"The Great Hollywood Invasion" - Part One
Part One
Nevada, circa 1951.
On a rural desert road in southern Nevada, a 1949 Chevrolet
3100 cruised to the tune of Les Paul and Mary Ford’s ‘How High the Moon.’
Behind the wheel of the Chevy was the cheery Bobby Wright, an 18-year-old
mechanic in the small, humble town of Rachel. He had just gotten off work that
Friday night and was right on his way to see his sweetheart, Betty Weaver, at
the local diner. Nothing could bring him down or wipe away the smile he had on
his face since the moment he left Pat’s Repair Shop.
That was before his radio suddenly dropped into static – no
longer was he able to hear the soothing, swinging voices of Les and Mary.
“What the hey...?” he muttered in confusion.
It only got stranger when his engine suddenly died, slowing
his Chevy down to a complete stop there in the middle of State Route 375.
Now Bobby’s cheery smile and demeanor were gone.
He allowed himself time to shout out several expletives –
words he would never say in front of Betty, his mother, or any other member of
the fairer sex – before he got out to check under the hood and investigate the
issue. Thankfully, he kept his tools in the truck bed for such an unfortunate
circumstance. The merits of being a 24/7 working mechanic.
It was the strangest thing: there were zero signs of
any damage to the engine.
The darn thing was still practically brand new, despite
being a few years old.
As Bobby mulled it over with the scratch of his head,
something brighter than the sun shone over his head. He looked up in curiosity,
suspecting that it might have been some sort of aircraft. Too low to be a
plane. Could it have been one of those new crafts? A ‘heely-copter’ or whatever
it’s called?
The oddest part about it was that he didn’t even hear the
thing pass over.
None of it mattered. He needed to get his Chevy running
again to make it in time for his date.
If only he could figure out how to get it running
again.
But then the overhead light returned...and this time it
stayed shining right specifically on Bobby and his Chevy. Looking up
with a hand outstretched to block the mysterious gleam, through his fingertips,
he was able to make out a circular, metallic shape floating more than
twenty feet in the air.
Bobby was struck with awe and fear.
He had heard the stories from the local farmers...about the
UFOs that would come and steal their livestock. Up until then, he figured they
were all ghost stories to spook the cow tippers.
Whatever was flying above him that very second was anything but
a story.
It was a real, honest-to-God UFO.
Frightened, he attempted to run but was suddenly
paralyzed...not by fear, but by some strange invisible force that held him in
place long enough to lift him off the ground and straight up to board the UFO.
All he could think in those unsettling seconds was how disappointed Betty was going to be.
The following morning, near the scene of the alien
abduction, another ship manifested in the area. This one, however, had a more
subtle arrival — this one was the one-and-only ‘Type-X’ model of a time-ship
known as a ‘TARDIS’ (short for ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Space’),
piloted by Aznavorian the Tinkerer — a Deltan-born Time Lord and super skilled
inventor/engineer. As a Time Lord, Aznavorian’s appearance and personality
changed through a process of molecular readjustment called ‘regeneration.’ As such,
the one landing their Type-X TARDIS along Route 375 was a tall black
Englishwoman who called herself ‘Tiffany.’
She emerged
from her white orb-shaped ship alongside her companion, Starla Becker — a
20-year-old human woman from 21st century Earth of Tiffany’s home dimension.
Both women were dressed in attire appropriate to the era they arrived in:
Tiffany in a dress suit that consisted of a white blouse, a fitting jacket, and
a pencil skirt; and Starla in a polka-dotted dress and black choker with a
pinup hairstyle to complete the ensemble.
“Good ol’
Nevada in good ol’ 1951!” Tiffany announced in zeal, breathing in the hot
desert air. “Only 411 miles and four years away from Disneyland!”
Starla
wished she had added a pair of sunglasses to her outfit, finding herself
shielding her eyes from the sun blistering above them. “Disneyland would’ve
been a better place for a massive rift surge to appear. We’re literally in the
middle of nowhere.”
“Not
necessarily ‘nowhere,’ luv,” Tiffany debunked. “We’re standin’ right along what
will one day be the Extraterrestrial Highway.”
Starla
looked, with renewed interest, on the rural desert road near their arrival
point. “For real? That means we’re not too far from Area 51!”
“Another
thing that won’t be along for another four years,” Tiffany elaborated.
“Hold up,
we’re in 1951,” Starla recapped. “Is that the reason you benched the Stump Kids
inside the TARDIS?”
“Yep,”
Tiffany verified.
“They
seemed pretty upset about it — Kelsey, most of all.”
Tiffany
sighed at this. “It’s for their own protection, luv.”
“From what?
Utter boredom?” Starla snickered, only to stop herself immediately afterwards
when she saw the seriousness in Tiffany’s face. And then it dawned on the
20-year-old, as she thought of one of the three Stump Kids specifically — Omar,
a black child. Starla felt terrible for making light of it. “Oh, Tiff…I
didn’t realize…I’m so sorry.”
