The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria Read online

Ham was already hugging his rifle and rolling off the hood of the truck by the time Alex had raised his binoculars. He saw a man and a woman. They looked white, but some Mexicans do. The man wore a tuxedo with a lavender ruffled shirt, and sported pomaded black hair and a mustache so precise he must have trimmed it with a stencil. He was Fred Astaire thin and seemed to have no trouble trekking through desert terrain in tuxedo shoes. The woman was every bit as light on her feet, even though she wore a red flamenco dress and black flamenco heels. She carried a folded fan in one hand and her skirts in the other, and she had a huge red flower tucked behind one ear, burning like a star against her brunette, tightly-bunned hair. The pair did not look like people who’d risk their lives hiking through the desert for days in order to violate American immigration policy. They looked happy, clean, and hydrated, like a rich couple leaving a Spanish-themed costume ball.

  They were still a ways off, chatting and laughing amiably, when Ham reentered Alex’s field of vision. Ham was chugging toward the couple faster than Alex thought he could possibly move, the bacon suspenders struggling with all their might to keep his buttcrack from showing. A losing battle.

  “Ham!” Alex yelled as he mobilized. “Stand down, stand down!” But Ham had played this scenario out too many times to stand down now. He dropped to one knee and steadied his rifle. Sort of: its aim heaved along with his chest. “Freeze! Mexi! Cans!” he yelled between breaths.

  “Oh, we aren’t Mexicans, Ham,” said the woman. Neither Ham nor Alex should have been able to hear her so clearly from that distance. It was like her voice had emerged from within their own heads. That made Alex jump.

  A few seconds later, Ham flinched. His cholesterol-coated reflex arcs took a little longer to react. “The hell you know my name, lady?” he asked finally.

  “We are aliens,” said the man. He sounded exactly like Ricardo Montalban, may he rest in peace.

  “Exactly!” said Ham, straightening his aim. “And we’re here to stop aliens from entering this country.”

  “No, numbnuts,” said the woman. “Not Mexican aliens. Actual aliens.”

  “Extraterrestrials,” the man added helpfully.

  That word, “extraterrestrials,” had come from Alex. The man had reached into Alex’s brain and borrowed it. Alex could feel it. It felt like the man was a cook searching for a recipe and Alex was his recipe box. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, exactly. But if you haven’t agreed in advance to serve as someone’s recipe box, it’s a bit of a violation.

  Alex, now next to Ham, patted Ham’s rifle until it pointed at the ground. He grabbed Ham by his left armpit and lifted him to his feet. Looking at the man and woman, he said to Ham: “You’re a slow-witted fuck and these really are aliens. I need to think, so I’m going to buy us some time. Follow my lead.”

  “Yeah bro,” said Ham, his rifle still pointed at his own left boot.

  Alex walked over to the aliens until they were in hand-shaking range. “You say you’re extraterrestrials? Prove it.”

  “Sure thing,” said the woman. “How?”

  “Well, show me something alien. What can your kind do?”

  “Oh,” said the man with honeydripping Montalbanity, “we can manipulate matter in ways that will seem godlike to you. How about we fulfill some minor wish of yours?”

  He squinted at Alex for a moment, and then, smiling broadly at what he’d discovered there, turned Alex’s truck into Margaret Thatcher.

  The Iron Lady wore one of her classic no-nonsense skirt-suits—this one a flattering powder-blue—and sensible heels. Her hair was a petrified corona of orange dye.

  “Couldn’t you at least have imagined her in a bikini?” said Ham.

  “Show some respect, shithead,” said Alex out of the side of his mouth, straightening himself as Thatcher strode toward him and shook his hand.

  “Alex. Pleasure to meet you,” she said.

  “It’s truly an honor, Madame Former Prime Minister,” said Alex. “You’ve been a hero of mine ever since I was a kid. I would follow you even unto the gates of Hell.”

  Thatcher nodded once at him, as if she accepted his fealty and, indeed, might someday call on it. Then she walked over and greeted Ham, then each of the aliens.

  “Alex is a big fan of yours,” said the Montelban look-alike. “You are literally his dream come true. Ham, by contrast, only vaguely knows who you are. He is currently trying to picture you wearing a bacon bikini.”

