Out in the Rows

No one believed grandpa except me. To be fair, he did have a tendency to pull jokes on everyone. Grandma was still trying to get over the near heart attack he gave her from two mornings ago when he came into the house covered in chicken feathers. He had attached the feathers to his white shirt and jeans and said that he was feeling ill after one of the chickens bit him while he was cleaning the nesting boxes. Grandpa then squatted on the floor and started bawking until, with a slight of hand, he produced an egg on the floor beneath him. So, when he came in from the front porch saying there were lights out over the corn field, everyone just went back to what they were doing.

I couldn’t help but notice there was something different about the way that grandpa delivered the news this time. Usually his eyes gave him away, they held a mischievous sparkle, but now they held something that I’d never seen in them- fear. Grandma went back to crocheting. Mom and my two little sisters went back to working on putting together the care package we were sending to dad. He and his Airborne brigade were deployed to Poland, that is why we moved in for a year with mom’s parents on their farm, and also why I had been ringside to so many of Grandpa’s pranks.

Grandpa had gone back onto the front porch and I followed him out. The only light I could see was the bug zapper hanging there on the porch and the big light on the other side of the yard that hung near the barn’s double doors. Grandpa stood on the edge looking out at the big cornfield that came up to the east side of the yard.

“Grandpa,” I said, wanting him to know I had joined him.

He turned around, his eyes still tinged with the shock from what he told us. “Hey Eli,” he said and returned to his vigil of the field.

“Just so you know, I believe you,” I said. “What did the lights look like?”

“It was a ring of lights and they were hovering over the middle of the corn field,” Grandpa replied. “They were there gliding above and then just dropped down into the field.”

From somewhere beyond the place that usually kept me from doing anything reckless, I said to Grandpa, “Maybe we should go and check things out.”

He looked back at me again, “Put on some shoes and meet me out by the barn.” I walked across the porch but before I got to the screen door he added, “Don’t say anything to Grandma or your mom.” I nodded and went in.

A few minutes later I slipped out the back door so I wouldn’t draw any attention and circled around the house to get to the barn. Grandpa was standing just outside the pool of light cast by the barn’s pole light. As I got closer, I could make out in the fuzzy edge of the shadows that Grandpa was holding the old double barrel shotgun he kept in the barn for scaring off the birds from his garden. He normally kept that A.H. Fox loaded with 12-gauge Shellcrackers, which were basically just scare cartridges. The deafening boom from a shot would scatter not only the birds attacking his garden, but all the ones in the surrounding trees, and I sometimes expected all the birds from the surrounding counties.

Grandpa began walking in my direction and when we met he handed me a pitchfork. We set off in the direction of the cornfield without a word between us. Grandpa stopped when we reached the border of the field and stood stone still for a few minutes listening. I had the sense to do the same and trusted that before we set out Grandpa would give me some instructions, especially in regards to the pitchfork. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to attack the aliens, and yes, that is what I resigned myself to what he must have seen, or if I were to use the pitchfork to cover his retreat after he delivered a double barreled round of stay-off-my-farm.

The only instructions I received came in the form of one finger to his mouth in the universal parent and teacher sign of quiet. Grandpa slipped off into the corn and I followed close down the row behind him. My report card at the end of the school year included a note to my parents stating that, “Eli sometimes needs to be more aware of his thought processes.” Mrs. Baker, who was the nicest teacher in sixth grade, was letting my parents know in a diplomatic way that I often act without thinking.

Fortunately, for Grandpa, since seeing that note I had been on a mission to use my brain more. I turned the pitchfork around to give him a wood handle poke as opposed to a sharp metal piercing if he came to a sudden stop in the dark. This thought process, Mrs. Baker would be happy to know, turned out to be a good idea because Grandpa stopped at odd intervals to listen and peek through the corn rows to either side of us.

After about ten minutes of walking and stopping, we both became aware of a soft thrumming sound and a faint glow of light just ahead of us. Grandpa gripped the shotgun at the ready in his hands, seemingly reassured by the weight of the weapon and began to edge forward. At this point I began to think the mystery, and likely danger, was close at hand so I used my thought process again to turn the pitchfork around. If trouble was ahead it would need a sharp metal piercing as opposed to a wood handle poke.

The sound remained at the same level, but the glow of the light grew more intense. Whatever the source was, it was just ahead of us. I also became aware as we crept of another sound, it was like there was movement ahead of us in the corn. Unfortunately, Grandpa also heard this and came to a sudden stop, a stop that I didn’t make. The pitchfork poked rather forcefully into Grandpa’s backside causing him to believe we were under attack.

He cursed and fired off both barrels in the direction of the light source. With the loud boom we both realized that he had forgotten to change out the scare cartridges from the shotgun in lieu of something more suited to fighting aliens. As the echo of the shot faded everything grew quiet. No thrumming. No movement.

Suddenly the movement sound started back up, but it was moving away from us. The thrumming sound picked up again and began to pulse in tone. The light flared in a blinding flash. Grandpa and I both froze as a circular shaped UFO rose up from the corn in front of us, spun a few times, and shot off into the sky.

Through the vague outline I could see in front of me, he uttered, “Not a word to Grandma or your mom.”

Those were instructions that weren’t even necessary. This was a story that no one would believe.