Area 54

By Arthur Sánchez

It was four in the morning in 'Jimmy's Starlight Lounge' when Dom, the night bartender, decided to close up. Officially, the place closed at five but since the joint was almost empty, Dom figured he could get off early without anyone being the wiser. So he wandered over to bar's sole customer with a dirty dishrag flung over one shoulder and an earnest desire to make it quick.

"Last call," he said to the hunched over man in the darkened booth. The old guy looked up from his beer with blood-shot eyes. He was a heavy-set man with a rumpled suit and a loud checkered tie. He looked tired and frustrated. Dom pegged him for a salesman on the tail end of a really bad trip. They got a lot of them after the conventions closed up.

"Stinkin, lousy, aliens," the man slurred at him.

Dom nodded his head. "Yeah, illegals are a problem everywhere. You done, pops?"

The old man glared at him. "I'm not talking about illegals. I'm talking about aliens!"

Dom smiled. He'd learned years ago never to argue with a drunk. Cause no matter how absurd their point, they always think it makes perfect sense. "Ok, sure," he said as he reached for the man's half-finished beer, "you want me to call you a cab?"

But the drunk wasn't that far gone. He snatched up his mug and held it out of Dom's reach. "You ever get them in here, aliens?" he demanded. He pointed to a framed poster on the wall of a U.F.O. It was a photo of a fuzzy metallic object hovering over a line of stubby spruce trees. Dom groaned. The drunk was one of those.

Two years ago Fat Jimmy, who owned the joint, had decided that the bar needed a theme. All of the big establishments had themes and Jimmy didn't want to be left out. So he decided to build the little lounge's décor around U.F.O.'s. At the time, Dom told him it was a bad idea. What kind of customers were they going to get? But Fat Jimmy wouldn't listen. To his mind, the change would put them on the map.

Now the walls were covered with posters, photos, and framed newspaper clippings of all the major U.F.O. sightings. Behind the bar was a plastic box with an authentic replica of a moon rock. And in the corner, Jimmy spent two grand to install a life-size statue of an alien. All of the changes did pick business up a little. But every now and again, Dom had to put up with a Close Encounters of A Third Kind type.

"Look, friend," Dom said gently, "this is Vegas. Roswell, New Mexico is..."

"I know where I am!" the drunk exploded. "I even know where they are!" He said pointing at the poster. "The lousy, good for nothing, ingrates!" The drunk burped loudly. "Excuse me."

Dom let it go. "Right, like I said, you want anything else?"

But the drunk was fixated on the poster. "Area 51, what a joke! There haven't been any aliens there since," the drunk closed one eye as he calculated the year, "1964. That's when they moved to Boise," he said confidentially.

"Idaho?" Dom asked before stopping himself.

"Yup," the drunk answered, happy to tell his tale. "They said they wanted to go to a bigger city. After twenty years of enjoying our hospitality, they decided Roswell was too small. There wasn't enough to do, nothing new to see. Like Boise was any better?" The drunk took a swig from what was left of his beer. "Not that Boise kept their business for long mind you. Nooooooo, by 1973 the little gray bastards had moved on to Los Angeles. Seems they loved the night life, they loved to bogie." The drunk threw up his hands in an imitation of somebody dancing.

Despite years of bartending, Dom was now intrigued. He'd heard all sorts of U.F.O. freaks but he'd never heard one claim that aliens were into Disco. "Wait a minute. Are you telling me that there really were aliens at Roswell and that since they've arrived they've been touring the country?"

The drunk nodded his head slowly. He then raised a finger and indicated that Dom should come closer. "The one universal truth in the galaxy," the man whispered, "the one thing that never changes no matter who they are, or how many arms they've got," he looked around the room dramatically, "is: tourism. Everybody wants to go on vacation."

Dom frowned at the man. He should have seen it coming. "Ok, now I know you're pulling my leg. Hand over the mug, I'm closing up."

"Naw, it's true," the drunk assured him as he pushed his empty beer mug towards Dom. "The first ones to show up were just looking for a nice bed and breakfast. Of course, people in Roswell were a little freaked out but everybody calmed down once they saw the aliens meant no harm. Hell, it was a shot in the arm for the local economy. Hotels got filled up. Restaurants got new menus. And we were running tours out into the desert every week. That's why Boise decided to lure them away." The drunk started to pat his pockets. "H-How much do I owe you for the beer?"