  “What? No,” Ham protested, but he could tell no one believed him. So he changed tack: “Just how deep into our heads are you, aliens?”

  “I don’t know about my friend,” said the woman, “but I’m far enough into your brain to serve as your conscience: a position, by the looks of things in here, that’s been vacant for a long time. So as my first act as your new conscience, I’m recommending that you seek professional help. Nobody needs that much porno, bro.”

  “I’m too weak to stop,” agreed Ham.

  Thatcher crossed her arms and said, “Enough chit-chat. Have you aliens come to invade Earth?”

  “Oh,” said Alex. Then: “Oh!”

  “What?” asked Ham.

  “These aliens,” said Alex, cottoning on even as he spoke, “are obviously powerful enough to destroy us without breaking a sweat, seeing as they were able to fashion a perfect Margaret Thatcher out of a Chevy. But we’re still here, so total annihilation doesn’t seem to be what they’re after. So maybe invasion is the plan. Is it?”

  “No,” the man said affably.

  “Then what?” pressed Thatcher.

  “We are explorers,” said the woman, circling the humans, fanning herself. “We seek to befriend all intelligent life in the multiverse. Do you know how the multiverse works?”

  Ham and Thatcher shrugged. “I saw a special on the History Channel,” said Alex.

  “Here you go,” said the woman, and inserted into their minds a complete understanding of the multiverse.

  “My God,” said Thatcher.

  “It’s so beautiful,” said Alex.

  “They should have sent a poet,” said Ham.

  “As you can see, it’s all very complicated and very interesting,” the woman continued. “So we’re making site-visits to all sentient life-forms to learn as much as we can from them.”

  “But we have rules,” added the man. “We always approach a new civilization cautiously, inconspicuously. We wear the local bodies, partake of the local metabolism: you know, try to blend in.”

  “Dressed like that?” asked Ham.

  “Our research indicated that these were appropriate costumes for this location and time. Are they not?”

  “Not unless you’re an extra in a Zorro movie,” said Alex.

  “You see?” said the woman. “There’s only so much you can learn from afar. That’s exactly why we’re here.”

  “We don’t make contact with leaders at first,” the man picked up. “We don’t want to become pawns in the local planet’s political maneuverings. Instead, we meet with common folks like you. Get the lay of the land, see if this is a good time to begin a conversation with the species. Only when we’re satisfied that all the planet’s sentient species are ready to join the greater cosmic community do we share our technology with them.”

  “Like, how to turn a beat-up 2008 Chevy Silverado into the greatest stateswoman ever to grace world politics?” asked Alex.

  “You’re too kind, really,” blushed Thatcher. Briefly, their eyes met.

  “That’s nothing,” said the she-alien. “We will teach you to manipulate matter in ways that will redefine what it means to be human. Poverty, privation, and scarcity will all be a thing of the past. Economics as you know it will cease to exist, and with it war itself will vanish. You will no longer be bound to Earth and its finite resources. You will travel the stars, like us, and forget all about your petty governments squabbling over pitiful tracts of land or trickles of water. You will become citizens of the Cosmic Interbrane. Our arrival will begin a new evo
lutionary stage for humanity.”

  Alex and Ham looked at each other. “That sounds great,” Alex said breathlessly.

  “We’ll be heroes!” said Ham, breathily.

  “You shall not pass!” exclaimed The Iron Lady.

  “Madame Former Prime Minister?” questioned Alex.

  “You’ll need to take this up with the American government, Mr. and Mrs. Alien. Otherwise, you will be in violation of U.S. sovereignty.”

  “Excuse me, truck-woman,” said the she-alien, “we’ve already told you our rules expressly forbid us from beginning our interactions with a new species through a governmental entity.” She fanned herself testily.

  Thatcher put her hands behind her back and, with a lawyerly air, paced around the aliens as she spoke: “So you’re saying that you specifically do not want to deal with any governments before you determine if humanity is ready to accept the gift of your advanced technology. And if you do deem us ready, then your technological gifts will allow us to manipulate matter so effectively that poverty and war will cease to exist, and as a consequence Earth won’t need ‘local’ governments anymore and instead can join whatever ruling body it is that you belong to. Do I have all that right?”

