Other Aliens Read online

  (Unfortunately, the final draft of this report is due on Monday morning. If only we were outfitted with the more potent neurotransmitter chips inserted into J. S. Maada’s brain, or, at least, one or two of the amphetamine biochemical boosters that kept the hapless test subject awake at night!)

  Radical temporal destabilization seems to have intensified the subject’s confusion about his (classified) role as a “privileged alien agent” with special powers (invisibility, ability to read minds, to pass through solid walls, and to perceive the shimmering molecular interiors of all things; to “detonate”—“demolecularize”—when directed by his commandant) and his (actual, literal) life as a manual laborer in the not-always-reliable hire of Adolpho’s Lawn Care & Maintenance of Montclair, New Jersey.

  From the perspective of institute research scientists it would have been preferable that the test subject had not worked at all, and that he was available for their purposes at all times, like a laboratory animal that is kept, for his own safety as well as for the convenience of experimental researchers, in a cage; but J. S. Maada’s disappearance from the Nigerian enclave in Edison would have aroused suspicion, it was believed. And so, inevitably, J. S. Maada’s real-life activities impacted upon his role as an experimental subject, and presented serious limitations, which resulted in the tragic events of 6/19/16.

  Precipitating factors include extreme heat on the day of the “assault” (a high of ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit in Montclair, New Jersey, by noon), protracted labor (the lawn crew had begun work at 7:00 a.m. at the E_______s’ large, three-acre property; the assault occurred at 11:00 a.m.), and an evident miscommunication between Mrs. E_______ and J. S. Maada that ended in a “violent outburst” on the part of the test subject, bringing to an abrupt and unforeseen halt the subject’s participation in PROJECT JRD.

  Possibilities accounting for Maada’s extreme reaction following an exchange with Mrs. E_______ are: the stent in the subject’s cere bellum had begun to work loose and/or one or another of the inserted microchips may have been malfunctioning. Usually “docile, reticent, cooperative, and naively unquestioning,” the test subject allegedly became “excitable, belligerent, and threatening.” According to witnesses, Maada lifted his shovel as if to strike the terrified Mrs. E_________ but decided instead to attack the Floradora bush, rending it into pieces; he then threw down the shovel, seized Mrs. E_______by her shoulders, and shook her violently as one might shake a doll with the intention of breaking it. Further, according to Mrs. E_________, Maada bared his “wet, sharp” teeth and lunged as if to bite her in the (right) breast.

  By this time two of Maada’s coworkers came shouting to the rescue of Mrs. E_________. Inside the house, a housekeeper called 911 to report the attempted sexual assault/homicide.

  When Montclair police officers arrived at the E_________residence they discovered the agitated (black, Nigerian-born) laborer “cowering at the foot of the property, by a fence”—“foaming at the mouth like a mad dog”—“rushing at us with a shovel.” After “repeated warnings,” officers had “no choice” but to open fire, seriously wounding but not (immediately) killing subject #293199.

  Transcript of testimony of Mrs. E_________, to the Essex County prosecutor. 6/28/16

  I did not condescend to Mr. Marda. I did not provoke him.

  You can ask any of Adolpho’s men—I am always very friendly when I see them. I will admit, most of the time I can’t remember their names—their names are so exotic!

  We couldn’t possibly—personally—know which of the workers are undocumented—illegal. I would never dream of questioning anyone who works for us, who is obviously working very hard to send money back home to a wife and seven children, or a mother and eleven siblings, in God knows what poverty-stricken African or Central American country, still less would I register suspicion of their legal status. I suppose that some are Mexicans, and some are Filipinos, and some are African, and some are—Pakistani? Well, I don’t know. They are all foreign.

  Mostly, they are excellent workers. Sometimes, in the house, I see them working out in the sun, and start to feel faint watching … Of course, as Adolpho has said, they are not like us. They don’t mind sun and heat, they have been born nearer the equator.

