Journal of a UFO Investigator by David Halperin Page A

PLANET CLARION,” SAID JULIAN Margulies. “My, my. What a hardened skeptic you are. Next you’ll be telling me you don’t believe in the dero and the underground caves.”
    â€œI don’t, not very much,” I said.
    â€œBut you do, just a little bit?”
    He eased up on the accelerator and downshifted. Our Pontiac still came up fast on the huge truck wheezing ahead of us in the right-hand lane of the Schuylkill Expressway, vomiting foul black exhaust. It was the first Saturday afternoon in April 1963, warmer than I’d have expected; we had opened the windows wide to catch the breezes. Nearly three years have gone by since then. It’s February now, and the year is 1966, and I’m in eleventh grade instead of eighth. And it’s been forever since I’ve felt a spring breeze.
    Julian braked lightly. A stream of cars in the left lane zoomed past us. A fat red-faced man leaned through the right window of one of those cars, shaking his fist at us and screaming something I couldn’t make out.
    â€œHe should save his language for the truck driver,” I said.
    â€œI’m delighted they’ve finally passed us,” said Julian. “They’ve been on our tail since we passed through Fairmount Park, maybe even earlier. I was afraid they were following us from the library. In their black car. How many black cars do you see on the road these days?”
    â€œDid you see who was in the car?” I asked.
    â€œI think ,” he said carefully, “there were perhaps three of them. Three men . Dressed so oddly —all in black, I think. And their eyes looked so very . . . very . . . strange .”
    I didn’t respond. The man I’d seen had worn a grayish white jacket over a hideous red sport shirt, and his eyes were barely visible, his face was so puffed with rage.
    â€œWell,” said Julian after a moment, “there’s no law saying the men in black always have to dress in black. Or that they always have to hang out together. Actually there were only two of them. The wife was driving, uglier looking even than the man, and very aggressive behind the wheel. Bound to be an accident down the road, and I hope we’re not around when it happens. They did have me nervous for a while, though. You didn’t have somebody tail us, did you?”
    â€œOf course not.” I may not have said this in the most convincing tone. I’ve never been very good at lying, and the truth was I’d indeed had us tailed, though not quite in the way Julian imagined. Fortunately he’d chosen that moment to try to pass the truck himself and wasn’t paying full attention to me. He glanced over his shoulder, eased into the left lane, and a moment later we were around the truck and in the clear.
    â€œMurderous traffic,” I said.
    â€œMy dear Mr. Shapiro, you don’t have to make it quite so obvious you’re from the suburbs. To a Philadelphian this is hardly traffic at all. You should see the expressway on a weekday. Of course I’ve had a chance to get used to it; I’ve been driving for ages. I’ll be sixteen next July.”
    â€œAges? And you’ll be sixteen next July?”
    He laughed. “Aren’t you glad that black car didn’t turn out to be an unmarked state trooper? I can see us now, pulled over to the shoulder. Huge hulking cop marches over to us. ‘May I see your license, please, sir?’ ”
    â€œWhat would you do if that happened?” I asked.
    â€œI’d show him my license, of course.” He fished his wallet out of the inside pocket of his jacket, flipped it open, and handed it to me. Sure enough, there was a driver’s license, marked with the Pennsylvania keystone emblem, in the name of Julian Arthur—not Arcturus—Margulies. The photo wasn’t very flattering, but it was unmistakably Julian. He stared straight ahead, blank, unsmiling, his buckteeth very prominent.