  “Yes, that’s more or less it,” the man said uneasily.

  Thatcher turned to Alex and Ham. “This is an invasion, plain and simple. If you help these aliens do what they want to do, you will be aiding and abetting in the very destruction of the United States of America as you know it, and indeed, the entire world. Do you want to destroy America, Alex and Hamilton?”

  “No!” knee-jerked Ham.

  “No,” said Alex more slowly, “but this is an unprecedented situation, Madame Former Prime Minister. We’re being given a chance to achieve world peace.”

  “Gentlemen, I believe in duty,” said Thatcher. “Did you not promise to protect the Arizona border against aliens trying to enter your country illegally?”

  Alex began to lose his patience: “Oh Jesus in a jumpsuit, Maggie, no one was talking about these aliens! We were talking about Mexicans.”

  “Just Mexicans, Alex?”

  “No, not just Mexicans,” Ham added helpfully. “People from Central and South America and the Caribbean, too. You know, poor people. Who usually speak Spanish. Sometimes French. But not Canadians; they’re all right.”

  But hearing his position in Ham’s mouth lent Alex clarity. “Madame Former Prime Minster is right,” he said, his voice reluctant but resigned. “An alien is anyone who is not a citizen of the United States. Period. We are not authorized to grant legal alien status to anyone we meet on this border, no matter how many trucks they turn into conservative luminaries. Our sole mandate is to keep unauthorized aliens out. And right now, these two are unauthorized. Illegal.”

  “You are welcome,” Thatcher sniffed at the aliens, “to apply for a visa through the proper channels.”

  The man nodded with disappointment; the woman fanned herself dejectedly. “Well, so that’s that,” said the man.

  “That is not that!” yelled Ham. “Don’t go, aliens! Teach me how to turn trucks into women. I need that power! I give you permission to stay!”

  “No you don’t, Ham,” said Alex. “Not unless you are a hypocrite.”

  Ham stood looking alternately at the two aliens, Alex, and Margaret Thatcher. He felt strange. If this were any other day in his life, he would have just let his rage guide his actions. But now he was one of the world’s leading astrophysicists. He looked up at the star-dappled sky, wonderstruck by its grandeur. Then, unable to suppress his newfound causal-reasoning skills, he heaved a Pontius-Pilate sigh and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Alien, please contact the government of the United States for further instructions as to how you may maintain a legal residency for the duration of your stay.”

  “You know we can’t,” said the woman. “What a disappointment.”

  “All this way for nothing,” said the man, tsk-tsking. “Well, I guess we’ll be leaving, then.”

  “You will not just talk to someone else, try to get a different answer?” asked Thatcher. “You will leave, just like that?”

  “Your response has made it abundantly clear that Earth isn’t ready to join the larger interstellar community. I mean, the U.S. is the largest military and economic power on Earth. It has a history, stretching back to its very founding, of welcoming aliens and enriching its culture through the power of emigration. On paper, you seemed to us like the perfect people for us to contact.”

  “And you said no,” the woman added bitterly. Alex and Ham felt the alien presences leaving their minds. A sudden existential wind coursed through their bodies.

  “Aliens?” Ham said meekly.

  “Yes, Ham?” responded the woman.

  “I’m wondering if you could do me a favor before you go.”

  “We’re not granting any more wishes.”

  “I don’t want you to grant a new wish, I want you to undo the shitty wish you granted Alex, the one that cost us world peace and awesome superpowers. Can you please turn Margaret Thatcher back into a truck?”

  “What?” yelled Thatcher. “Now wait just a—”

  “Is that what you want too, Alex?” asked the male alien, straightening his mustachios with his pinkie.

  Alex looked at Madame Former Prime Minister, his longtime hero, a voice of integrity and resolve at a time when reasonableness and common sense seemed out of vogue. He’d always dreamed of sitting down one-on-one with her and hashing out the planet’s problems, shooting them off a picket fence like so many lined-up bottles. The world needed more Margaret Thatchers, that was for sure. And tonight—a miracle!—it had been granted a second one.