But Dom was only half listening. Sort of made sense. People came from all over the world to see the lights of Vegas. Some didn't even speak English but that didn't stop them from taking a bus ride out to Hoover Dam. Maybe aliens were just like people.

The drunk tugged on his sleeve. "Ah, how much for the beer?"

Dom snapped to attention. "Five bucks." But his curiosity was peaked. "Ok, if Area 51 was Roswell, does that make Boise Area 52?"

The drunk pulled a worn five dollar bill out of his shirt pocket and dropped it on the table. He then grimaced as he began sliding his bulk out of the booth. "Yeah, the bums even had that printed up on their brochures: Area 52, Just Right for You." The old man rolled his eyes. "Have you ever heard such a stupid slogan?"

But Dom thought it sounded funny; catchy and easy to remember. "Then Area 53 was Los Angeles," he said, working the thought through to the end.

"Yup."

"So, is there an Area 54?"

The drunk was now on his feet. He wavered slightly but managed not to fall over. "Didn't I tell you?" he said with a puzzled look. Dom shook his head. "Well, I would have thought you could have guessed. It's only the biggest tourist trap of them all--and you're standing right in the middle of it--Area 54 is here: Las Vegas, Nevada."

"Aw, come on," Dom said with dismay. "You expect me to believe that? You're telling me that there are aliens from outer space hiding in a city this big?"

"Who says they're hiding?" countered the drunk. "Have you seen some of the people walking around out there? No, sir, the aliens aren't hiding. They're going around, enjoying the shows, and hitting the casinos just like everybody else." Dom thought about that. Some of the tourists you saw cruising the bars were pretty odd. Who's to say the blue hair on a biker isn't really blue. You just assume it's a dye job. Hell, for that matter, you just assume it's hair.

"And where else," the drunk continued as he built up steam, "do you have a town so lit up by neon that the entire place looks like a landing strip?" Again, Dom couldn't argue the point. "And why would anybody bother to build a hotel, shape it like a pyramid, and then top it off with a light so powerful that it can be seen from outer space. Hmmm?" Dom shrugged his shoulders to indicate he had no answer.

"Well, I'll tell you why!" The drunk declared as he pounded the table with a fist. "Cause the Alpha Centurians are ga-ga about geometric shapes but they can't make heads or tails out of our decimal system. They're always getting overcharged." The old man began stumbling towards the door. "You would think with that many toes they could figure it out. But they can't."

Dom started grinning. He'd heard some tall tales but this one was the best. And he nearly bought into it. Alpha Centurians are ga-ga over geometric shapes. Oh, brother, wait till he told Fat Jimmy. The owner will probably want to add a few disco balls to the place. "So how come you know all of this?" Dom asked as the drunk reached the door, confident now that it was just the beer talking.

The old man turned slowly. "How come I...Cause I'm supposed to know. I'm the President of the Roswell, New Mexico Businessman's Association." He held up four fingers. "Three years running."

Dom stared at the man. He was the President of a Businessman's Association? "But, if you're from Roswell, what are you doing here?"

The old man opened the door and stared out into the night. Hot dry air spilled in around him and stirred the few wispy strands of hair he had left. He then looked up at the stars with hope in his eyes. "I was hosting a trade show," he said, "trying to convince the representatives of the Pleiades Republic to give Roswell a second try. We'd built them a spa. Sulfuric mud baths are all the rage." Then his face hardened. "But they said they won't come unless we opened up some Keno parlors. Do you know how hard it is to get that kind of legislation passed?" he asked with a note of despair. "It'll take years to push it through. There are zoning changes, and environmental impact studies, not to mention the church groups who'll get up in arms. I gotta go through all that just to attract some four-armed tourists who were our customers to begin with. We're the ones who made them feel at home. We're the ones who got them permits, and visas, and tickets for Celine Dion. And you see how they repay us? The lousy, stikin, good for nuthin..." And with that, the old man wandered off into the night.