Adrian, Former Child

 “How was it?”

            The man took his time chewing.

            “You sure you ain't Lebanese?” said the man after finally swallowing.

            “Cross my heart,” said Adrian.

            “Well, you fooled me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you was. That was better than when it used to be an actual shawarma place,” said the truck driver.

            “Thank you kindly, sir.”

            "You ever think about closing shop and making this a shawarma joint again? You sure are good at it.”

            Adrian had thought of closing shop every minute of every day for the past three years of his life.

            “Anyway,” said the truck driver. “You mind if I take a nap in here?”

            “Why not?” said Adrian.

            He closed the office and let the man sleep. Nobody else was going to show up that day. The truck driver was the first person Adrian had made happy in a long time, and inadvertently, the truck driver had made Adrian happy by not recognizing the former child celebrity. The things Adrian was used to people telling him (especially upon recognition) were, "You used to be such a cute kid" (that was a good interaction), but more often than not, it was, "You grew up to be kind of weird looking."

            Adrian had purchased the space three years ago after returning from Los Angeles. Tonight was his thirty-sixth birthday. Once upon a time, the place had been a family-owned Lebanese restaurant offering residents of Adelanto, California one of the few non-Mexican varieties of ethnic cuisine. One day, the family disappeared, leaving nearly all of their possessions behind in the shop, which coincided with Adrian being run out of Los Angeles. But he wasn’t run out, not really. His departure was no more than a quiet whimper. He could no longer handle his agent’s request to go on a podcast. Three years later, Adrian missed the sound of his agent’s voice.

            Once his agent had gone silent, the only calls Adrian got were from his mother. She mostly complained that all of her friend’s children were blessing their parents with grandchildren, and she was getting antsy. She wanted chubby cheeks to squeeze and spoil. Once Adrian had turned thirty-five, she stopped pressing the issue.

            In three years of business in Adelanto, Adrian had had a total of five clients. Of those five clients, three didn’t pay for his services and took off when they had gotten what they needed. Of the two that paid, they were paying for shawarma. Enough truckers had stopped in asking for shawarma, that Adrian eventually set out to learn how to make the stuff.

            He shut the door, not locking it in case the truck driver woke up and decided to go somewhere else after his nap. The D had fallen off the door panel, leaving the signage to read: Napso etective Agency.

            A commotion was getting everyone riled up across the street. People walked through passing cars and pushed one another (including Adrian) out of the way to get a closer look. Adrian was blinded by several camera flashes.

            “It’s him! It’s Johnny Hallbeck!” multiple voices cried out.

            This caused Adrian to freeze, and in his frozen state, Johnny noticed him.

            “Adrian! Adrian ‘Whole-eyed’!” Johnny called. “Adrian, get over here!”

            Eyes began to divert to Adrian, and soon, all the attention of Adelanto was on him. Adrian, all five-foot-five of him, walked over to Johnny Hallbeck. Hallbeck, at six-foot-three, towered over Adrian, and despite being the same age, Hallbeck could have easily passed for a decade younger. In contrast, everyone assumed Adrian was in his forties.

            “Adrian, I can’t believe this. You’re back. This is incredible.”

            Adrian didn’t know what to say, and in most situations, when he didn’t know what to do or say, he froze completely.

            “Everyone!” said Hallbeck, putting his large hand around Adrian’s shoulder. “This is Adrian Napso! This is the real Kid Detective.”

            Hallbeck leaned in so only Adrian could hear, "Do you know to this day how many people think my name is actually Adrian and that I'm the one who solved all those cases?"

            Hallbeck’s white smile beamed against the dark desert backdrop.

            “We’re filming out in El Mirage Lake tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be something if you came along? Let me make a couple of calls. The producer’s a friend of mine, this is going to be fantastic. Why don’t you give your number to my agent?”

            El Mirage Lake was a dry lakebed several miles outside the city. It used to be open to all visitors free of charge, but now, if people wanted to play around in their gyrocopters or burn out their automobiles, they had to pay for the pleasure. Adrian had only ever been there once, the day he met Hallbeck.

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Marie was crying, and if there was one thing Aslanjeriy couldn’t abide by, it was little girls upset enough to cry.

            “What’s the matter?” he asked her.

            “I can’t find Monster anywhere,” she said.

            “Who’s that?”

            “My doggy.”

            “When did you last see Monster?” Aslanjeriy asked.

