THE NIGHT THE ALIENS CAME
© Elizabeth Jane Andreoli 1994-1997
"Oh God no! Not Enrico! Who the hell booked him into see me today!"
".... says he’s homeless," mumbled the homelessness assistant defensively.
"How the hell can he be homeless! He’s one of our tenants for Christ’s sake. Can’t his housing officer see him?"
"He saw her yesterday, and told her that he is in danger, and fleeing from threats, violence and intimidation, and according to your seminar last week on the interpretation of the legislation in respect of groups who would otherwise be deemed to have no priority need for housing ....."
"Okay, okay," muttered Maggie. She knew when she was hoist with her own petard. It was all very well trying to apply the homelessness laws with compassion and without prejudice to all sectors of society, as she had declaimed in her bible-thumping seminar, but this is where it got you. Double the work-load, no extra staff, and an interview with a nutter first thing Monday morning.
Oops! "Nutter" was a judgmental term and precisely the kind of discriminatory attitude she had set herself to abolish. Let’s say that Enrico Miller was perceptually challenged.
Enrico Miller was one of the regular crosses that have to be borne by housing staff the whole world over. Christened plain Henry Miller, he had survived thirty-five years slipping in and out of the system like a small fish in a large net. There wasn’t really a system that could contain him. His parents had vanished off the scene early on - his father after conception, and his mother shortly after his birth. He was brought up in care through a series of foster homes, halfway houses and supported lodgings - dreary kitchens shared by other rejects and drop-outs. Sorry - that was incorrect. Shared by other victims of dysfunctional families. They say that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Enrico Miller’s was a life designed by a committee. Too many committees. Maggie suspected that if all the case conferences held on Enrico Miller were collected together, the volume would be thicker than War And Peace. They had probably held a case conference to decide on whether his mental state was sufficiently stable to start potty training.
Enrico Miller, the man, was a curious mixture of social triumph and defeat. His language was a demented blend of social-worker-speak and science fiction. The latest letter on his file, demanding a transfer to a bigger flat, was typical:
"I hereby demand that you give me my rights in full consideration of my status as a human being and as a Member of the Electoral Roll, a Tenant of this Council and a Member of the Human Race in that it would be BENEFFICIAL to my mental and phisical WELL-BEING to be transfered immediately from my flat. I demand to be treated like a Human Being and not a specimin. We all inhabit the same Planet and should respect one another and not treat Human Beings of which I am one like SPECIMINS."
Like many people in his position, he had been forced in on himself at an early age. Encouraged to analyse his own feelings to the point of self-destruction. "Henry, how do you feel," was the prefix to almost everything that had ever been said to him. He had protected himself by withdrawing to an inner fantasy life. Now, at thirty-five, the withdrawal was almost complete. Only when he was winkled out of his shell to face unpleasant truths like Council Tax debts or rent arrears did the real Henry Miller surface. That was usually unpleasant. The real Henry Miller was a scarred, diminished creature - inadequate, peevish, lonely, angry. Enrico Miller, however, self-styled Italian and sci-fi fanatic, had total self-confidence. Having grown up in a world where the only frame of reference was himself, he naturally saw himself as the sun around which the lesser planets revolved. He truly was a self-made man. Unfortunately, he had had to do it without the blue-prints.
Maggie gloomily studied the file. A dismal pattern emerged. Medication for a mental condition. Recovery. Lucidity. Deterioration. Confrontation. Avoidance. Breakdown. More medication. She wondered which part of the cycle he was on at the moment. Probably confrontation It seemed that his science fiction interest was becoming an obsession. There were angry letters on file from the couple in the flat below him complaining about his home-made UFO tracking device (UFO tracking device?). Apparently this was some form of adapted radio that screamed interference at high volume while Enrico leaned at a suicidal angle from the small balcony of his top floor bedsit and scanned the night sky with a sixteen foot length of copper piping. The housing officer had asked with interest how they knew it was sixteen feet long. The wife replied with prim satisfaction. It had gouged a two inch hole in the ceiling of the stair-well and scraped some rubber from the third step as he carried it upstairs. Her husband, a carpenter, and therefore skilled at measurements, had used his plumb-line and together they had taken soundings, as it were, of the depth of the well. The measurement from the step to the ceiling was fifteen feet ten inches, which, if you took into account the two inch gouge, added up to a sixteen foot pole. Maggie marvelled at the mentality of people who would go to such lengths to prove such an irrelevant fact.
