Trinity (8 page)

Excerpt #2

from
Trinity
by Judd Grenouille ©1988

At first I thought Adrienne was crazy when she told me that she’d figured it all out.

“The ones that look like people call themselves the Tylwyth Teg.”

“Adrienne,” I said. “The Tylwyth Teg are fairies. It’s an old Welsh name for them.”

She ignored me, though. “They want our children. They’ve always wanted our children. That’s why they took my first.” She was quiet a moment. “They let me see her.”

This is common; the visitors often let mothers see their taken children. (See
Intruders
, 1987, Budd Hopkins.) Kathie Davis, the subject of Hopkins’ book, reported seeing her daughter several times.

“I don’t remember, though. I remember that I saw her, and everything in my heart was so wonderful. I don’t know what she looked like, or where we were, or anything. Will you hypnotize me again?”

It has been eight months since I have last seen Adrienne. She is wearing a white dress; her hair is down, cascading over her shoulders. She looks innocent, like a girl herself. I don’t smell alcohol on her this time. She claims she is making an effort to turn her life around.

“Tell me your theories first,” I coax.

“They aren’t theories. I’m tellin’ you what they told me.” Now she looks wary instead of innocent. “The gray ones are the Sangaumans. The Tylwyth Teg want their mind powers, but they can’t find a way to breed with ‘em. So they’ve traveled the galaxy for years and years—millions of years—looking for a third species to do the mix with. And they found us.”

“Why do the Sangaumans take you to their ship?”

Adrienne sighs, like I’m slow. “Because the Tylwyth Teg are trying to make a human/Sanguaman baby in me. And they have. They made two of ‘em, but the second one must nota worked ‘cause they let me keep him.”

“What will you tell your son when he asks where he came from?”

“The truth.”

“Good,” I tell her. I wish more of the abductees that I work with could reach Adrienne’s level of openness.

“The Sanguamans like to make regular check-ups. It’s the Tylwyth Teg that really do things to me. My Earth doctor told me I can’t have more babies. I think they did something to be sure I don’t have any accidents, human or alien. Please hypnotize me, let me find out about my baby girl?”

I pull out my pocket watch, and set it spinning. Adrienne stares at it hungrily, drinking in the way the light from the open window plays on the gold of its surface. It spins, and as she slips under, her shoulders slump.

The following is an actual transcript of our conversation:

JG: Tell me about seeing your daughter.

AG: No. (She shakes her head violently.)

JG: What day did you see her?

AG: Two months ago.

JG: Tell me about that day.

AG: No.

JG: About the afternoon. Tell me everything that happened.

(AG relaxed as she talked about going swimming at a reservoir, going home, smoking some dope, and going to bed.)

AG: When I woke up my bed was surrounded in white light. I thought, gosh, the neighbors must be real mad about all this light, I’m going to wake them all up.

JG: You are or the light is?

AG: The light is here for me. I’m rising out of my bed. I’m floating. I don’t mind when the gray ones take me, but when the Tylwyth Teg come…I know it’s not going to be good.

JG: Relax. You’re safe. Where are you now?

AG: The ship. I’m with them, I’m in a big dark room, but it isn’t an examination table, it’s a room. I’m not strapped down or anything. (She sounds surprised.)

JG: Are you alone?

AG: Um…no. They are there with me, dark, humanoid shapes. They have something little with them, little and white. What is it? (Her voice is guarded, cautious, almost disgusted.) It’s white and fat and crawling…oh my God. Oh my God! It’s her! It’s her! It’s her!

JG: Tell me what she looks like?

AG: They let her crawl to me and her face is beautiful. Her eyes are like theirs, though, big and black, taking up too much of her face, but her hair is the finest, silkiest blonde. She doesn’t have any nose, slits like they got, but her mouth is perfect. She’s shy, she sits down aways away from me. She must be cold up there, naked and crawling on the floor. I tell her I’m her mama, I tell her I love her, and I want to go to her, but I can’t. I don’t know what they’d do. So I talk quiet to her, and look at her, plump little baby body, she looks healthy, but pale, you can see right through her skin, all blue veins. I reach out my hand but she don’t move. We stay like that. Mighta been a few minutes. Mighta been all night. (AG swallows, tears welling up in her eyes.) Then I’m back in my bed. And I cried, and cried and cried.

