It didn't take long for Brad's new assignment to lose
what little appeal his editor had managed to give it. Brad
had thought, or perhaps hoped, that an expose on the
homeless might amount to something, but he found the same
disappointment he'd found with all his other assignments.
After three days of combing the streets, all he had for his
efforts where tired feet and a notebook full of lies and
excuses. To make matters worst, Brad knew that he didn't
have any one to blame but himself.
The problem sprung from his unquenchable desire to find
a big story where there was none to be found. When he left
the office, his immediate reaction was to hit the city's
homeless shelters and interview the 'guests.' What he found
there was exactly what he expected to find... nothing.
Actually, the shelters were often so full that they were
turning people away, but the stories the people told Brad
were the same stories he'd read a thousand times before of
bad economic times and lack of jobs for unskilled laborers.
Brad needed something new... something different. He
wasn't concerned with the transient homeless-- those who
didn't have a place to live for a month or two while they
looked for work-- Brad was interested in the hardcore
homeless. He knew that was where the real scoop was. He
had to talk to the homeless people who wouldn't go to the
shelters or accept the vouchers for welfare hotels. If he
could find out their stories, he might have a chance at the
big time.
That's where the notebook full of lies came from.
On his second day on the street, Brad tried to walk up
to a few of the street people and talk to them. This proved
to be a poor tactic because these people were instantly
suspicious of anyone initiating a conversation with them.
He wasn't sure whether they thought he was going to steal
their 'stuff,' force them into a shelter, or start preaching
to them, but whatever the situation, the people were not
about to open their hearts.
Realizing that he would have to entice them to speak,
he decided to lure them with the universal bait: money. His
plan was simple. He'd wait on a street where he knew he'd
see one of his subjects with a five dollar bill in his hand.
The theory was that when they tried to panhandle the money,
he'd offer them the five if they'd tell him their life's
story. The problem here, was you get what you pay for.
See, for about five dollars you can rent a couple of
video tapes, get a paperback novel, or catch a bargain
movie. But you don't want to see a movie about the life of
the average guy. You want adventure! Excitement! So, for
five dollars, you'd expect a story that was bigger than
life. And that's what Brad found out.
One man told Brad that he'd been computer programmer
for IBM and had been fired by jealous superior when he wrote
a program that made a computer think like a human. Brad had
never known a lot about computers, but when he asked how
much memory the program took, the man explained that he'd
written it down so he wouldn't have to remember it at all.
The more the man talked the wilder the story became until
Brad finally just walked off. Using the five dollar tactic,
he managed to meet the man who designed the rocket booster
'O' ring that blew up the Atlantis (Brad didn't bother to
remind the fellow that it was the Challenger that blew up);
the second gunman in the Kennedy assassination (he didn't
look a day over thirty); and last, but not least, two Elvis
Presleys.
After spending forty-five dollars, Brad went home and
considered his next move. He remembered what Mr. Wheeler
had said about going undercover to gain their trust, but
Brad knew better then to try to fool these people. Even if
he wore his worst clothes, old Duckhead slacks didn't fit
the street person profile. Besides, all these people had a
certain unusual quality about them... something in common
that Brad couldn't hope to duplicate. Besides, if you want
to catch a fish, you don't dress like a trout and wait for
them to come out of the lake to you.
That's when it hit him: money wasn't the universal bait
he'd always thought. If these people cared about money,
they'd look for a job like the people in the shelters and
get off the street. These people were just taking his money
to tease him, which explained the wild stories. Armed with
this revelation, on the third day, he was ready.
Early that morning, Brad went to a doughnut shop near
his apartment, bought four dozen doughnuts, and headed for
one of the run-down parts of town he hadn't been before. He
leaned against the fender of his Pontiac Firebird, placed
one of the open boxes next to him, and waited for the first
prospect to wander by. Within moments, a slovenly clad,
unshaven man stopped on the sidewalk in front of Brad. He
looked longingly at the doughnuts for a silent minute, then
looked at Brad. Brad told the man he could have one if he
wanted and watched as he grabbed it from the box and stuffed
it in his mouth. Without so much as a thank you, the man
shuffled off. Brad didn't mind his rudeness, as he looked
at it as the first step to winning the man's trust.
Before long, it seemed as if every homeless person in
the neighborhood was within sight of Brad's car. At first
the thought made him nervous because he wondered what he'd
do if they tried to overpower him and steal the doughnuts.