Tiffany
offered her a kind smile and a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Don’t beat
yourself up over it, luv.”
“But, wait,
what about you?” Starla asked Tiffany — a black woman.
“Who? Me?”
Tiffany scoffed. “I’m not worried. I’ve been to Earth eras like this one before
during my two previous lives. I’ve faced prejudice as a black man and an
Asian woman. After awhile, I’ve toughened up to it…” She then concluded
with a burdensome sigh, “…still, it’s something that disgusts me to see happen
to people who aren’t doing anyone harm.”
“Likewise,”
Starla concurred. “The scariest part is how much it hasn’t changed, even in the
21st century! I used to be afraid for my ex-boyfriend, Deonte, every time he
would drive over the speed limit, just to tick off any white officers on
patrol. He was always an idiot…probably the reason why I broke up with him.”
Realizing she was rambling on, she dropped the topic altogether and refocused
on why she and Tiffany were there in the unforgiving hot climate. “Any-who,
where should we start on finding this rift?”
“The town
of Rachel isn’t too far from here,” Tiffany said. “Let’s start at the one place
where everyone will be this time of the day.”
Starla
frowned, wishing she had brought her phone to check the time. “Exactly what
time is it?”
“Lunchtime,”
Tiffany answered with a wink.
— — — — — — — — — —
Starla got
the gist of Tiffany’s meaning once they made it through their half mile long
walk to Rachel and went into a place called Jerry’s Diner. The inside of the
diner was as bland as the outside, but neither Starla nor Tiffany expected
anything less from such an establishment in a small town in the 1950s.
Neither was
it all that much of a surprise to see how segregated it was between the black
and white patrons, with one side for ‘White’ and the other for ‘Colored’ (with
signs to correspond the difference). The very sight made Starla sick to her
stomach, despite the aroma of delicious foods that welcomed visitors like
themselves.
Tiffany
seemed to have noticed how uncomfortable she was, whispering to her, “Don’t
worry, luv. We won’t be here for too long. Just enough to get answers.”
“Maybe it’s
not all that bad,” said Starla, with a sudden air of hopefulness. “Take
a look there.” She pointed to the center of the counter, which happened to be the
juncture of the segregation line. There sat two elderly farmers — one black,
one white — engaged in a friendly exchange, regardless of their racial
differences.
“Now that is a comfort,” Tiffany said with an
approving smile. “A rare one, of course, for this troubled period in American
history.”
“I heard from ol’ Benny Thompson that Bobby was taken by
stinkin’ Commies,” the white farmer said.
“Ol’ Benny is a natural born liar,” the black farmer
disputed.
“It’s the Reds, I tells ya,” said the white farmer, after
a sip of his morning coffee. “That young Wisconsin
senator…what’s-his-face…McCartney…he knew it before everyone else. They’re in
our schools, at our jobs…word has it that they’re even in Hollywood.”
The black farmer chuckled. “The Great Hollywood Invasion,
eh? So, what? You thinkin’ pretty boys like William Holden are Commies?”
“You laugh, but don’t be surprised if they find Bobby
Wright dead.”
The black farmer scolded his friend with an austere
shushing. “Now why ya have to go and say somethin’ foolish like that, when
Betty’s standin’ right over there?” He specifically gestured to a 17-year-old
waitress behind the counter. She was in the middle of cleaning the countertop
when she stopped mid-wipe upon hearing the white farmer’s words.
“Oh, Betty,” he muttered in shame. “Honey, I’m sorry.”
Betty put on a brave smile. “It’s quite alright, Mr.
Gregory. I know you meant nothin’ by it.” She abandoned her cleaning to refill
the two farmers’ coffee cups. “And I think nothin’ of it myself. I know my
Bobby’s still out there somewhere, and he’ll be found again. We all know how
he’s always up to something.”
“What would that ‘something’ be?” Tiffany suddenly
interceded.
Starla’s ears pricked at the American accent her Time
Lord friend put on, sounding like Judy Garland.
Betty and the two old farmers regarded Tiffany’s presence
there in the diner with fascination and confusion. “Just...the type of nonsense
he’s usually up to…when he’s not with me, of course,” said Betty, seeming very
guarded in her answer. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”
“A curious journalist from Carson City,” Tiffany
answered, flashing her psychic paper to convince the three locals of her cover
identity. “I’m here with my cub reporter.” She gestured to Starla, who smirked
at her assigned cover. “Where was Bobby last seen?”
“They found his Chevy along Route 375 earlier this
morning,” Betty said. “Twenty miles from town, to be exact.”
Tiffany and Starla exchanged a quick knowing glance.
That specific route was precisely where they landed a
mere hour ago.
Believing this to be a lead in their investigation,
Tiffany and Starla started on their way out of the diner, all while Tiffany
said to Betty, “Thanks for the tip, sweetheart.”
“And we’ll find Bobby…I promise,” Starla sympathetically
added.
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