Chapter Fourteen A: Interview

“That’s an amazing story, Governor,” he said, turning off his recording device. “It will certainly liven up the rather dry history we’ve currently got of the War on Terrorism. I have to be honest with you, however, and tell you that not many people will believe it. This idea that there could be aliens who look like us, talk like us, and feel like us, but are somehow connected to a higher purpose is a little, if you’ll excuse the phrase, hippie drug culture. Even your own statements would lead one to believe that you were often under the hallucinating influence of drugs. Not that anyone in this day and age would judge you for that. It just casts doubt on your credibility.”

Former Governor Aaron Case sat in his mobile chair looking out the window at the new construction that was going on in the neighborhood. Over the past few years the urban sprawl of Fort Wayne had broken all constraints and occupied the better part of three counties. He had to admit he was responsible for some of it. He’d purchased this property when it came on the market nearly forty years ago and began developing it, including the nursing home complex that he now lived in. He knew that the young interviewer, compiling oral histories of turn of the century would not be likely to believe his story any more than he had believed Mad Aunt Hattie. But he had waited as long as he could before he told the story. He could feel his time on earth running out as surely as if it were grains of sand through his fingers.

Well, that was one thing that they couldn’t deny. The expanded Indiana Dunes State Park and National Shoreline were directly attributable to the campaign he waged as Governor of Indiana from 2009-2017, and as an activist for twenty years after that. He had saved the jobs and lifestyles of hundreds of families when the steel and oil industries collapsed. They didn’t collapse because of anything he had done, but simply because they were obsolete. The old harbor still functioned as an international mooring, more likely to see cruise ships than barges, but still a functioning international trade center, exactly twenty-seven feet deep. But he had waited until now to divulge his theory that there were aliens among us, influencing the growth and development of our world, here to guide, lead, and inspire.

Old people, he decided were good at waiting. He’d been active and still driving well into his 80s, but by 90 he was more willing to sit and wait for a ride when he wanted to go somewhere. If it was winter, he discovered he was willing to wait until spring before he really went anyplace. There was something to be said for waiting. It allowed an old mind to wander through places it had nearly forgotten. In one’s mind, one was ever nineteen. It was only in the mirror that the idea was put to the test. Now he was what? 95? He’d nearly lost track. A hundred years ago the world was just recovering from the end of the Second World War. Forty years ago it was embroiled in the War Against Terror. And he had done his part to fight in that war, uncovering a plot and a terrorist act to poison the Great Lakes. There were not many people who knew, as he did, that finding that canister of mercury had saved more than the Lakes. He could still see visions of what Chicago would have looked like if there had been a mid-lake Earthquake of the magnitude of that which he had foreseen.

“Governor Case?” the young historian was attempting to call him back from his reverie. That was the trouble with the young, they weren’t willing to wait. “Governor, are there any other comments you’d like to make before we consider the story complete?”

“It’s never complete, young man,” Aaron growled. “That’s why we keep collecting the memories of people. Each memory fills in another niche of knowledge.”

“Yessir,” the interviewer acknowledged immediately. Aaron case had been a historian before he became involved in politics and had more books to his credit than this young researcher. “I sometimes wish I’d been able to collect material like you did in the old days, sir. We have so much recorded history these days that you can’t really get anything new from the oral histories.”

“Still, you come around interviewing old people,” Aaron said. “What do you hope to gain from our stories, knowing that they can’t be verified? Did we make it all up? Were we on drugs? Did we simply come across an old urban legend and decide to make it our own? How do you separate the truth from an old man’s stories of aliens?”

“Well, we can’t really,” the interviewer said. “It is all just looking for pieces that we can fit into the puzzle. If you mention something and someone else mentions it, then it is possible that it has some grounding in history. We dig in new places and try to find hard data that corroborates the story.”

“And what is your thesis on?” Aaron asked. His young interviewer was working on a PhD thesis.

“Individuals in the War on Terror,” the interviewer said. “It’s an examination of how the war affected individual lives and changed the way people viewed themselves as citizens of a global society.”

