How I Conquered Your Planet (12 page)

Of course there was a big uproar about the whole thing.
Prisoners are supposed to be executed at the proper time in the proper way by
the proper people. This free-lance stuff was out.

My last request, which they found on my body, was that I be put
in a taxi cab, with the driver to be told to “just keep driving.” They didn’t
honor that request. They didn’t feel they owed me anything. Even in death I had
pissed them off. So instead of the elaborate burial ceremony they had planned,
they just tossed me in the prison dumpster. Kind of an insult, I remember
thinking at the time.

The next day I was taken out with the rest of the trash in the
back of a prison garbage truck. A guard on the main tower was alarmed when he
saw me riding out face down in some old coleslaw.

“
Hey! Isn’t that a prisoner in the back of that truck?”

The other guard looked at me through his binoculars. “Oh,
that’s okay. That’s Burly. He’s garbage all right.”

That stung, but I didn’t say anything. I kept my mouth shut.
You’ve got to know when to do that.

In my first few days as a fugitive from justice, I made a lot
of beginner’s mistakes, including: telling people I was a fugitive from justice,
bragging about my clever escape to everyone I met, and running like hell from
every policeman or fireman I saw. If you want to be a successful fugitive, I
found, you don’t run from the police. That just excites their curiosity. You
hide from the police.

But hiding from the police isn’t easy. It’s not something you
can just do. You need practice to get good at it. My first week on the run,
practically everywhere the police looked, there I was. I hadn’t yet mastered
the manly art of hiding.

Poe said the best place to hide something was out in plain view
where everyone could see it. I tried his theory a couple of times, hiding on
top of a flagpole, in the middle of busy intersections, on the hoods of police
cars, and on top of a statue of Edgar Allan Poe. But even though I was in plain
view, as Poe stipulated, everybody saw me. No wonder Poe never made it as a
criminal. His ideas were crap.

One mistake I made – and you can learn a valuable lesson from
this, in case you’re ever a fugitive – is that no matter how I disguised myself
I always had the same face. That, I found out later, was one of the things that
made me easy to spot. It was my face they were looking for. I wasted too much
time trying to disguise my arms and legs. Never mind your arms and legs, I tell
young fugitives. You can leave those the same. But you’ve got to change that
face.

Another mistake I made was that whenever I adopted a new
identity I always used the same name: Knarf Ylrub.

“
How do you pronounce that?” people would ask.

“
I dunno. It’s ‘Frank Burly’ spelled backwards if that’s any
help to you. Try saying it standing on your head.”

And I wasted a lot of time looking for the “Real Traitor”.
Finally I decided I was just kidding myself. It was me. I was the real traitor.
I was going to have to come to grips with that, and move on.

The Fugitive Life is an unsettled life. I had to keep moving
all the time, running from job to job and trap to trap. I seldom got far enough
ahead of my pursuers to be able to sit down in a nice restaurant for dinner,
for example. I had to run down the street eating a hot dog. Later, as the
running got me into better shape, I would run down the street eating a salad.
And don’t even try to take a bath when you’re on the run. The water goes all
over the place.

I toiled at many jobs: fry cook, hired hand, janitor, dog
breeder, political pundit, autograph authenticator.

Some I had to leave because I was no good at them. Some because
I was in danger of being found out.

I’d be working in a diner, for example, and my description
would start coming in over the radio. Everyone in the place would be listening
and slowly realizing that each part of the description fit their brutal
unfriendly fry cook. When this happened, I would slowly edge over to the radio,
casually switch it off, unplug it, and carry it out back, where I would spend
the rest of the morning burying it. These actions caused a lot of suspicion,
but not as much suspicion as that radio was causing.

Other times my co-workers’ suspicions would be aroused by items
they found in my pockets when they were stealing from me, wanted posters with
my face on them, my prison suit, that sort of thing, or by things I shouted in
my sleep when I was sleeping on the job, like “you’ll never catch me, coppers”.
Each time I would have to start running again before the police arrived.

And sometimes my near discovery was all my fault. Like when I
tried to pass myself off as a member of the United States Supreme Court. They
knew something was wrong when the morning head count revealed there were ten of
us.

As my pursuers became more familiar with my modus operandi (I
told you I learned Latin), I had to leave these jobs sooner. I was a mailman
for only eight minutes – only long enough to flip out once - before the police
kicked down the door of the Post Office. And my career as a heart surgeon only
lasted long enough to remove one heart. And I had to throw that at the cops.

As I ran out of the hospital, along with a couple of other
fugitives who were dressed as administrative personnel, I could sense the end
of my chase was coming. Each day it seemed like more people were out looking
for me. And I was running out of places to hide.

As I was trying to figure out my next move, and wondering if
maybe I should hide in that electric chair again, they wouldn’t expect to find
me there, I suddenly noticed I was heading right towards a Martian patrol. I
stopped and turned, but there was another patrol coming from the other
direction. In a few moments, I would be captured.

It was sooner than that. Before I could even finish my thought,
I was grabbed from behind and pulled out of sight. A hand was over my mouth. I
thought about biting it, but decided against it. For now. I waited and watched
as the Martian patrols moved past. Then the hand came off my mouth and I was
allowed to stand up and take a look at the people who had saved me.

It was the Earth Underground! I was saved at last! I was
forever safe!

“
Thanks, fellas,” I said. “You saved my life. Now I’d like to do
something for you. Uh… how does eight dollars sound?”

One of the Earthmen looked closer at my face.

“
Well well well. If it isn’t General Burly of the Martian Army.”

