I’m really serious about this, Audrey—I’d hoped to marry you next June—and still want to, if things work out. But I’ve got a bad feeling that my days here on Earth are numbered. No one means as much to me as you do, baby, and I want to spend all the time I have left withyou .

“Why are you so morbid, Conrad? Why do you say your days are numbered?”

Another voice heard from. A high voice, a sweet voice. The problem is this: The flame-people think I’ve fucked up. The idea was supposed to be that I come down here and find out about people and, yes, find out about The Secret of Life, and then someday I’d go back to the flying saucer and report. The whole thing was supposed to behush-hush . But—as you must know by now—this guy Mr. Skelton got a film of me shrinking, and the flame-people picked up the TV broadcast of it, and I happened to be holding a kind of homing crystal, and the flamers sent a scout ship down to pick me up, etc., etc.

Right now things are cool because I got rid of the crystal and changed my face. (Third Chinese brother, dig, firstflying , thenshrinking , thenchanging . It’s all built-in, no matter what the flamers think of me.) But sooner or later the PIG is going to catch up with me, and put me on live TV, and my fiery brethren are going to UFO down here and snatch my ass ... unless they figure out a way to locate me evenbefore the PIG does, in which case I get snatched even sooner. I look at the sky a lot, as you can imagine.

God. I could write you all night. I’m working on a nice bottle of Moselle from the Bulber wine cellar

(quite thebon vivant , aren’t we, Charles?), and looking out over the Crum—I have WIBG on, they’re playing a lot of Motown tonight. Ah, Audrey, isn’t life strange? I need someone torap with.

The last person I’ve been able to speak openly with was last week, August 6, a girl called Dee Decca, my old high-school girlfriend. (It’s not the same with her as with youat all , so don’t worry.) Actually, I couldn’t really talk to Dee too well, once she realized I was an alien—she was toocouldn’t really talk to Dee too well, once she realized I was an alien—she was too . But I know you won’t be like that, Audrey, you’ve seen me shrink, you’ve seen me fly—I just hope you don’t think I’m too ugly now. Maybe you remember what Mr. Bulber looks like ... I’ve stopped slicking down my/his hair, anyway. All the Swarthmore faculty and staff I run into think, “Charlie Bulber’s gone crazy. He’s acting like one of thosehipniks .”

The perfection of this con is that all of Bulber’s mail passes through my hands. I mean, it’s me (in the role of house sitter) who’s supposed to forward things to him; and he’s sending his mail back through me in bundles to save money. The only fuck-up will be if at some point he writes directly to somebody here.

Even if that happens, I can say, “Well, I wrote you before I came back to America, I didn’t like it over in France.” And probably, for the first few months, anyway, he isn’t going to feel that much like writing anyone over here. I hope.

My real flash of genius in this whole thing was toremember that Bulber is in fact on sabbatical this year.

Some of the assholes in my Mechanics and Wave Motion course gave him a going-away party last spring. Ginger-ale-and-ice-cream punch, Tom Lehrer records, a French-English dictionary ... you get the picture. The whole sordid scene of degenerative douchedom. Kids these days.

It’s going to be weird if any of those students try to talk to me. Classes here start Sept. 7. At least I don’t have to teach any courses. I bought aSchaum’s Outline Series on Physics to brush up with, just in case.

You’re probably wondering why I’m hanging around Swarthmore, anyway. I mean, really, it would be safer to head out to California or something. But, I don’t know, I want to see my old buddies some more—Ace, and Platter, and Tuskman, and Chuckie—I want to see them, and do some unbelievable prank on the college administration before I split.

But most of all, I’m looking forward to some peaceful weeks here atChateau Bulber with my darling darling Audrey Hayes. A.H. Ah. Do you fuck? Do you still know how? You can put a bag over my solemn potato-head if you must. Or a pair of yoursoiled lacy underwear . Or ...

All right, all right, I’ll stop. What else. Let me just get another bottle of wine and reread this and ...

“Baby Love” on the radio. The wonderful inevitability of the chord progressions—you remember how at the end ofNausea , he hears a jazz song and it makes everything right? The secret of life. It’s when you’re just plugged-in, you know, it just happens. I miss you, Baby Love.

Do you think your parents will be very angry when you drop out of Columbia grad school and move in with “Professor Bulber”? Don’t answer that, don’t even think about it. Just do it. Write me your arrival time; I’ll be there to whisk you away to a life of vice and criminal flight.

It’s only ten o’clock—I guess I can fill up one last sheet of paper. Do you mind reading this? Do you think I’m too weird? That article inTime was unbelievable, the quotes they got from all the authority figures who knew me when I was little in Louisville. Brother Hershey (assistant principal at St. X) was the worst. I mean, usually, when there’s amass-murderer —like that guy Charles Whitman in Texas—all his old teachers say, “Oh, he was such a nice boy, very quiet, never made any trouble.” And here’s Brother Hershey saying, “I remember Conrad Bunger very well. Bright, but troubled. He wanted to be smarter than he really was. By the end of senior year, we were just waiting for him to graduate and leave.” And everybody felt that way about me, it turns out. The head preacher at St. John’s—I never realized he knew it was me that used to steal the wine. And Dr. Sinclair, and then that phony shithead Dean Potts putting in his two cents’ worth ... ah, never mind. In a way, I’m proud of it—you know how I always try to seem tough and cool. But in another way, it really hurts, to see them all turn on me like that just because I’m from a flying saucer.

I really don’t know what to do next, Audrey. Tell me when you’re coming, and I’ll pick you up, and you’ll come down here for a weekend at least. I do want to do some kind of trip on the straights’ heads here, but after that we can split to wherever you like. I’m pretty sure I can change my face again if I have to ... it’s like the other powers, it just works when it’s life-or-death. Some of the newspaper articles I’ve seen make me kind of nervous. All this xenophobia bullshit, you know. Like given the right circumstances, I could get myself torn apart limb from limb. And if it’s not on live TV, the flame-people wouldn’t know to come save me. All this is assuming the saucer is still around—maybe they gave up and left for another solar system.

Help me, Rhonda!

Look, burn this letter after you read it, I mean it. And send me (“Charles Bulber”) the flight info at 23

Crum Ledge, Swarthmore PA 19084. Hurry, Audrey, I miss you and I need you.

Here’s a kiss: X.

And a fuck: F.

I love you, Conrad