to boost all his books. Sometimes it took days, and newsstand people got mighty suspicious when you were black and hung around for a long time, waiting for the chance to kipe stuff. Usually they gave you the hairy eyeball until you went away.
He owned twelve books on UFOs now, but the Ruppelt was still his favorite. Once he’d gotten a book by some guy named Truman or something who wrote poetry inspired by the people from Venus. It was a little sad, too, the things people believed sometimes. So Leroy hadn’t read any more books by people who claimed they’d been inside the flying saucers or met the Neptunians or such. He read only the ones that gave histories of the sightings and asked questions, like why was the Air Force covering up? Those books never told you what was in the UFOs, and that was good because you could imagine it for yourself
He wondered if any of the Del Vikings had seen flying saucers when they were in the Air Force with Zoot’s cousin. Probably not, or Zoot would have told him about it. Leroy always tried to get the rest of the Kool-Tones interested in UFOs, but they all said they had their own problems, like girls and cigarette money. They’d go with him to see Invasion of the Saucermen or Earth vs. the Flying Saucers at the movies, or watch The Thing on Slim’s mother’s TV on the Creature Feature, but that was about it.
Leroy’s favorite flying-saucer sighting was the Mantell case, in which a P-51 fighter plane, which was called a Mustang, chased a UFO over Kentucky and then crashed after it went off the Air Force radar. Some say Captain Mantell died of asphyxiation because he went to 20,000 feet and didn’t have on an oxygen mask, but other books said he saw “something metallic and of tremendous size” and was going after it. Ruppelt thought it was a Skyhook balloon, but he couldn’t be sure. Others said it was a real UFO and that Mantell had been shot down with Z-rays.
It had made Leroy’s skin crawl when he had first read it.
But his mind went back to the Del Vikings. What had caused them to break up? What was it really like out there on the road? Was music getting so bad that good groups couldn’t make a living at it anymore?
Leroy turned off the flashlight and put the book away. He put out the cigarette, lit a cigar, went to the window, and looked up the airshaft. He leaned way back against the cool window and could barely see one star overhead. Just one star.
He scratched himself and lay back down on the bed.
For the first time, he was afraid about the contest tomorrow night.
We got to be good, he said to himself. We got to be good.
In the other room, the bed started squeaking again.
The Hellbenders arrived early to check out the turf. They’d been there ten minutes when the Purple Monsters showed up. There was handshaking all around, talk a little while, then they moved off into two separate groups. A few civilians came by to make sure this was the place they’d heard about.
“Park your cars out of sight, if you got ’em,” said Lucius. “We don’t want the cops to think anything’s going on here.”
Vinnie strut-walked over to Lucius.
“This crowd’s gonna be bigger than I thought. I can tell.”
“People come to see somebody drink some piss. You know, give the public what it wants.” Lucius smiled.
“I guess so. I got this weird feelin’, though. Like, you know, if your mother tells you she dreamed about her aunt, like right before she died and all?”
“I know what feelin’ you mean, but I ain’t got it,” said Lucius.
“Who you got doing the electrics?”
“Guy named Sparks. He was the one lit up Choton Field.”
At Choton Field the year before, two gangs wanted to fight under the lights. So they went to a high-school football stadium. Somebody got all the lights and the P.A. on without going into the control booth.
Cops drove by less than fifty feet away, thinking there was a practice scrimmage going on, while down on the field guys were turning one another into bloody strings. Somebody was on the P.A. giving a play-by-play. From the outside, it sounded cool. From the inside, it looked like a pizza with all the topping ripped off it.