Enrico had a devastating interview technique. He had soon learned that sentences that began with "Mr. Miller," were rarely nice to listen to. Nobody, for example, ever said "Mr. Miller, would you like another drink?" or "Mr. Miller, here’s fifty quid." So, he simply cut them off at source by talking over them very loudly and very fast. It was virtually impossible to get any information across to him face to face. He said what he wanted to say, then left. So, long letters would be sent, painstakingly covering the points raised in the interview. These would be sent back, covered in corrections, and incomprehensible notes. He never kept anything. His drawbridge was up. His moat was flooded. Where did you go from there?
At 9.15 prompt her telephone rang. "He’s here," said the receptionist, succinctly.
He sat opposite her in the stuffy interview room. His mane of blue-black hair, dyed when he decided to become Italian, was a shocking contrast to his pale face, flat blue eyes and sandy eyelashes.
"Good morning Mr. Miller," she said briskly. "Now, let’s get down to business. You saw your housing officer yesterday and told her you were under threat of violence. Can you tell me ..."
"I want a transfer. I’ve got to leave my flat straight away, do you understand? So where are you going to move me?"
"Mr. Miller, before we discuss that I have to ..."
"Because it’s really urgent that I am moved today. Straight away. I’ve heard all your excuses. I’m sick of your excuses. They don’t mean anything. They don’t get me any further, and I have to tell you that I am not safe. I have to get out immediately."
"I need to know what has happened, so that I can assess..."
"You are not listening to me. I am telling you that I am physically threatened. Yes! And none of you will believe me!"
".....you under the terms of the homelessness legislation and then decide how best to ..."
"What about my rights as a human being? I am human you know in spite of everything they’ve done to me. Oh yes. They’ve tried very hard. VERY HARD!"
"Are you listening to me, Mr. Miller?"
"Very hard, but they can’t see me. They can’t get through to me because I keep myself protected. See this?" He drew a bundle of notes from his pocket. "The Government and the Queen would love to get their hands on these."
Maggie reached for the notes. "Are these a diary of the threats against you?"
He snatched them back, affronted. "Oh no! These are not for you! Oh no. There are secrets here. Here. In my hand. There are secrets here that are vital to the country. Vital to the world. You can’t have these."
"Look Mr. Miller. What is it you want from me? This appointment was made because you told your housing officer that you had suffered threats and violence. If you are not prepared to tell me what these threats are - LISTEN to me please! - then I can’t do anything to help you."
"Yes. I have been threatened. I have indeed suffered threats to my person."
"Did you report it to the police?"
He laughed. Great gusts of theatrical, ironic laughter.
"You say I should go to the police."
"Yes I do, Mr. Miller. You should ..."
"You say I should go to the police! What for? What can the police do?"
"You can obtain an in ..."
"They have x-ray vision! They can see inside your head!"
"... junction with powers of arrest against the perpetrators of the violence and since you are in ..."
"And you tell me to go to the police. Let me tell you, it’s all here! It’s all written down here!"
"...receipt of Income Support you should qualify for legal aid."
Maggie’s head throbbed. The problem of interviewing nutters was that they threatened to take you over the edge with them. Surely she’d done the full ten minutes now. Where was that urgent telephone call that Liz had promised her? She tried again.
"Look, there is no way I can even consider helping you move unless you co-operate with me. If you are really threatened with violence ..."
"IF I am threatened with violence? I AM threatened with violence! They can come for me at any time!"
"WHO can come for you?"
"The men. The Men in Black." He leaned forwards and gestured with a skinny finger. "Cosa Nostra!" he whispered dramatically.
Maggie could not resist it.
"And exactly what have you done to upset the Mafia, Mr. Miller?"
There was a polite knock on the door which opened six inches to admit Liz’s spectacles.
"I’m sorry to disturb you Mrs Thomas, but you have an urgent telephone call."
Damn! thought Maggie. Just as it was getting juicy!