            “I was walking him by our school’s playground. My dad said don’t take my eye off him, and I didn’t, I swear! I turned for one second to run to the ice cream man, and he was gone.”

            "Don't worry, I'll help you find Monster; let's start at the school."

            Though Marie was in his second-grade class, they had never spoken to one another before. Aslanjeriy thought girls were boring and not good at playing the games he and his friends liked to play, but that wasn’t reason for him to want to see her upset. His mom always told him to be nice to girls.

            They started at the school and found no trace of the dog, nor did they find Monster in any of the neighboring blocks. Even when the sun began to set, and Marie said it was time for her to go home, Aslanjeriy didn't give up on the search. That is when things started to get interesting.

            Adelanto was quite a small town, the kind of place where most people knew each other, and even if someone wasn’t familiar by name, they were familiar by face. The city was located in the Victor Valley of the Mojave Desert, and to Aslanjeriy, that containment made it feel like its own little world, and therefore, an unfamiliar face would stick out to him.

            Aslanjeriy noticed a tall man in a three-piece suit he’d never seen before. Most people didn’t walk around in the desert heat wearing fancy suits like that. The man was walking a dog. Marie described Monster as looking like a mop. This dog had short hair, so it couldn’t be Monster. Aslanjeriy followed at a distance and saw the man knock on a door. A woman opened the door and nearly burst into tears:

            "Oh my god, Bunny! You found my Bunny! I missed you so much, you stupid dog."

            As a thank you, the woman rewarded the man with what seemed like a large sum of money.

            For the following two days, seven-year-old Aslanjeriy followed this man, watching as he took dogs and cats away from their owners in public places, and sometimes was even so brazen as to go into their backyards and even enter their houses to take the beloved pets, to hand them back and collect the reward money. Aslanjeriy broke the case to the police, and the small boy from the small city of Adelanto became a local celebrity. But, after all was said and done, he never did find Monster, and Marie resented the fame Aslanjeriy had accumulated. A week after that, he solved the case of the missing geometry textbooks at Adelanto High, and a month after that, he discovered where Jimmy Hoffa was.

            It wasn't long until local media and TV producers overwhelmed the small desert community. Everyone wanted to snatch up the young detective sensation. In the end, it was Steven Bochco who prevailed, producer of TV’s Doogie Howser. Kids being doctors or pilots or lawyers were all the rage, yet here was the first actual detective, and Bochcho wanted not only to put Aslanjeriy on TV but for him to play himself. Bochcho sent a FAX to David E. Kelley back in Los Angeles:

            "This kid has got the most expressive eyes. They pop out of his head. He's a cute kid, but not in an annoying way. I'm telling you Davy, people are going to be rooting for this kid. Kids will want to be him, and parents will want to adopt him/."

            David E. Kelley received the letter and sent a fax of his own:

            “Everything sounds great, Steve, but there’s just one problem. What the hell is up with the kid’s name? The last name is fine; people might take him for some kind of Italian or Native or whatever, but Aslan Jerry? I don't know what that's supposed to be. We can't put that on TV. Change the name, and we're off to a good start."

“Hey kid, stars need a name, don’t you agree?” asked Bochco. “Take Charles Bronson. Did you know Bronson wasn’t his real last name?”

            “It wasn’t?” asked Aslanjeriy.

            “You’re not going to put Bunchinsky on the marquee and expect American audiences to come flocking. It’ll scare them away. They need something comforting and relatable. So, Charles Bunchinsky becomes Charles Bronson, and now you’ve got yourself a movie star. Say, what kind of a name is Aslanjeriy anyway?"

            “It’s Circassian,” said Aslanjeriy.

            "What did you call me? Just kidding, kid, but it's not American. Are you a proud American?"

            Aslanjeriy nodded.

            “I thought so. You’ve got all-American looks. Napso, is that Syracusian as well?”

            “It means ‘whole-eyed’.”

            "Now, that is what I like to hear! Adrian, the whole-eyed detective! You're Adrian now, kid. Adrian, with the bright, emotive eyes. You’re going to be great.”

