I am a chemeleon

the horror fairy

Miller decided to update our relationship via a telephone call at 6 o’clock Monday morning. It probably could have waited until I got out of bed, but that’s Miller – always a crisis. After waking me, he proceeded to inform me in his customarily breathless fashion that he desperately needed a story by Thursday for a middle-of-the-road collection of SF stories he was putting together. He said the writer who was supposed to supply the story had already missed two deadlines, and he hoped the weasel had AIDS or liver cancer or both, and would I please, please, for the sake of God, Buddha and the New York Football Giants, help him out of this terrible jam?

“Not interested,” I said.

“I’m paying four cents a word, Jerry.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Look, I’m desperate,” he said. “How about six cents a word?”

I listened to the static on the telephone line.

“Okay, because we’re friends, I’ll pay seven cents a word, but not a penny more.”

When I closed my eyes and focused all my energy on my sense of hearing, I thought I could detect another conversation elsewhere on the telephone line.

“I bet you kick old ladies when they’re down,” Miller growled. “Eight cents a word. Take it or leave it.”

“Sold! You got yourself a Grade A, USDA-approved writer,” I said cheerfully. “Anything special you want in this story, or do you just need some copy to fill space?”

“It has to have a human. It has to have an alien. They have to meet. It has to be between 4,000 and 5,000 words. It has to be in English. And most important, it has to be here, in my mail drop, no later than Thursday. I’m serious, Jerry. If it’s not here Thursday, don’t bother to send it.”

I hung up, showered, shaved, brewed a pot of coffee, treated myself to a pair of eggs over easy, took a seat in my thinking chair and rummaged through the story ideas I had filed away under “Possibilities” in the recesses of my memory.

That didn’t take long. I didn’t have a single idea.

I wasn’t worried, though. I’m a pro, after all, not some dilettante who writes only when the muse provides encouragement. I must have churned out a dozen alien-encounter stories over the years, maybe more. I didn’t expect much trouble coming up with another. Hell, at eight cents a word, I probably could have written an entire novel by Thursday.

Still, I didn’t have any ideas. Not yet anyway. As I do whenever I’m stumped, I reverted to my daily newspaper training. The first thing you learn in journalism school is that a newspaper story must contain Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. So, in a fashion, must all other stories. And Miller had made it easier for me: He told me what the What was – man meets Martian (or whatever).That left me with the Who, Where, When, Why and How. No problem. I figured I might as well start with Who. The name John sprung to mind. It didn’t strike my fancy. How about Jack? Ditto. John Jack had promise, but not enough. Too staccato, I decided. Johnson Jackson? I liked that, but it sounded too familiar. Sure, sure, I’d used it a couple of years ago in another story. Jackson Johnson? No, I’d probably end up confusing myself, if not my readers. There was something about that name, though. I thought about it for a minute before lighting upon what it was: Both parts were both surnames of American presidents.An American president as the protagonist of my story? Sounded interesting. But which one? Certainly not the current president, not unless I planned to go the comedy route. (He’d already managed that himself in the classic man-meets-chimpanzee flick, Bedtime for Bonzo.) I went to the other extreme and considered George Washington. No, I’d never especially liked him. Abraham Lincoln was my favorite president, but he seemed too deeply rooted in Americana – log cabins and all that – to be the subject of an alien-encounter story. Next on my list was Thomas Jefferson, the Renaissance man of the Founding Fathers. He had had an abiding interest in science – even dabbled in alchemy, I seemed to recall – and his life was studded with paradoxes, conundrums and virtually unbelievable coincidences. Maybe, just maybe, he could be rigged for the role.

Okay, so Jefferson would be my Who, but what about my When? Before he became president? After he retired to Monticello? The year 1776 jumped out at me. What had