"I’m sorry Mr. Miller, but I’m going to have to end this interview. I recommend that you seek legal advice and contact the police if you feel threatened in any way. In the meantime, please contact your housing officer if you have any problems. I am not prepared, on the basis of what you have told me today, to offer you alternative accommodation under the terms of the homelessness legislation."
Christ! She thought. He hasn’t interrupted me!
He blinked, like a disconcerted owl. He had lost his thread.
"But they’re going to kill me!"
"Who are going to kill you, and why?"
Silence.
"Shall I phone your social worker?" asked Maggie, soothingly.
That did it. He was on his feet, thumping the desk.
"You don’t care! You, none of you, you don’t care! It doesn’t matter to you! You are denying my rights as a human being! You’re in league with them! Oh yes! I’ve written to the Queen Mother and she told me they are all in league together! What do you care! So! When you see it in the papers then you’ll know. I’ve heard them at night and seen the lights in the sky. I know where they land their space ships!"
"So we’re all going to be kidnapped by aliens, are we?" asked Maggie, sarcastically.
He treated her to a stare of amused condescension. He had spent a long time perfecting this stare in the mirror, and he was very proud of it.
"They don’t want you!" he laughed. "What do you think they want you for? Oh no. It’s only me they want."
Absurdly, Maggie felt hurt. Rejected. She fought to get her feet back down on Planet Earth.
"Are you telling me you want a transfer because you are in danger of being abducted by aliens? Do you think we sit here in this office so that you can come and waste our time with fairy tales about being abducted by aliens?"
He stared at her, unblinking, as he buttoned his long coat, put on his wide brimmed hat and arranged his long scarf around his thin shoulders. He turned to leave the room, then paused and looked back, and pointed at her. His mouth opened, then closed again like a goldfish. The dramatic exit line had obviously deserted him and he left without another word.
"Here’s looking at you, kid," supplied Maggie in an undertone to his retreating back. She checked her watch. Fifteen minutes. Not bad, considering. Aliens indeed! Dear God!
Enrico turned up the collar of his trench coat and considered his next move. A pleasurable frisson of fear tingled up the back of his neck. They would be watching of course. He was clever to have remembered the hat. They would not be able to recognise him from surveillance satellites if he wore a hat. Even so, it was safer to stay under cover wherever possible. Then he had to watch out for the men in black. Again he had been clever. He had dressed himself to look like one of them. Black hair, black hat, black coat. They could be anywhere. Queuing for buses. Stepping out of shops, waiting in alleys, hiding in the shadows under the bridge. They watched the humans like wolves watch sheep, and only Enrico could see them for what they were. He sidled out of the main office door checking faces as he went and casting furtive glances at the treacherous heavens.
It starts as the game of Don’t Step On The Cracks. Because if you do, as every child knows, they’ll Get You. It could be crocodiles. It could be dragons. It could be large dogs or man-eating spiders. But they will Get You if you step on the cracks. As you grow bigger, the cracks in the pavement get smaller and you don’t worry about them any more. But for some people, as they get bigger, the cracks get bigger too. They become chasms, and at the bottom of every one is a yawning pit of insanity. They become wider, and harder to jump and the rules of the game become more and more difficult to remember. So you have to avoid the cracks, wear a hat, pass on the left hand side of anyone with a dog, wear sunglasses if the traffic lights are on red to ward off the telepathic rays, don’t look down from the bridge into the river in case you can see reflections on either side of you when you thought you were alone. And if you see men wearing black, don’t look directly into their faces. Because if you do, then sometimes the fear frisson becomes a bolt of pure terror, and you see the faces change as the flesh drips off them and the red eyes turn in your direction and the probes home in and you start to scream ...........
And you wake up, drugged, to meet the placid gaze of the psychiatric nurse. His face hears and sees and speaks no paranormal. Here, everything is white and quiet, and the onion-skins of fantasy are peeled away, and peeled away to reveal - - Henry Miller. And the sky is just grey cloud. And the pavement is just grey slabs. And he is just another grey little man with no past, no future, no job, no family, no hope. And this they call Reality, and tell him he is cured.
But that was then, and this is now. And the sky is sparking with distant watchers. And Enrico Miller, spy-psycho-fiction errant knight, is running through the maze of his perilous adventure game. Only he knows about the conspiracy of the Cosa Nostra and the Aliens. Only he knows that everyone with Italian blood will be picked out, captured and tortured with fusion rays. Only he knows.