10

Kate stood in the street outside Woodstone’s Saloon, breathing in the scent of air wiped clean by the rain. She didn’t want to go in, go drink, and slip into all the old patterns. Like most American downtowns, Lott had seen better days. The historical society did their best to spruce it up. They had succeeded in bringing a few businesses in, a new restaurant, a coffee shop which seemed to be doing well, and a sports bar. But there were still empty storefronts, a few of them boarded up with plywood where kids had thrown rocks through the glass.

She couldn’t ask Val what he intended to do about his dying mother. That seemed crass and tacky. She couldn’t stay here, but she couldn’t leave him, not alone, not after waiting for so long. Santa Fe was big and sprawling and anonymous. Even now Kate dropped her head in hopes of avoiding being seen. “Papa” Guerrerez, her brother’s old dealer, sauntered by with a girl who looked like she wasn’t legal.

If Papa noticed her, he didn’t give any indication. She looked up and watched them stroll into Woodstone’s.

She stood and went to the new restaurant. The old restaurant, Rosie’s, was where she’d worked all through high school. Rosie’s daughter owned it now, Kate had heard. She didn’t want to see any of those people.

No one in the new restaurant—Loco Cabana! according to the menu, exclamation point and all—knew who she was. A new crop of bored, zit-faced high-schoolers worked the tables, and Kate saw herself in the dejected looking blonde who asked her if she wanted anything to drink.

Kate ordered an iced tea.

From where she sat she could see the street through the big windows, tinted to keep the sun out. A young man wandered in, gazing around as if this wasn’t quite what he expected, and set himself in a booth across from hers. She kept her eyes out the window; the sun was out now, baking the rain off the street. In her peripheral vision she couldn’t help but notice how straight the man sat, the prim way he held his menu. Something familiar about him? Perhaps they were two people alone in an empty restaurant. Kindred spirits?

That wasn’t it.

He didn’t look like the type of fellow to sit alone in a restaurant. His sweatshirt, UNM, was preppy but grubby, he looked like a frat boy, and those, she knew, never went anywhere without a pack in tow.

He ordered water, lots of it, and she listened in to his peculiar speech patterns when she saw Rich, wife in tow, strolling down the street. He still wore his uniform, must have just gotten off work.

She regretted the seat by the window. They were tinted, so maybe he wouldn’t—Rich saw her. She looked away, but he changed his trajectory. He let the tinted glass door swing shut behind him so Maria, his wife, had to catch it and let herself in.

He filled the table across from her, and Maria dropped to the chair on her left. She was trapped.

“Where you been?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“You seen TJ?”

Act appalled
. “TJ?” She curled her lip up, raised her eyebrows, as if the thought of her seeing TJ was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard of.

“Uh huh.”

“Why would I see TJ?”

“Where’s the child molester?” Steamrolling over questions was Rich’s specialty, and Kate wondered how he functioned as a State Trooper, where much of his job included asking questions and listening to the answers.

“With his mother.” There was no point in lying.

“One drunk loony deserves another.”

“Rich, lower your voice.” Maria spoke softly, with a voice that didn’t get much use. Raised in Mexico, she spoke with a lovely, lilting accent. She was also deadly, Kate knew. Back when Rich rolled with a third-rate gang, she’d been one tough bitch. He domesticated her, though, and it was funny to see her in clothes that looked grown-up instead of belly shirts and headbands. They’d been friends, kind of, but Maria’s alliance lay with Rich.

Rich glared at her. The old Maria never would have put up with that shit.

“He is listening to you,” she said, almost too low to hear. Maria would enable Rich until he died. Or she died, which was more likely to happen first.

Rich’s head snapped up, and he looked around, his head swiveling on his bull neck. The frat boy still held his menu, but seemed to stare through it.

“We got a extra room you can stay in,” Rich said, looking back at Kate, changing tracks so fast it made her head spin.