  So in all innocence I approached “J. S. Marda”—this is the name I would afterward learn—I will never forget!—to whom I had spoken the week before, at least I think that I had (it’s hard to keep them straight, they look so much alike especially hunched over in the rose garden), and I told him that the Floradora rose had not worked out well where he’d transplanted it, so he would have to move it again, back to where it had been originally, except now there was an azalea bush in its place that he’d planted, and that would have to be relocated … I was not speaking rudely. I am not a bossy person! I was speaking slowly and carefully as you would speak to a child or a retarded person. For the man did not seem to comprehend my words. I could see his mouth working—but no sounds came out. He was sort of hunched over in the rose bed like a dwarf, with a back like a dwarf’s back, but he was not small like a dwarf, and was sweating terribly, and “smelling” (well, I know he could not help it, none of them can help it, which is why we don’t allow them to use the bathroom in our house or to come into the house for any reason)—it was a strong smell—and was making me feel sickish … He was not looking at me, his eyes were averted from my face. He had a very dark skin that seemed to suck in all the light, like an eclipse in the sky. He was polite and stiff and he was trying to smile but his face was contorted like a mask and I could see that he had cut his arm on some of the rose thorns but he did not seem to be bleeding like a normal person. It was like some kind of mucus leaked out, with a strange, sharp smell. And now I could see his eyes were not matching colors. The iris of one eye was a strange bright russet red and it was larger than the other iris, which was mud brown. Though his face was very dark it seemed to have begun to splotch with something like mange, or melanomas. It was very frightening to see—the black, “Negroid” skin seemed to be peeling off, but what was beneath?—a kind of pinkish skin, like our own skin if the outermost layer is peeled off, an unnatural pink, like raw meat. And now, the man was furious—at me. I could not believe how he lifted the shovel to hit me—screaming at me in a strange, brute language like the grunting of an ape—and then he struck the rose bush with the shovel—like a crazy man—and then he took hold of me and shook, shook, shook me and bared his wet, sharp teeth to b-bite …

  (So agitated did Mrs. E________become, the prosecutor excused her from further testimony.)

  Consequential, sequential. Without temporality, i.e., the measured unfolding of time, the human is reduced to something lesser than human.

  J. S. Maada’s first arrest, one day to be conflated with his second arrest, and yet a causal factor in the second arrest, had been in New Brunswick (5/21/15). Subject was waiting for a bus at State Street and Second Ave. at approximately 9:20 p.m. when two New Brunswick PD squad cars braked to a stop and police officers swarmed upon several “black youths” on the sidewalk. Subject demonstrated “suspicious behavior” by running panicked from the scene; after a scuffle, during which subject was thrown to the sidewalk and handcuffed, subject was arrested and taken to precinct with other young men.

  Jailed in the New Brunswick Men’s Detention, subject was ignored for forty-eight hours despite requests for medical attention (broken ribs, lacerated face, possible concussion), then discovered to be an “undocumented alien” from Nigeria whose student visa had expired.

  NOTE: “Undocumented aliens” have no immigration status in the United States and may be arrested at any time and “removal proceedings” initiated. Legal help may provide options but these are temporary. Until individual is issued a green card (providing permanent residence, but not citizenship) or a student visa, he can be deported at any time.

  Marriage with a US citizen automatically confers immunity to deportation by the State Department but does not confer citizenship.


  Distraught subject was visited in the New Brunswick Men’s Detention by a PROJECT JRD officer, who explained to him that deportation for undocumented aliens was mandated by the US State Department with one exception: if subject volunteered for a federal medical research program that he successfully completed, he would be issued a new student visa with which to attend “any university of his choice” and he would be eligible for a green card—that is, permanent residence in the US.

  Gratefully, then, Joseph Saidu Maada agreed to participate in the project, which was explained to him as funded by both the United States Department of Defense and the United States Department of State. Contracts pertaining to Maada’s willingness to waive his rights were signed with a flourish, though (strictly speaking) the undocumented alien does not share “rights” with US citizens. The seal of the state of New Jersey lent to these documents an authentic air. Among the test subject’s personal remains, after his death, these documents were found, and reclaimed by the PROJECT.