"Dear Sir,
I write to complain, yet again, about the behaviour of the tenant in Flat 15, directly above us. It is getting so we can’t get a decent night’s sleep and can hardly hear ourselves speak because of the noise he makes. Whatever it is he is using is also interfering with our TV, and since we are license holders like everyone else I do not think it is fair or reasonable for this person to go around making it so we can’t even watch our own TV at night. It is disgusting that we should have to live like this. Aren’t there laws against people like him? We feel he should be locked up and not allowed to run around disturbing normal people. Why won’t you do something? Does he have to attack us before you can get him taken away? My husband is getting very fed up with all of this and I may not be able to stop him taking the law into his own hands..........."
Dear Sir
Reference Mr Henry Miller: Allegations of Violent Attack and Related Housing Issues.
I am advised by my Client (as above) that he has requested urgent re-housing from yourselves on the grounds that he is at risk of violence from Person or Persons Unknown if he remains at his present address which I understand has been provided by your goodselves and comprises a Bedsit Flat let under the terms of a Secure or Periodic Tenancy situate at 15 Spencer Court. I am further given to understand that his request was refused, however, it would appear that there is a duty under Section 63 of the Housing Act 1985 Part III: "Housing The Homeless" to ensure my Client’s safety while making appropriate enquiries into his circumstances, and on behalf of my Client I therefore request that this duty be acknowledged and discharged with immediate effect ............."
MEMO:
To: Homelessness Officer
From: Housing Director
Ref: Mr H Miller
Maggie - I gather Mr Miller approached as homeless on the grounds of violence and was refused temporary accommodation. Please discuss A.S.A.P. We’ve had an enquiry from Shelter.
Amazing, thought Maggie savagely, how much paperwork one ridiculous man in the grip of a ridiculous delusion could cause. The solicitor who had written had an office two doors down the street. Convenient. Enrico probably wouldn’t have thought of it if he hadn’t literally stumbled against it a few moments after she had told him about legal aid. She had no real worries about the solicitor’s involvement. He was a bumbling old fool, fond of capital letters, and allergic to full stops. He was good at beating the jungle drums, but that was usually as far as it went. Shelter, however, was a more serious matter. Her boss would want an immediate report, accurate and detailed. It would take ages, and she had three appointments this afternoon.
"Liz!" she barked. "Job for you!"
Enrico, in the sanctuary of his flat, did not turn the lights on despite the thunderously dull sky, but prowled in the dusk, avoiding the windows. The air seemed charged with electricity. His hair crackled with it. The tension and excitement built up steadily, layer upon layer, as the slow hours passed and the sky darkened to premature night. He turned on the television set. The urbane man in the sober suit predicted storms on the south and gave a sympathetic smile. Over Europe, the satellite picture showed a whirlpool of clouds bearing steadily towards the Channel. It would be tonight. The tail end of the hurricane that had dashed cities to pieces like an angry god left too long in its play-pen was heading for the warm and turbulent fronts stacked high above the trembling coast.
"And in conclusion," dictated Maggie into the machine," I have no evidence to suggest that Mr. Miller’s allegations of violence against him have any basis in fact. Although he produced documentation at the interview, he refused to let me read it. When pressed for information he alluded to (a) fear of alien abduction and (b) fear of intervention by the Mafia. I therefore recommend that he be deemed "not homeless" and that Social Services be alerted to this situation."
"Hello, Social Services?" enquired Liz of the receiver, "Can I speak to - - er - - Tom Llewellyn please? - - oh - - When did he leave? - - - Okay, I’d better update my records. Can I speak to whoever is dealing with Mr Henry Miller of 15 Spencer Court? - - - yes, I’ll hold" She doodled peacefully as she listened to the line and waited. Along the top of her pad there began to appear a painstakingly perfect brick wall.
She waited. Carefully stippled the mortar. Waited. Added cross-hatching to the bricks.
