Pinchas the alien

I’ve written previously about Amos and his sister Fruma (here and here). They’re aliens from another planet who work on contract at Universal. I forget how I know that they’re aliens, but there is no doubt in my mind that they are.

I don’t see Fruma much anymore. I asked Amos about her and he told me to forget her, and I feel as if I have.

Amos is a lot of fun to hang with and I asked him to point out others of his ilk.

“There are a number of alien tourists working in Hollywood,” he said, “but they aren’t of my ilk. We aliens all look human here, but back on our individual planets, most of us are just plain repulsive. It’s one more reason we like to spend time on Earth. Back home, drunk or not, you don’t want to screw a two-ton cockroach. Especially if she lives in a public toilet.”

“You’re highly evolved,” I said. “Why would you be replusive?”

“Humans are simple. Two of this, two of that. One schvantz. Smooth skin unless some hair on the back. On my planet, oy vey. Three zayin, minimum. Can you imagine three different painful STDs at once, caught from a damned roach? Evolution. Don’t get me started. Everything gets mixed in, the bugs, the birds, the frogs, you’ve got parts you don’t know what they’re there for. Like those old VCR machines here on Earth, with the knobs and the dials and the God knows what. Good riddance to VCRs.”

Amos introduced me one night to a guy named Pinchas, who was working as a compositor at MGM. We were over at the Power House on Highland, drinking caipirinhas on a hot night.

“You a tourist too?” I asked the guy.

“Damned straight I am.”

“Amos was telling me that you all appreciate the simplicity of the human body,” I said.

“It’s true. A babe has two breasts, in most cases. Genius. One isn’t enough. Three isn’t necessary. You play with one, then play with the other, go back and forth. Of course, here in Hollywood there is way too much gel, but once in a while you’ll turn up a natural pair… But you know what? It’s the simplicity of the human mind that I like most.”

“How so?”

“On my planet, I’ve always got nineteen things at once on my various minds. Whereas, look at you. One brain. A silly smile on your face. Your race strolling toward the cliff of racial oblivion and what are you doing tonight? Cocktails? A couple of lines on this napkin? A joint or two out in the lot? Close the place with a pitcher of beer? Genius.”

“Hey,” I said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. I’m a worried man.”

Pinchas laughed. He drank. He banged his fists on the table.

“You’re sooo primitive,” he said. “Most of your urges and motivations and worries and fears are located in your unconscious. In your unconscious! You don’t even know what they are. You don’t even know that they’re there. My God, what I wouldn’t give for an unconscious. Can you imagine what it’s like being conscious all the time? Do you know how much booze and weed and crank and shit it takes to shut down my f**king conscious? Just take a hammer to my head. The last day on Earth and you’ll be sitting in here laughing at that joke about the bunch of bananas and the lonely doughnut.”

I reached over and conked him on the top of his head as hard as I could with the side of my fist.

Pinchas groaned.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. For a second there I almost felt human.”