  According to the S_______ family, who had taken in the young man in his hour of need, after his expulsion from Harrogate University, Maada seemed certain that his application for US citizenship was being processed by a “special, secret court,” and that he would soon become a citizen, and when he did, he would help the entire S_______ family to apply as well. Saidu was a very kind young man, very helpful and loving with the children, especially our three-year-old Riki. When he first came to live with us he was not so talkative, and suspicious of everyone at the door but then later he became nervous and excitable and loud-laughing when there was nothing so funny we could see. With a wink he would say how he would pay us back one hundred times over for he was a “special-mission agent,” one day we would be surprised.

  Maada had enrolled in the engineering program—“One of the Finest Engineering Programs in the World!”—at Harrogate University but his background in mathematics was inadequate and his ability to read and write English was substandard. He had difficulty with all of his first-year courses but particularly Introduction to Computer Engineering in which he was given a grade of D- by a (Pakistani American) teaching assistant, who, he claimed, had taken a “hate” of him and whose heavily accented English Maada could not comprehend. His tuition to Harrogate had been paid by an international nonprofit agency and would not be continued after his first year. It was kind of pathetic, these African students they’d recruited from God knows where. They weren’t the age of college freshmen. They could speak English—sort of. Their tongues were just too large for the vowels. They had the look of swimmers flailing and thrashing in water hoping not to drown. They sat together in the dining hall, trying to eat the tasteless food. Their laughter was loud and kind of scary. White girls were particularly frightened of them, for the way the Africans stared at them with “strange hungry” smiles, they could feel “intense sexual thoughts” directed toward them especially if they wore shorts and halter tops or tight jeans, which (they believed) they had every right to wear and were not going to be “intimidated.”

  Along with several other universities, Harrogate has been charged with fraud in soliciting young persons from abroad with “enticing and misrepresentative” brochures, “unethical waivers of basic educational requirements,” and “worthless scholarships”; presidents of these universities travel to Africa, India, Korea, and China to proselytize shamelessly for their schools, which attract only a small percentage of (white-skinned, above-average-income) Americans and are not accredited in the US. The university does not clearly state that tuition and costs are nonrefundable as soon as the term begins and that “undergraduate living fees” are considerable. Harrogate University in Jersey City, New Jersey, has been several times indicted as perpetrating fraud—yet, even as a half dozen lawsuits pend, it is still operating in New Jersey.

  After being asked to leave Harrogate, Maada was deeply shamed and disconsolate. With several other ex-engineering African students he made his way to Edison, New Jersey, where he lived with the S_______ family, fellow Nigerians who took pity on him and made room for him in their small, cramped apartment on Ewing Street. In Edison, Maada looked for employment wherever he could find it. He was paid in cash, and took pride in paying the S_______s whenever he could; they did not know details of Maada’s personal life but registered surprise that Maada had been released from men’s detention so quickly after his arrest, with no charges against him. Not only was Maada spared a prison sentence but he was guaranteed payment from the US government each month, in cash, which, combined with the cash he received from his numerous jobs, allowed him to pay the S_______s usually on time, and even to send money back to his family in Nigeria.

  By a 2012 mandate of the Department of Defense, payments received by all participants in (classified) research projects throughout the United States are to be “at least one and a half times” the wages earned by the participant in his primary civilian job; this has been emphasized, for PROJECT JRD has committed to “zero tolerance” of exploitation of any of its subjects domestic or foreign.

  LOST IN SPACE

  As stated at the outset of this report, the destabilization of spatial functions of cognition in test subject #293199/Joseph Saidu Maada as a consequence of neurotransmitter microchips inserted in his cerebral cortex did not appear to be so extreme as the subject’s temporal destabilization, though it was frequently a contribution to his general “disorientation.”