"Hello? - - - oh - - - well how long ago were you involved with him? - - - Right - - - yes - - - no, I can see your problem. Finding stuff in dead records is a real pain, isn’t it - - - well, look, we are concerned about Mr. Miller. He’s been behaving very strangely. Yesterday he was in here saying he was threatened with alien abduction - - - yeah - - - mmm - - - and his neighbours are complaining about noise - - - I don’t know. We don’t keep medical information unless it’s relevant to - - - no, well - - - mmm - - - Well, no I don’t think so, I mean he’s strange but he’s never been violent. Just a pain in the - - - mmm . Well, can you accept a fresh referral? - - - Why not? - - - But surely if it was some time ago that he refused Tom’s help and since then his situation has changed - - - - okay - - - how about the Mental Health Act - getting him into mental hospital again? - - - -well how bad do you have to be before you can be Sectioned? - - - - Christ! - - - -Okay, I’ll fax you a report - - - yeah, okay. Bye."
Maggie was on the other phone. She raised her eyebrows questioningly, took in Liz’s thumbs down with a shrug, and carried on trying to explain the Protection From Eviction Act to the deaf and angry landlord who wanted his tenant out now.
Evening came and the air grew tepid. Uncertain eddies of wind fluttered this way and that. It was a night, thought Maggie, when you could believe in ghosts, and aliens with x-ray vision. There was a prickle of tension in the air. She drove home quickly. Shut the door. Postponed the shopping for another night, poured herself a drink and phoned for a pizza.
Slowly and carefully, Enrico Miller prepared himself. It was tonight. The crackling tension in the air could not be ignored. He laid out his arsenal. Black shirt, black trousers, black shoes, scuffed so that they did not reflect the light, black hat and black gloves. This was his armour against the thought probes. Black mirrored sunglasses to deflect telepathic death rays. One alien tracker device which also jammed alien transmissions. One pair of electric hedge clippers. He was particularly proud of this weapon, since it could cut and slay, and also disrupt radio waves. His weapon was also his cloaking device, and none would see or perceive him until it was too late. He plugged in the clippers and checked that they were working. In the flat below, East Enders dissolved into an electronic migraine. Last came the strip of black cloth tied carefully around his forehead. He deliberated carefully over whether this last touch was too theatrical. People might poke fun at him. So, using psychic projection, he traced a powerful amulet upon it, in black on black, to protect his third eye. Thus vindicated, he began to set up his tracking device on the balcony in readiness. After a while he took off the amulet. He didn’t want people to think he was crazy.
Huge clouds of dark grey putty were barging into each other like battleships. Thunder boomed. Lightning stabbed in blue-white flares. It was a night to believe in God and fear the Apocalypse. Enrico stood, hedge clippers in hand, bracing his pole on the balcony and fiddling with his radio for signs of alien ships. Great sheets of rain engulfed him. The noise of wind and rain and thunder drowned out his voice as he shouted out defiance at the death rays probing the sky. It also drowned out the furious hammering at his door by the downstairs tenant who had at last decided to declare martial law. This was a pity, since a nice hard blow on the head from his neighbour’s wooden mallet, delivered in the shelter and safety of his little flat, just might have saved his life.
The press, of course, had a field day at the inquest. When his charred, smoking body was found, all the usual crocodile tears were shed. How could this happen in a civilised society? Why had he not been counselled? Loved? Medicated? Locked up? Depending on which tabloid you read. And who was to blame?
For many years, the memory of his body and his pathetic bedsit haunted Maggie. He had been horribly burned, yet his face had been untouched. In death, with his eyes closed and his malformed intelligence faded away, his features were like some kind of Peter Pan - fine boned, elfin and hauntingly young. The walls of his flat showed evidence of how far he had strayed into fantasy. They were painted black and purple with nightmare alien monsters spray-painted everywhere. On the ceiling was a picture of a huge space ship, and the place was littered with cuttings and magazines - anything and everything to do with space and UFO sightings.
Who was to blame? Good question. Maybe Enrico was right. Maybe he was the only person in the world to see the threat of alien invasion. Maybe, but for him, we would all be in tanks of formalin on our way back to an intergalactic Natural History museum. Or crushed under the tentacle of a ruthless conqueror. Or maybe it just went to prove how damn stupid it was to lean out of a top floor window in the middle of a thunderstorm brandishing a sixteen foot lightning conductor.
Modified:26/7/97
Created:26/7/97