“I have a room in Santa Fe,” she said, which at the moment was bullshit, but she could get one. “And Val’s let me know as long as I’m here, his place is my place.”

“You disgrace me, you know that?”

“How do I disgrace a drug-dealing dirty cop?”

He smiled a faux sympathetic smile.

She guessed she could scream. He wouldn’t hurt her here, not in his uniform. She snuck a glance at Maria, but her attention was on the man sitting by himself.

Maria couldn’t save her. And even if she could, Kate knew she wouldn’t.

James Spencer came in then, wearing his own uniform, one of the deputies of the Otero County Sheriff’s Department. He graduated the same year Val did, the year Rich should have. He had a working knowledge of the history between them all (he didn’t know the whole truth—almost no one did. Maria certainly didn’t) and so he took his hat off and pulled up a chair at the head of the table. Kate could have kissed him, bless his good timing.

“Afternoon,” he said. With his round boyish face and thinning sandy hair, he didn’t look like much to be afraid of. When Spence and Rich talked about wanting to go into law enforcement, Val had been with them for some time, thinking about being a cop, moving somewhere larger than Lott to do it. He’d thought about going east or west, LA or New York, and the idea scared her. Then he got the law school idea in his head. Poor Val.

And it was all Rich’s fault.

“Get out of here, Spencer.”

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Kate. How are you?” Spence asked, ignoring Rich.

“Great,” she said.

“Your brother bothering you?”

Kate opened her mouth to say yes, but Rich spoke over her again, as he liked to do. “I ain’t seen her for a while myself. We’re catching up on old times.”

“I think we’re about caught up,” Kate said.

“How’s Val?” Spence asked. “I hear his mom’s real bad.”

“He’s all right. He’s with her now. It’s the first he’s seen her.”

“Spencer, you got TJ Drinkwater down in your drunk tank?” Rich asked. Kate sucked in her breath, tried to mask it with a drink of water. Maria watched her for a moment, her brown eyes calculating, then turned her attention back to the frat boy.

“Nope. Haven’t seen him in a while. Maybe Monday night at Woodstones?”

“He was supposed to come by this afternoon and didn’t.”

Spence laughed. “He’s probably hung over somewhere, maybe up in Allenstown with his baby mama?”

“Don’t think so.”

Maybe he got sick of your bullshit and finally took off.
It was what she should have said, but she was worried Maria would see through her, and know the truth.

“Give us a call tomorrow afternoon and we’ll see what we can do.” Spence didn’t sound concerned. Excellent. Thank goodness Rich wasn’t a classier guy with more upstanding friends.

“I can take care of it myself. I was curious.”

“Sure thing. I think Kate wants to order some food, maybe you and the Missus should get moving along.”

“I want to order something, too.”

“Is he bothering you, Kate?” Spence asked.

“Yes,” she said. Speaking out to her brother caused this knot in her gut. Pathetic. “Get him out of my face.” It made her mouth go dry to speak it out loud.

“I’m on duty, Rich. I gotta do as she asks. You don’t want to cause trouble.”

“Not while you’re around.”

Spence frowned. “You don’t want to cause trouble.”

Rich mock saluted with an easy smile that drove Kate crazy. “Anything for you, Deputy.” He used the word like a racial slur. Spence nodded goodnight as Rich and Maria stood. Rich followed Maria’s gaze to the man’s table. He sat with an untouched cup of coffee.

“You like what you hear, hombre?”

He looked up at him.

“I know not what you speak of.”

“You know not what—where’re you from? You some sort of...European retard?”

“Rich! For God’s sake get out of here,” said Spence, sliding his chair back and standing up. “You’re officially disturbin’ the peace.”

“I forgot I was under the eyes of Otero County’s finest. I’ll be on my way, Deputy.”

They left and Kate watched them stop out on the sidewalk, looking left and then right. Looking for Val?

“Don’t blame you one bit for leaving. Bad kin’s like a bad stain.”

She chuckled. “I can’t wait to go again.”

“What’s up with that guy?” Spence lowered his voice and nodded towards the man and his coffee.