“And that is the story I am giving you. Not only did it make us into global citizens, it got us out there to do our part to save the world.” Some how Aaron felt he was coming off sounding angry at this poor young guy. He just wanted to help him see. “There are no documents available on some things. You’ve researched the Lake poisoning, did you find anything?”

“No sir. There was a weekend of articles that seemed to agree with what you’ve told me, but there was a retraction printed. Homeland security said there were no relevant levels of mercury found in the water and that the mills had all supplies accounted for.”

“So even that is suspect in your mind,” Aaron said. “You see, history is written by the winners and it glorifies the losers to admit that they were clever or that they almost got the best of you. How do you prove otherwise?”

“You interview and hope that eventually you uncover a piece of evidence that will stand up to scrutiny,” the interviewer answered.

“And when you find that piece of evidence,” Aaron continued, “Do you splash it all over the front pages or do you try to quietly insinuate it into a tine subculture? How do you decide if you should change people’s perception of reality?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Neither do I. So I kept it all these years trying to decide.” Aaron moved his chair over to his closet and opened the door. “Up there,” he said. “Hand me that red plastic box on the right.” The interviewer reached to the top shelf and pulled down the box and handed it to Aaron. Aaron moved back to his table and opened the box. There were assorted memorabilia that he had never shared with anyone, had kept in his possession for all these years He had never decided what to do with them. Now he knew. The time had come.

“Here,” Aaron said, pulling an old cell phone from the box.

“Is this a cell phone?” the interviewer asked, automatically fingering the earbud that had probably been stuck in his ear since he was ten. No one actually carried handheld hardware anymore. This was an antique. “They don’t even have that kind of service anymore do they?”

“No,” Aaron said, “but you don’t have to make any calls on it. I pull it out once a week and charge it, so you just turn it on and switch to the picture library.” The interviewer followed the instructions fumbling with the primitive user interface, but finally managing to display the picture library. He gasped as he looked at the screen.

“Is this for real?” he asked.

“This is the cell phone I was carrying around during the first part of 2006. Those are the pictures I took inside the old church. If you go to voice notes, you’ll hear the original recording of Alex Jasper that Susan and I recorded that night,” Aaron said. “I had to keep it all, but I never knew what to do with it.”

“Are you kidding?” the young man said. “You should have had this broadcast on all the media. This is earthshaking.”

“Should I?” Aaron asked. “Does the earth need any more shaking than we’ve given it in the last half century? Why should we really care?”

“Don’t you think we should?” said the young man.

“I think you should,” answered Aaron. “Someone should always know the truth. But I was not meant to know any of this and if it weren’t for Mad Aunt Hattie sending me on that wild chase into the country I’d never have become an accidental witness to these events. She passed her memories down to me and in my way I’ve passed them down to you. If I hadn’t known, perhaps Pol would still be alive and guiding, leading, and inspiring. Or perhaps civilization would have been wiped out by the eco-terrorists. How are we to know the right way to handle this information.”

“But with this, we would have proof,” the young man began. Aaron took the cellphone from him and opened the back of it. He removed a tiny storage card, then closed the phone back up. He handed the phone back to the young man.

“I have all the proof I need,” Aaron said tapping his head with the tiny storage card, “right up here. You collect your own.” With that, and considerable effort on his part, Aaron snapped the storage card in half with his fingers. The young man gaped at Aaron’s crude display of destruction.

“But that could have been used,” he began.

“Exactly,” Aaron said. “Young man, I was twice your age when I made this discovery and not wise enough to know what to do with it. I’ve told you because I have to tell someone. But I won’t give you my proof. If they look like us, talk like us, act like us, and feel like us, who really cares if there are aliens among us? They are here to guide, lead, and inspire; but someone has to know what they are following. Now you are that someone. You know but what will you do with the knowledge?” Aaron tossed the old cell phone and the broken storage card into a trash chute that would lead to an incinerator. The young man stared speechlessly.

“I wish you great luck with your compilation of the oral history of the War on Terror,” Aaron said. “And thank you for spending so much time with an old man.” The young interviewer was dismissed and silently took his cue to leave. Aaron turned back toward the window. “Kids,” he said to himself. “Doesn’t even know you could doctor photos then.”

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