"You Never Did the Kenosha, Kid!"

To find the Salem Slot High stadium, all you gotta do is follow the drums. You can hear them ‘cross town, that machine gun regular sort of pat-pat-pat from the little drums, the thundering artillery of the big drums, infantry in the form of trumpets and trombones, maybe an OSS guy on the xylophone, all wrapped in patriotism and spectacle, sort of like one of them rallies at Nuremberg, ‘cept this is a bit more secular…

The sun’s setting now as the Salem Slot Scarecrows get ready to take on their next-door rivals. Admission’s free, least when it’s this early, so I step inside. Gee, what a stadium! I’m in the bleachers, which go up and up along one side of the freshly-painted field. Dozens of students are already here, dressed in black and scarlet, the school colors of the Slot. A big scarecrow face is painted across the center of the field, staring back up at me, just like the School on the hill, where we don't get to play football. Come to think of it, when I compare the School to here...there’s lots of people 'round you right now, and you ever realize you're kind of small, Mary Lou Sunday? Guess being with the same people day in and day out makes you wary of anyone new. And big crowds. And those drums! Goebbels would’ve killed for them.

Below the stands there, Brad said. Feeling a bit in a trance, ‘cuz everyone’s so loud, I peek in between the metal rows of the bleachers and find my man. There’s a back staircase at the edge of the bleachers, and that takes me to Bobby Wood.

“That’s my name,” he sez. He must’ve had a crew cut at one point, but it’s a bit overgrown and unkempt now, and he dresses in a red-and-white-striped polo shirt and khakis.

“I’m Mary Lou Sunday.”

“Ah, shoot. Not supposed to use names.” His eyes are red and he smells kind of odd as he glances around. “Okay, we’re good.” He pulls out a funny-smelling cigarette. “Smoke this. It stops their mind control. I got it from Tibet.”

“Tibet?” I take a big puff. It’s familiar, from that one time I wanted to be rebellious and found a willing Marine with the stuff.

“Gee whiz,” I say. “You got reefer from Tibet?

Bobby nods. “Yeah, Big Jim Tibet. He lives in a trailer park north of town. Grows it himself.”

“It don’t stop mind control,” I say, though it don’t stop me, either. “It’s just reefer.”

“It’s natural, expands your mind,” Bobby sez, growing animated. “That’s why the government locks it up. Can’t have you questioning what Uncle Sam did in Iran and Guatemala, can ya? I swear, one day, they're gonna declare some sort of War on Drugs, 'cuz a war on a concept can go on forever, it's target list perpetually expanding...”

“Boy golly.”

“I like you, Mary Lou. Most people would’ve ran off, screaming about reefer madness.”

“Aw, shucks. Does that mean I ain’t normal?”

“Normal?” Wood raises an eyebrow. “You wanna be normal?”

Smoke hides my face from him. “You prolly won’t believe me, but I come from the School on the top of the hill. Everyone thinks it’s an asylum, but nobody from the Slot ever visits, so they probably don’t know it’s a school.”

I return the reefer to Bobby, who finishes it off with a perplexed look on his face. “I believe you entirely, Mary Lou. It makes perfect sense! They call it an asylum on the outside, but they use it for secret government programs on the inside. What’re they schooling you on?”

I sigh in relief. I’ve finally found someone I can talk to without feeling all weird. “Dr. Funny sez we’re beings beyond our fleshy, corporeal forms. We got powers of the mind beyond the prison of the body. Mind control, astral projection, shoot lightning from my fingertips, that kind of jazz.”

Bobby’s jaw slackens. “Groovy! Can you do all that stuff?”

“Well, nah. Least, not that I can remember.” I point my arm out. “Sooper-dooper lightning powers, go!” I tense and strain and put all my mental strength into pooping out lightning, but all I do is start laughing.

Bobby sighs. “It’s my dream to meet someone with psychic powers. It’d be just like a recent strip of Rocket-Man, or one of my favorite movies, Invasion of the Fifty Foot Mutants!”

“I ain’t no mutant,” I answer quickly, too quickly. “I wanna be normal, Bobby Wood. That’s my dream. Well, that and the weird one.”

Autumn leaves swirl past us. The game’s started; the crowds cheering and stamping their feet, creating thunderclaps above us.

“Well, psychic or not, you’re a swell girl. What’s the dope on your weird dream?”

I rub my chin (swell? He sez I’m swell? Wait…and he sez he likes me?). “I ain’t never tell nobody this, not even Dr. Funny, ‘cuz it freaks me out, but…hehe, hoo-hee, golly. You got any hamburgers or sodapop? I could eat a buffet right now.”

Wood holds my hands. “Focus, Mary Lou.”

Well, how am I ‘sposed to focus when a boy’s grabbing my hands? They’re rougher than I expected, yet tender all the same.

My face goes red. My heart pounds like a drum. 

Golly, is this…is this…

Woooooah-oh-oh

Woooooah-oh-oh

Man across the aisle, you’re meant for me (Woooooah-oh-oh)

No! No time for your songs, Mary Lou. Time to focus, ‘cuz maybe telling someone ‘bout this dream will make it stop happening.

“Imagine a white void,” I say. “A white canvas. Then there’s flashes. A blonde woman. Barbed wire. A ferry. Then I’m in my living room when a soldier knocks on the door. He wore a fedora and smoked a pipe, but I know he’s a soldier ‘cuz he brought that telegram with him. The telegram that says your daddy’s dead, Mary Lou Sunday. Blown apart by a Nebelwerfer at the Bulge. Here’s all that remains of him. And then the soldier hands me his dog tags.”

“Far out,” Bobby whispers. He holds my hands tighter. “Sorry ‘bout your pa, Mary Lou. So he died and your mom’s not there no more, I reckon, so they sent little orphan Mary Lou to the government psychic power school disguised as an asylum?”

He lets go to jab a thumb at himself. “Well, I’m your guy. I know who’s really responsible, and we’ll get to the bottom of this!”

He’s…he’s gonna help me? Does that mean, he, you know…?

I grin like a fool, ‘cuz I know your mine (Woooooah-oh-oh)

“It’s the Grays!”

What!

“...the who?”

“Beings from another planet! It all makes sense.” Bobby starts pacing. “The Majestic 12, Project Blue Book, Roswell, the Ghost Rockets, the Foo Fighters. I mean, it’s a known fact that the Nazis made contact with the Grays, and those scientists were picked up by the United States through Operation Paperclip!"

"...known fact?"

Vigorous nods. "Super Science Monthly had an entire issue dedicated to it. The Grays were attracted to Earth by our atomic programs. I mean, even here - the day after Hiroshima, a mother and daughter got murdered in their home up on Maple Street. They were abducted and dissected, I say. The house is still abandoned.”

I cock my head. “...just what kinda movies you’ve been watching?”

“Mary Lou, your School is run by aliens!”

I shake my head. “No such things as aliens. My school’s run by a scientist named Dr. Funny, and Headmistress Ingrid handles discipline. They may be monsters on the inside, but they’re certainly human.”

“Grays wearing human suits, just like the Men in Black!”

“You see too many monster movies…movie popcorn, gee whiz, I heard a lot about that, gotta get me some…”

The crowd above all at once lets out a gasp; then it goes quiet. Guess we must’ve dropped a pass or something-

“Oh, geez.” I take a step closer to Bobby and gesture with my head. There’s a staircase on the other side of the bleachers, and there she is. Tall and dark - Ingrid. Two men in fedoras and gray suits follow behind her, hands suspiciously in jackets.

“We gotta run, Bobby Wood,” I say. “Those are your grays over there.”