“Maria said he was listening.”

Kate glanced at him, over Spence’s shoulder. He stared off into space, dreamlike. But not. More focused than a dream. Like a robot. What a weirdo. He turned to her, his head moving like it was mounted on clockwork, and they made eye contact. Kate looked at her place mat. He must be high on something.

“He’s not bothering me, he’s fine.” Something about him was the opposite of fine.

“How is Val? Really.”

She paused before she answered. She hated the way his eyebrows dropped with pity. Sympathy, probably, but it felt like pity.

“He’s a little spacey. Haunted, almost. I think his mom’s bothering him more than he’s telling me.”

Spence nodded. “He was gone for a long time.”

“You’re telling me.”

Spence smiled, pointing out the window as Val’s pickup pulled up. “Is that him? Still with the same old pickup?”

“Yup. He thinks I’m at the bar.” She got up, went to the door and stepped out from the air conditioning into the sun. The pavement was dry now, and the sky gave no indication of the afternoon showers they’d had.

For a split second she was certain Rich would be lurking behind the door, waiting to take her, but the street was quiet until she called Val’s name.

He looked to her as he slammed the truck door. His eyes looked red, high or crying, please let him have been crying. He crossed the street on a diagonal. Kate hoped Spence wouldn’t bust him for jaywalking.

“How is she?” Kate asked, feeling obligated. The real subtext of the question was “how soon can we leave?”

“Eh,” said Val. “Not well. She’s not really with it.”

“Is she in pain?”

“I don’t think so. They have her pretty well doped up.”

“I have a table inside. Spence has been sitting with me.”

“No shit! Good ole Spence.”

He followed her into the restaurant, taking off his hat like the gentleman he wasn’t, and shook Spence’s hand. The strange man looked up, and his gaze captured Val’s attention.

“Hang on a minute.” Val went to the man’s table. “Do I know you?”

“I do not believe so.”

He sure didn’t talk like a frat boy.

“You sure? You look awful familiar.”

“I am certain that I do not know you.”

“Good to know.”

Val came back and took the seat across from Kate, where Rich had been sitting.

“You want to get dinner?” he asked.

“I’m not really hungry. You can if you want to.”

“Spence? Hungry?”

“I’m on duty.”

“And you can’t eat?”

“I’ll get something later.”

“Well then what are we doing here? Let’s go over to Woodstones.”

“Maybe I do want something. A small steak, maybe?” She didn’t want him drinking. He was being so strange and unpredictable, moods and bleeding. Some of it could be attributed to the stresses he’d been though lately. But not all of it.

“Okay then.” Val gave her a funny look, then picked up the menu. She half smiled at him. He and Spence made small talk. When the food came her steak looked like a piece of a car tire with “authentic looking” flame marks. She wasn’t hungry, she picked at her dinner.

Spence’s radio went off, a crackling domestic disturbance in the trailer park at the south end of town.

“Sorry guys,” Spence said, “I’ll catch you later, though. Val, we should get a beer later this week.”

“Sounds good,” Val said.

“Oh hey—before I go. I heard something about a mountain lion out your way…most likely rabid. Watch yourselves.”

“Ten-four.” Val fired off a mock salute.

Kate gave her steak another hearty poke with her fork.

They sat, looking at one another. “I called Felix. Hoped maybe he could come out tonight, do something. I left him a message with your cell number. Let me know if he calls, okay?”

Kate looked at her phone. It was on silent, and she made sure she hadn’t missed any calls.

“Shall we leave?” Val asked.

“If you want to,” she said, clearly meaning yes. She caught frat boy from the corner of her eye, watching. He didn’t even have the tact to drop eye contact when Kate met his gaze. She didn’t look away, at first, but finally she dropped her eyes.

“You lost,” Val said, not even trying to be discreet or keep his voice down. Maybe frat boy’s bad manners weren’t that astounding.

“He must be on something.”

“Or a jackass.”

“He’s following us. Look.”

And he was, wandering out of the restaurant, looking lost and inspired, all at the same time.

“Well, he can’t get in the truck with us. No zombies allowed.”