Luckily, they filed by one-by-one, never getting within
twenty feet of each other, and took a doughnut. Brad didn't
ask any questions, and he didn't place any conditions on the
doughnuts other than limiting them to one per person. At
about ten thirty, he gave away the last doughnut, got in his
car and left.
He hadn't gotten any interviews or names, but he was
fairly sure that he'd established a better reppore with this
group of street people than with any others he'd met. What
he was hoping, was that it was true that an animal would
return to a spot where it had found food. To test this
theory, he ordered fifty sandwiches from a nearby deli, and
returned to the same location at one o'clock. His intention
was to offer food, and hope that these people wouldn't bite
the hand that fed them.
To his elation, within fifteen minutes of his arrival,
the people began to file by for their sandwich. Some of the
people looked as if they hadn't eaten in a week, smelled as
if they hadn't seen a bar of soap in a month, and were
dressed in clothes Goodwill would have thrown out. As Brad
watched them move past he was amazed at how they almost
didn't seem human; but, instead, like some strange tribe
from the Amazon. It was an unusual feeling being near a
group of people who were so anti-social that they didn't
even want to associate with each other.
Around two thirty, the crowd had disappeared, and Brad
found himself alone with two sandwiches left. At first he
wondered which two people hadn't shown up, then he realized
that he'd ordered fifty sandwiches and four dozen doughnuts.
Some quick math told lead him to beleive he had one hundred
per cent attendance for lunch. He smiled at the thought,
but was suddenly distracted by a movement in the distance.
For a moment Brad wondered if he was getting jumpy from
being near so many strange people, but then he caught a
glimpse of someone poking his head around the corner of an
old warehouse. A tingle ran up his spine when he realized
that no one else was around. He wondered if one of the
gangs had heard about the guy giving away food, and came to
check him out. He wondered if one of the people wasn't as
far gone as the others, and might want to try to steal his
car. The more he wondered, the more worried he became.
Brad slowly moved toward the side of the car, unlocked
the door, and placed his key in the ignition. He told
himself that he had nothing to fear, but wanted to be ready
just in case. He let the door shut, but not latch, and
turned his attention back to the mysterious figure in the
distance.
After another minute, the head peeked around the corner
again... but this time it didn't jerk back to its hiding
spot. Brad watched, as a man slowly moved his body inch-by-
inch around the corner. When the man was flat against the
wall, he stopped moving. He remained totally motionless.
In three days, Brad had seen some very unusual actions, but
this guy was definitely number one on the Top Ten list of
the Strange People.
Another moment passed before the man gained enough
courage to move. Brad waited patiently, and actually felt a
sense of accomplishment when the person started toward his
car. Obviously, this individual was more disturbed than the
others, yet he'd decided to come out and see what was going
on. Brad didn't know whether it had been on the suggestion
of one of his previous patrons or because he had watched and
seen that Brad wasn't badgering them. Regardless of the
reason, Brad had gained a small degree of the man's trust,
and that was a start.
As he approached the car, Brad took mental note of the
man's clothes. He wore a pair of old trousers with a hole
in one knee and a patch on the other, one knit glove on his
right hand, and had a pair of tennis shoes that must have
had a hundred thousand miles on them. As it was the middle
of September, and the nights were becoming chilly, it didn't
surprise Brad that the man was wearing a coat. The fact
that the coat was a military fatigue coat didn't surprise
him, as many of the street people had been given their
apparel by the Salvation Army or some other charitable
organization. It was easy for Brad to imagine the coat as a
donation from someone who had recently gotten out of the
service. Yet, that didn't seem to be the case with this
man.
The coat was the standard camouflage field coat that
was worn by most of the armed services, but it appeared to
be almost new and fit the man rather well. Furthermore, it
bore all the appropriate insignia that one would expect to
find on an Air Force uniform which made Brad wonder if this
guy could be a recent veteran. On the other hand, he could
just be some crazy that liked to hangout with the homeless.
As it turned out, Brad was half-right on both counts.
The man approached slowly and cautiously, occasionally
looking over his shoulder or past Brad. When he was finally
within ten feet, he began to move around the front of the
car until he had positioned himself on the far side of the
hood. Unlike most of the others, he didn't look at the
food, but looked directly at Brad. The man's stare made
Brad nervous: he had never seen such a blank, yet intense,
stare before. It was the look of a combat soldier who had
been in battle too long.
"Which one are you?" asked the man in a low voice.
For a second Brad was speechless from the shock that
the man had spoken to him. When he recovered from his
initial reaction, he realized that he didn't understand the
question. "What's that?"
"Which one are you?" asked the man once again. "Are you
Roger or Wilco?"
