Oliver Benjamin
CHAPTER 19
Nature is quite unromantic. If is we who put romance into her,
which is a false attitude, an egotism, absurd like all egotisms.
JAMES JOYCE,Ulysses
1. Father’s House
The Martians landed at Morris Bidden’s back gate. Bidden lived in
the elite community of Bel Air and generally it was pretty impossible
to sneak into the heavily-fortified compounds that housed such
illustrious figures as Morris Bidden. They were all outfitted with
security cameras, laser alarms and monstrous psychotic dogs. But
Colin had grown up there. Since he spent most of his adolescent life
sneaking out of the house to go get loaded with his friends, it stood to
reason that he knew how to sneak back in as well.
The elite commando unit organized for the break in included
Sprout, Izzy and General Heck. Dressed in black, their skin smeared
with coffee paste, they were invisible and unsmellable by the
watchdogs.
Bidden’s property was bordered on one side by a washed-up old
rock musician. He had become famous for playing the guitar with his
eyelids, a stunt that left him partially blind and utterly forgotten.
Spending his subsequent years in a drug-dazed stupor, his moderate
royalties only covered base amenities but nothing approaching
luxury. The house, a product of his early and brief success was wildly
out of proportion with his subsequent earnings and so he could not
afford to maintain a security system, dogs, guards, cameras or the
like. Which was just as well; there was nothing to steal in the massive
empty mansion; he sold all his guitars, collectibles and furniture just
to subsidize his drug habit. Selling dope, the finest in town, had been
his only source of income for years. Many a robber had broken in,
dismayed to find only a gaunt man in an empty house offering them
a potent marijuana cigarette and a cup of tea.
As a teenager, Colin employed the musician’s back lawn as a
means of escape. Many nights he scaled one of the tall trees that rose
over the fence that separated the two properties, then jumped down
297
 |
 |
 |
 |