            A month after Adrian’s eighth birthday, they filmed the pilot episode. He had never taken an acting lesson a day in his life, but that would work to his advantage. The kid was a natural. All of the adult actors got along with him on the set. Nobody pandered to him or belittled him. He held his own against veteran actors like Cameron Mitchell and Rif Hutton. He didn’t care about them or their pedigree. There was only one that mattered — Kayleigh de Mornay. She played his fifteen-year-old babysitter, who was always on the verge of a panic attack when he’d escape from the house to go on one of his adventures. Looking at her was the first time Adrian saw a girl as anything more than someone who wasn’t as good at playing games as boys. He would purposely flub lines just to make shooting with her go longer. He knew he was only eight, but if he was patient and kept calm, he could make her his. After all, their age difference wasn’t so severe. When he was eighteen, she’d be twenty-five. His own father was eleven years older than his mother.

            What complicated things was the arrival of Cindy Laramie. Halfway into the show’s first season, test audiences felt Adrian needed a foil, and that’s why Cindy, who would be playing the character of Anjelica, was thrown into the mix. She was Moriarity to his Sherlock, but after several seasons of butting heads and antagonism, they developed a friendship that turned into a will-they-won’t-they for viewers.

            Adrian never thought he’d have a crush on a girl his own age, but something was happening inside him. One day, while filming out in the desert in stifling hot weather, they held hands. It was the first time he’d ever held a girl’s hand.

            Then, Adrian turned thirteen.

“Dear God, what the hell happened?” said David E. Kelley.

            “This isn’t good,” said Steven Bochco, holding the most recent headshot of Adrian.

            “I guess cute kid doesn’t equal cute adult,” said David.

            “He’s just so goddamn unappealing to look at. It’s like all his features were smudged together from ten different people, but he didn't get any of the good parts. His head is too big and small at the same time. It's like he has no neck. What's going on there? If he were to wear a turtleneck, it's like a round head just atop a torso. Why do his eyes do that?”

            “It’s like they’re bulging out of his head.”

            Before production began on the show's sixth season, while rehearsing out on the dry lakebed, the two producers pulled Adrian aside to tell him he would take on a more behind-the-scenes advisory role. He'd still continue his real-life detective work, which would, in turn, be used as the basis for the teleplays, but he’d no longer be in front of the camera. They brought in young talent Johnny Hallbeck to play the part of Adrian. Hallbeck, just coming off the success of a stint on Pete and Pete and appearing in an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark, was a full head taller than Adrian and already had movie-star looks.

            The show reached its highest ratings with the season six premiere. Critics and viewers noted the immediate chemistry between Johnny and Cindy. Notable TV critic Alan Brendanowitz wrote: “While Whole-eyed Private Eye had enough charm to warrant passive viewing, the chemistry between leads Adrian Napso and Cindy Laramie simply wasn’t there. During Cindy’s first onscreen appearance with Johnny, where the two of them go undercover as grannies in a retirement home, the chemistry was undeniable.”

            First, Adrian was no longer a featured actor on the show, and not long after that, they revoked his access to the set altogether. By the time Adrian was eighteen, Johnny had slept with both Cindy and Kayleigh, and then Kayleigh and then Cindy, and then Kayleigh and Cindy together.

            As the years went on, people forgot Adrian was ever Adrian at all. To the world, Johnny Hallbeck was Adrian Whole-eyed. Adrian moved to Los Angeles for a new start at being a real detective. People reinvented themselves every day, and he saw no reason he couldn't do the same.

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And now, as the sun was going down over the desert and the weather began to cool, Hallbeck’s giant hand was on Adrian’s shoulder, and for the first time in years, Adrian was at the center of attention. Even by the time Adrian was sitting across from Hallbeck at the late-night diner, drinking a black coffee, Adrian couldn’t recall the active decision that led to him being there.

            “Get this,” said Hallbeck. “We’re filming a pilot for a new series. I play a mad scientist who’s been driven out of town for his experiments, and I decide to hole up in the Mojave desert. The main gimmick is each week, one of my freak experiments gets loose, and I have to chase it down and clean up my mess. Running into you, though, changes everything. Adrian, my agent is already on the phone. Imagine how much more hype there would be if you were involved in the pilot of this. The onscreen reunion!”

            “I don’t know what my role would be,” said Adrian.

            "We'll figure it out. Oh! You could be one of the experiments gone wrong! I'm trying to clone myself, but there's a glitch in the machine, or at the last minute, a frog jumps in and mixes with my DNA. You can be my weird little clone! I'm telling you, they’re going to love this. Sleep on it, okay? In the meantime, we’re filming some night shots at the lakebed. You’ve got to come.”