“
Hello!” I said.

Their unfriendly faces seemed even more unfriendly now.

“
I was looking for you guys,” I said, a little uneasily.

“
That’s a coincidence.”

An officer of some kind stepped forward. “Remember me, General?
You kicked me in the ass.”

“
I kick a lot of people.” I looked at his ass. “Oh, yeah, hi.”

This is when I discovered that I had escaped one group of
pursuers only to be captured by another. The Earth Underground had been looking
for me too. They blamed me for the loss of their planet. And they were planning
on taking it out of my hide.

I broke free and tried out-running them, but they were all in
better shape than I was, so they caught up with me pretty quick, and began
running along with me. They weren’t angry. This was the way they were taking me
anyway. We were almost there now, thanks to my running. I didn’t try that
again.

Suddenly we stopped and ducked into the shadows. A Martian
patrol was up ahead, looking for me in a row of garbage cans.

“
I’m over here!” I yelled. “Help! Help! Hilfen!”

Before I could say any more, the Earthmen dragged me out of
sight.

The Earth patrol that had captured me cautiously wound its way
through the streets. It took awhile to get to where we were going, because we
had to avoid Martian patrols as we went, and occasionally had to stop at
drugstores to see if we could find anything to keep me quiet.

We were nearly discovered by the Martians at one point. We had
to quickly duck into an alley and everybody pretended they were kissing me. The
lead man in the Martian patrol shined a flashlight on us, grimaced, then moved
on. We stopped kissing, everyone did a lot of spitting, then we continued on
our way.

Finally we got to an old 3-storey brick building that was not
quite as solid as it looked. Four of our men pushed the building to one side,
revealing a hole. We went down this hole and after a moment the building slid back
into place. Pretty slick, I thought.

As we worked our way through a maze-like series of underground
passages, we passed lookouts who were posted along the way. Each looked us
over, then lowered their guns when they saw who we were.

Finally we reached the Earth Underground Command Post. I was
roughly shoved inside. Unfriendly faces turned to look at me.

“
Here he is, Major.”

“
Ah, General Burly.”

“
Hiya.”

I looked around. The room was dirt, shored up by planks. The
walls were covered with maps, including a map of the Underground leaders’
homes, as well as a chart showing the Earth Command leadership from top to
bottom. That might come in handy, I thought.

“
Hey, can I have that?” I asked the Major, pointing at the
chart.

“
No. I’m not even sure why we have a chart like that.”

A small man in the back of the group spoke up. “Hey, I like
making charts, okay?”

“
Okay, okay. It’s just that… oh never mind.”

“
Charts are useful. I mean, what if we forgot which one of us
was boss? Or who was third least important? The chart would tell us. We
wouldn’t have to guess.”

“
Okay, that’s enough about charts.”

“
For now.”

“
Yes, all right, for now.”

Also on the wall were wanted posters for “Frank the Terrible”
and “Burly the Beast”. I hoped these posters weren’t referring to me. I hoped
they were referring to some other Burly the Beast.

The Major – Major Zedo his name was – began to read off a list
of the atrocities I was supposed to have committed. As I listened, I became
more and more outraged. These were terrible things I was being accused of!

“
I never did that, I swear to God,” I protested.

They showed me a picture of me doing it. “Oh that,” I said.
“Yeah, I did that.” I looked at more pictures. “And that… and that… shit, I did
all this stuff.” I looked at the pictures again, then pointed to one of them.
“Can I get an 8X10 of this one? The one of me kicking you?”

“
No 8X10s.”

“
Oh. Okay. Look, I’m sorry about all of this, deeply and truly
and honestly sorry, but…”

“
Sorry isn’t good enough, Mr. Burly.”

“
What!”

“
You heard us.”

“
Well sorry is going to have to be good enough, because sorry is
all I’ve got.” I made one last attempt to placate them. “Okay, I’m sorry and
five bucks.”

“
Still not enough.”

“
Hey, screw you, buddy. That’s a good offer.”

The Earthmen grumbled angrily. I tried to reason with them.

“
Okay, listen up. Okay, it’s true I’m one of the Martians who
invaded your puny planet.” There was louder grumbling at this. “Wait wait wait,
hear me out. Yes, I am a Martian General, and I have beaten and killed some –
underline ‘some’ – of you. But, and this is important…” I stopped. I’d
forgotten what I was going to say. My audience was getting restless. Then I
remembered where I was going with this. “But, I’m an Earthman just like you. I
was born here just like you. The only difference between you and me is I fought
on the side of the Martians. And we won, too. We slaughtered you guys.” I
stopped. I’d lost my way again. I decided to finish up quickly. “So the good
news is, I’ve learned my lesson, and there’s no need to punish me.”

Somebody on my right made a quick move. I grabbed a gun off the
table and took a shot at him. That got everybody upset again.

“
Would somebody take his gun away, please?”

“
General Burly,” said the Major, “Whether you did all the things
you are accused of is unimportant. Where you were born is unimportant. You
conquered our planet. That is the one thing we cannot forgive.”

“
I took over the planet so nobody else would get it,” I assured
them. “You guys should be thanking me instead of yelling at me. I can’t believe
you’re so stupid. You Earth People and your stupid minds! Oh Man! Man!”

“
Watch your step, buddy,” said one of the Earthmen.

“
All right, I’ll watch my step, but remember what I said about
your minds being stupid.”

They said they would remember.

“
Besides,” I said, trying to win them back again. “I have a plan
for getting you your planet back. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, if
you would only listen.”