  Essentially, subject did not know “where” he was in the basic ontological sense of the term. He had exhibited some natural curiosity before leaving his homeland to fly (to Newark Liberty International Airport) and then to take ground transportation (bus) to Jersey City, New Jersey, to the campus of Harrogate University; but, if examined, he could not have said where these destinations were in relationship to one another, let alone to his homeland or, indeed, to any other points on the map; nor did Maada, like many, or most, foreign visitors, have anything like a clear vision of how vast the United States is and of how staggeringly long it would require (for instance) to drive across the continent. Maada had no idea of his proximate position in the universe—he had no idea of the universe. When it was revealed to him via the commandant (NTM) that he was a native of a distant moon (Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter) sent to Earth on a mission that involved amnesia (no memory of Ganymede) and “surrogate identity” (quasi memory of Nigeria), he was initially eager to be shown photographs of Ganymede and Jupiter but soon became discouraged by the distant and impersonal nature of the images provided him at the institute. For—where did the people live? Maada wondered. All you could see was strangely colored rock and blank, black space that was very beautiful but did not appear to be habitable.

  Before this, Maada had had frequent difficulty with his physical/spatial surroundings in his “adopted” country. He could not begin to comprehend the New Jersey Turnpike with its many lanes and exits that seemed to repeat endlessly and to no purpose; if he was obliged to ride in a vehicle on the turnpike, being driven by Adolpho to a work site, he shut his eyes and hunched his head between his shoulders and waited to be told that he had arrived. Even on the Harrogate campus he was easily confused. Not only did the blank, buff-colored factorylike buildings closely resemble one another but walkways and “quads” appeared to be identical. Many of the (multiethnic) individuals whom he encountered at the university appeared to be identical. Often he became lost looking for a classroom; by the time he arrived, the class had ended, or perhaps it had never existed. Tests were administered like slaps to the head—he could not grasp what was being demanded of him, and he did not like the way his professors and TAs (“teaching assistants”—a term new to him) smiled at him in scorn, derision, and pity. For amid so many dusky-skinned persons, Joseph Saidu Maada was decidedly black.

  Somehow, then, it happened that he was barred from the dour asphalt dormitory to which he’d been assigned, to share a “suite” with several other first-year engineering students from scattered parts of the globe. He was se
rved a warrant: a notice of expulsion signed by the chancellor of Harrogate University and affixed with the university’s gold-gilt seal. African American security officers, taller than he by several inches, burly, uniformed, and armed with billy clubs, arrived to forcibly escort him off campus with a warning that if he dared return he would be arrested and deported. His student visa had been revoked, his scholarship had been terminated. This happened so quickly, Maada had difficulty comprehending that he was no longer a student with much promise enrolled in one of the great engineering programs in the world but an individual designated as undocumented, illegal, who was shortly to be deported.

  In “New Jersey” there was nowhere to go on foot. You could not use instinct. Blows to the test subject’s head caused by the booted feet of enraged New Brunswick police officers contributed to his diminished sense of place and direction. In an apartment of three cramped rooms Maada could become hopelessly lost; as in a hallucination he might encounter his own self emerging through a doorway. A dingy mirror or reflecting surface told him what he already dreaded to know—there was “another” on the farther side of a glass whose intentions could not be known.

  Later, the commandment would quell such fears. You are one of many, and you are many of one.

  Since Maada had no idea where the institute was, how many miles from the apartment he shared with the S_______s in Edison, there was a kind of comfort in not knowing and in the certitude of not being able to know where he was taken. No one could possibly expect Maada to draw a map of where he was taken—he had virtually no idea where he was, before he was taken. Each Thursday, according to schedule, and in fulfillment of his contract, Maada was picked up by an (unmarked) van, to bring him to the institute for approximately twelve hours of neurophysiological experiments; soon after the onset of the NTM insertions in the parietal lobe of his brain, Maada had but the vaguest sense of direction, like a child on a fun-house ride who is dazed and dazzled and frightened and yet strangely comforted that the ride was after all a ride, prescribed by adults whose wisdom far surpassed his own.