            Out in the desert, one could look up and see the stars in all their clarity, a sight typically denied those living in the state of California. The dry lake had been transformed into a Burning Man type of event. Hundreds of extras in different states of undress had been gathered. Some of the featured extras must have been from Hollywood, as Adrian noted they were far too appealing to the camera to be locals. There was a large wooden effigy that would serve as the symbolic sacrifice to be burned. Scattered throughout were metallic and plastic installations meant to provide the viewer with the idea that the scene was alive with activity.

            On the ride over, Hallbeck had explained that during a wild dance scene, everyone in attendance was to suddenly disappear as a result of one of Halbeck’s mad experiments. Hallbeck would then spend the episode trying to find ways to bring them back.

            After flirting with some of the featured extras, Hallbeck returned to Adrian.

            “You know, I’m actually booked to do Rogan next week. Now, just imagine if you were there too?"

            “I don’t do podcasts,” said Adrian.

            “Not yet, but you will!”

            The giant studio lights activated, shining down on the extras below who danced awkwardly to nonexistent music. The director was to yell BANG, which would serve as the moment all in attendance were to vanish into thin air. The extras earned their 100 dollars a day salary and flailed their hearts out, and when the director yelled BA—

            But the director never finished the word. Adrian watched as every extra, crewmember, grip, gaffer, actor, assistant director, security, and everyone else vanished into thin air. The lights continued to shine upon an empty lakebed. There wasn't a sound to be heard in the entire desert. Even the coyotes and insects were stunned into silence. Aware of the ever-growing ways movie magic could fool audiences, Adrian took it for an elaborate special effect. Somehow, the special effects wizards had bypassed the use of blue or green screens and made an entire set of people disappear. But why would the director disappear? As these thoughts raced through his head, the set lights began to dim, leaving Adrian utterly alone in the darkness.

            He’d appreciate the solitude and serendipity of it all had he not been so dumbfounded. Everyone was gone. He walked through the empty set, afraid he was violating some personal boundaries and restrictions, but there was nothing to stop him.

            The stars looked…wrong. He had a rudimentary understanding of astronomy, knew the names of the famous constellations, and was confident he could find his way back home based on keeping track of Polaris, but he couldn't make heads or tails of what he saw. He walked into the open desert because he didn’t know what else to do. The lack of howling coyotes did not provide him with any comfort. The silence of his surroundings was oppressive. One light in the sky shone brighter than the rest, so he followed it.

            The air was cool and clean. Gone were all the familiar smells of gasoline and smog and waste. Everything here was pure. He followed the light. The moon reliably hung from the sky, but he couldn’t be sure it was where it was meant to be. The light in the sky got brighter and more prominent. Soon, all sensation ceased; all he knew was he had to get closer to that light.

            The silence was eventually broken by the barking of a dog. A large dog resembling a mop ran up to Adrian and started sniffing his hand. Adrian dropped to a crouch to get to eye level with the shaggy dog. He patted the dog on the head and saw the name on its collar: Monster. Adrian continued his trek with a partner.

            They came upon a ridge that overlooked a small valley. By this point, the light was blinding, but it was as if the light had been expecting Adrian's arrival, as it began to dim. The light was emanating from a large, spherical object hovering about two hundred meters above the valley. It didn't produce a single sound. Beyond that, the object didn't appear to be physically tangible. It at once looked like it was thousands of miles away and uncomfortably close. It looked like an object protruding towards him and like a hole cut out of the sky or the fabric of reality. Monster whimpered at the sight of it.

            Below the sphere, roughly two hundred bodies were floating, horizontal, and perfectly still. Adrian began recording it all with his phone, not so much to show others but to show himself the next day because he would never believe what his eyes were trying to convey to him.

            Just as all the bodies had disappeared before his brain could process it, new bodies appeared all around him, almost as if they'd always been there. Six tall, slender, silky gray entities stood before him. Not knowing what else to do, he sent the video to the most recent person he’d received any messages from— Hallbeck. His phone then fell from his trembling hand. He was so paralyzed by fear that he couldn't shout, close his eyes, or turn his head away, despite wanting to do all those things simultaneously. He got the sense that the poor pup was also paralyzed into submission.

            The entities circled around him. He could feel an ominous energy radiating from them. It was like the cells in his body were being rearranged. Smells became sounds, and tastes became sight.

            One of the entities leaned in close to him, putting its face as close to his as possible. A slit opened up on its smooth, nearly formless face. A thin, lubed tube traveled from its mouth and into Adrian's. It began to pump his body full of gunk and chemicals, and each time his body tried to reject it, more of the substance flowed into him, overtaking blood vessels, internal organs, and cells.