  But there was sand in Alex’s boots. “Well, it’s too far to walk home,” he said.

  “No!” screamed Thatcher, shielding her face, but there was nothing she could do. A moment later she turned back into a rusty Chevy Silverado idling fitfully in the Arizona night.

  Fantaisie-Impromptu No. 4 in C#min, Op. 66

  This isn’t any ordinary piano. This is the infamous Bösendorfer Imperial Concert Grand that Václav Balusek had custom-built for his comeback at Carnegie Hall. One of the first things you’ll notice is that it has nine extra keys: five whole-tones and four half-tones beyond the lowest A of an 88-key piano. All the extra keys are black.

  I was fascinated by them when I first saw them 15 years ago, and I’m even more fascinated now. They’re the bad boys of the piano-key world, the kind of piano keys my dad would never let me date in high school. They whisper to me, in the way only inanimate objects can sweet-talk the insane: “Play us, and you will evoke sounds so forbidden your very soul will thrum.”

  Like everyone, I want my soul to thrum. I run my long nails over the keys like I’m scratching the back of a lover.

  But playing Balusek’s piano uninvited would be unforgivably rude. I’m here at the home of the Baluseks in Coral Gables. Consuela, Václav’s formidable lawyer wife, is being a proper Cuban host and fetching cafecitos for us, which is how I ended up alone with the piano in the mansion’s conservatory. I remind myself that you don’t just start playing world class musicians’ priceless instruments, especially not without permission. But I’m still sitting on the bench, petting the keys.

  Tickling these ebonies, Gabby, I think to myself, might be more than bad manners. It might be sexual harassment.

  I don’t really believe that, but the thought helps me come to my senses. I rise from the bench, take a breath, lift the hair off the back of my neck to let it cool. To remove myself from further temptation I circle the grand piano, taking notes and pictures like a proper reporter should.

  God but this piano’s a work of art. At first glance it might pass for a traditional grand, lacquered to a gleaming black and oozing old-world, Austro-Hungarian charm. But soon you’ll notice the brass-and-glass touches that a generation ago would have been called Steampunk: the scrollwork on the brushed metal hinge of the fallboard; the rectangular portholes in i
ts body, framed by verdigris-veined copper; the gorgeous, Rube Goldbergian system of pulleys, wheels, and hinges that make up the gloriously overengineered pedal lyre.

  It’s the kind of grand piano some billionaire archgeek would order as a showpiece for a living room, more for the eyes than the ears. It’s not the instrument I’d expect a world-class pianist like Balusek to commission. And it’s really not the vessel I’d expect Balusek to choose as his home for life after death.

  Did I forget to mention that? Yeah, in case you’ve been in a coma for the last decade: Václav Balusek is dead. At least his body is. But true believers like his wife have maintained that his soul lives on in this beautiful, diabolical piano.

  Consuela (maiden name Oquendo) returns bearing a silver tray that looks like she lifted it from The Cloisters. It’s laden with demitasses of espresso and squares of buttered Cuban bread piled up like a carbohydrate Tower of Babel.

  I thank Consuela and pluck myself a demitasse; she rests the tray on the Mondrian coffee table and sits next to me on the parlor’s zebra-stripe sofa; apparently she gives zero fucks about matching décor. Their oft-photographed home used to be filled with B-movie brica-brac, back when sci-fi enthusiast Václav had a say in matters like these. But even if you believe Václav’s still alive inside his piano, Consuela’s the only one with eyes anymore. So I guess she gets to make all the interior design choices in their marriage now.

  When I don’t take any bread, she says, “You have to eat, mi niña! I never would have landed Vaclavito without my curves. Take it from me: men don’t like broomsticks.”

  Ah, the cheerful, feral brusqueness of the Cuban jefa. It’s a type I know, and have even sought to emulate in many ways: tireless, cheerful, self-assured women who work 80 hours a week at their jobs, keep their homes impossibly clean, go to church every Sunday, and never, ever let their kids forget who’s in charge.

  They’re great 85% of the time. But they can be a bit, shall we say, peremptory. Like Consuela, they’ll tell you to your face you’re too skinny. And God help you if they think you’re too fat.