that."

"JD," said Manuel evenly, "Did all of that happen for real, or are you just messing with me?"

JD smiled, reached into his back pocket, pulled out a Polaroid and handed it to Manuel.

It was a picture of an alien dancing in his living room, with the girls in the background clapping, while the guys were laughing at him, and you could see Manny's feet sticking out from behind the couch.