Brad had heard that it was a good idea to humor crazy
people, but wasn't sure that it would be wise in this case.
If this man had been searching for this 'Roger' so he could
kill him, and Brad humored him by saying he was Roger, he
could end up dead. "My name is Brad," he answered.
The man leaned over the car hood to examine Brad
closer, cocking his head and shifting from side-to-side to
change his viewing angle. When convince that he had made a
mistake, he stood upright and relaxed. "I never could tell
them apart, but your head is too small. You know, I can't
be too careful. They're still after me."
Brad suppressed his smile. He'd lucked onto a talker,
maybe a little kooky, but he was talking none the less. He
slid the box of sandwiches across the hood of his car to the
man. Maybe the guy was actually crazy, after all, he was
definitely paranoid; but Brad needed something to work with.
If he could find out what was going on in the man's head, he
might be able to relate it to why he was homeless.
Brad thought very carefully about what to ask the man.
Knowing that if he said the wrong thing it might scare him
away, he tried to measure his words for exact effect. He
considered asking who was after him, but decided that the
"who" of the story was actually irrelevant. It was the
"why" that caused the man to live on the streets. "Why are
they after you?"
The man took the wax paper off the sandwich, folded it
neatly, and placed it on his breast pocket. It impressed
Brad that the man snapped the pocket shut, and smoothed out
the wrinkles before picking the sandwich up from the car.
"They want to give me to them. It's that I can see them.
They said they were invisible, but I could see them. They
were black. I'd hear them first. They flew by night, but I
could see them in the day. And I could hear them. First
I'd hear them, then I'd see them. But they said they were
invisible, so they want to give me to them."
"They want to give you to the invisible things?" asked
Brad.
"No, no. They want to give me to Roger and Wilco, like
they gave them the other people."
"What did Roger and Wilco do with the people they were
given?"
The man leaned closer and his eyes grew wider. "They
put them on a flying saucer, and sent them into space. You
know the birds live in space, too. They could see them.
The birds see everything."
Brad rolled his eyes; he'd found himself a live one,
alright. "Maybe I can help. What's your name?"
The man stopped in the middle of chewing and began to
twitch nervously. His eyes began to shift and his head spun
as he checked the area around him. "No!" he cried, causing
half-chewn bread to fly from his mouth. He swallowed hard,
set the rest of the sandwich on the car, and began to back
away. "The aliens are out there. They can talk in your
head. They talk, but their little mouths don't move. If I
tell you my name, they'll come get me."
It didn't take but a second for Brad to realize that he
was in danger of loosing the man. He decided to try
something desparate to keep him from running away. Because
he never had an interest in the military other than exposing
their covert activity, Brad wasn't familiar with the Air
Force rank insignia. He had seen and read enough that he
knew that if you had more than three stripes you were a
Sergeant. On the jacket's sleeves were a matching set of
cloth patches that had five stripes with a circle and star
in the middle. Over the man's right breast pocket, was a
dark blue and green name tag that read "GATEWOOD." Brad had
one chance to convince the man to stay.
"Hey it's alright. I'm not one of them. I want to
help you... Sergeant Gatewood."
The man froze in his tracks and again flashed Brad the
blank stare. He slowly reached for the sandwich and
snatched it from the hood of the car. "How did you know my
name?"
Brad almost laughed out loud. This guy was so crazy,
that he didn't even realize that he had his name embroidered
on his jacket. Rather than remind the poor fellow, Brad
chose to lie. "I told you... I'm here to help you. Now,
these invisible things, were do they come from?"
"They come from the sky. They fly at night, and in the
day, they live in the hangars." Gatewood finished the last
of his sandwich and reached for the other one. Before he
could get it, Brad snatched it up and held it in front of
him.
When he saw the look on Gatewood's face, Brad couldn't
help but liken it to that of a child who had been denied a
special toy. For a moment he thought Gatewood was about to
cry, but his face soon turned to a pout. Brad waved the
last sandwich in front of Gatewood to ensure he had his
attention. "These things, what are they called?"
"Called? Some call them Ghostriders, some call them
Specters, others call them Wobblin' Goblins."
Brad placed the sandwich on the hood, slid it toward
Gatewood, but didn't remove his hand. "Are they at an Air
Force base?"
"Yes," answered Gatewood as he stared at the sandwich.
"Which one?"
Gatewood hesitated, then answered: "Nellis."
Brad removed his hand, Gatewood grabbed the sandwich,
and ran for the nearest deserted building. Brad shook his
head in disbelief, brushed the bread crumbs from the hood of
his car, and left.
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