28 november

In case this isn’t immediately evident to you: Alison and I used to watch a lot of The X-Files on Sunday nights – part of a ritual that involved vague tennis-playing, frozen Pepsis from Sheetz, and X-Files— on these weeks, and we’d switch back and forth from her place to mine. It may be noted that I didn’t start watching this show immediately when it came out – too creepy, and I was too young to do more than peek at it on the downstairs TV as I was walking upstairs to bed. But at a certain point, I decided that the risk of nightmare and freakout would be acceptable in balance with the pleasures of following the developing mythology, discussing this with my friend, and of course, keeping up with David Duchovny. 

On the nights when we watched at my house – especially the single-episode-type shows – it wasn’t too bad to walk my friend upstairs, wave goodbye to her at the front door, and then quickly turn off the porch light and come inside, locking the door securely. On the nights when we watched at Alison’s house – that sweet old farmhouse, creaky and accommodating to every ache of the earth and twist of the wind – it was an act of faith to walk from the back door across the gravel driveway to my car. Sometimes the porch light flickered, and the sky close-dropped, retreated high-black. Into the car. I always re-locked my door after I got in. As if creatures that could travel across space would be stopped by a door lock. You never know. Backing out of the driveway, out of the protective circle of porch light and into the dark of Cedar Lane. No cedars on the lane, but the quiet of cedars lining the space is suggestive enough. The hills and curves indicate it was nobody’s first choice as a road. It’s a third-choice road connecting the homes of quiet people, all of whom know each other, and the only street lights are on the end, where outsiders are coming in. Pulling down the road, the question is whether to floor it and risk surprising anyone or anything up over the next hill, or to ease carefully, and to take forever to get anywhere. There are deer, definitely. There could be people. There could be… anything that appeared on the episode. And else. Going up the steepest hill was the biggest breath-hold. What would be at the top? It was impossible to know. It was like driving into the sky. And on the other side, flat – exposed, in the middle of cornfield, in the right season. Come and get me!

Did we ever talk about this, Alison and I? I’m not sure. Did she think about this, driving home from my house on those alternate weeks? Gosh, I hope I don’t get abducted by aliens on my way home while I’m crossing all this vast empty space! Nobody would even know what happened to me! No, I’d say no. We’re very different people. We loved that show, but we believe different things. In her worldview, I don’t think she’d say god would have such a thing happening. In my worldview, I’m not so sure about anything, especially true when I was in high school, and it was dark, meaning lots of things seemed possible.