            He is a child, walking side by side with Marie, looking for Monster. He is celebrating his sixth birthday; his front tooth has just fallen out right before everyone at the restaurant surrounds his table to sing “Happy Birthday”. Overwhelmed by surprise and all the newness of not having a tooth and being a year older and loud voices closing in on him, he starts crying.

            He is at the ripe old age of ninety-five. Everyone he ever knew is long dead. Life never got better. Every couple of years or so, he’d try to reinvent himself, but by the time he was fifty, he understood that he had experienced all there was to experience. He would never bungee jump or go skydiving, nor would he swim with sharks or explore a cave. All of the novelty of life had long since left him. He would wake up, eat, earn enough to pay his bills and copy and paste the next day. He never would have imagined it would carry on like this for another fifty-five years. Each time he visits a doctor, he is not only prepared for but hopeful for the news that he has an advanced sickness and only three months to live. That news never comes. He still has all his awareness.

            He hasn’t had a restless sleep since eighty. Ten years of waking up with two simultaneous thoughts: “I’m still alive,” and “Why am I still alive?”. Death of old age doesn't seem so bad at twenty; it's still far off. Even at forty, he would be forgiven to think, "Well, if I go in thirty or forty years, it's still a long way away," but at almost one hundred years of age, it fills him with dread. It is the only thing he thinks about, and each day he wakes up alive, he grows more and more paranoid and ill-tempered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Movement returned to Adrian’s fingers. He tried to step forward, but his legs were both asleep. The sphere and gray entities had vanished. Around him, the floating bodies had dropped to the desert floor and began to wake up. Adrian saw Hallbeck among them. Monster was by Johnny’s side.

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Episode 2850 of the Joe Rogan Experience was the most viewed in the history of the podcast. It was at the forty-minute mark when Johnny Hallbeck revealed to the world the footage he had filmed from his cellphone of extraterrestrials outside of Adelanto, California. The video captures the sphere and the floating bodies and stops at the first appearance of the Grays, capturing their likeness for a full two seconds before the phone falls to the floor and the recording stops.

            Not only was he the most talked about man on the planet, he was a hero. A certain Marie Connoway was teaching her class of second graders when the door opened, only for Monster to run full speed at Marie and jump into her arms. Despite the years apart, the dog recognized its owner right away, just as Marie recognized her Monster. The dog had not aged a single day since going missing. Hallbeck had made arrangements with the school administration beforehand to have a camera set up in the room to film the happy reunion of the woman and her dog. The video racked up almost as many views as Hallbeck’s Joe Rogan appearance.

            In the following months, Marie would become infatuated with him. They would be married by the end of the year.

            For Adrian, the following months were nothing but severe pain. He'd seen doctors throughout California, and every single one of them told him his stomach was fine. But after four months of severe pain, it was not only not fine, it had ballooned in size. He had been in the middle of boiling a kettle for tea when his bulging stomach knocked the cup out of his hand to shatter on the kitchen floor. He was in so much pain he couldn’t even go for his phone. He dropped to the tiled kitchen floor and bit down on his wrist, trying to refocus the pain.

            His stomach kept growing. He could feel a hole forming in his body, right above the pubic region. He pushed and pushed, on the verge of passing out and popping multiple blood vessels. He pushed and sweat and screamed. A small, gray hand came out of the hole above his pubic region. It was followed by a second gray hand. The hands, using his body as leverage, pulled the rest of the body out.

            Adrian had just given birth. The baby was already standing, looking the parent who had just given birth to it directly in the eyes. It had an off-gray skin color, some fuzz on the top of its head, and large eyes that Adrian immediately recognized as his own. How could it be standing on its own two feet already? It examined Adrian, tilting its head the way a dog might to get a better look. It stepped over Adrian’s body, lay between his arm and chest, and nestled its little head on its parent’s chest.

            Adrian wanted to scream but didn't want to wake it up. He felt a desire to care for the thing as well as a desire to run as far as he could and never turn back. Could he possibly raise this thing? What name could ever do it justice? He'd never felt more exposed in his life, nor a bigger physical revulsion, but that revulsion was soon overpowered by guilt. He felt a deep shame that he was so afraid and disgusted by his own child. Soon, fear and confusion disappeared, and only hunger remained. He had never been so famished before, and the only thing that would whet his appetite was shawarma.