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Nomenclature of Working Men of Delaware (Revised):

Alive: (adj.) Dead
Casper the Friendly Ghost mask: (n) A corpse's face.
Cop: In one case, the term police means Art Linkletter, and the rest of the time it means police.
Crazy or Craziness: Completely sane, or profound saneness.
Freak: (n) a normal person with all his or her wits about him or her, who is not insane at all.
Funny: (adj.) Not funny
Laughing or holding back laughter: (v) Being very serious.
Nothing happened: He was shot.
Running around: (v) Laying down and exhibiting all the natural behaviors of dead persons.
State Hospital: (n) Morgue (not the mental hospital, seriously).
Talking: (v) Rising up from death to impart knowledge all Jesus like and everything, but then returning to the dead instead of going up to heaven. Except, of course, when Mrs. Burns in speaking, or during parts of the text wherein Mr. Cooper has yet to die.

Chapter 1:
Well, I got a call from Bill Cooper that I was to be ready for pick up at nine PM. That's Billy's usual time because he claims that before nine the aliens are still asleep, and he always likes to look out the window and try to spot space ships and whatnot. And, well, I live and have my business establishment in Bear Delaware, and we had to go all the way to New Castle because that's where the river is. He thinks, or thought that it was easier to see alien ships there because there are no buildings on the water. It's just open space, so there's nothing blocking his view. And so it was a long ride, is the point I'm making. So he was talking about his book - he's always talking about books and research and so on - and so I asked him what his story was, like why he was into all that weird shit. And he said, "Well, I can't really tell you. There are secret microscopic microphones in the car and everywhere, and if they hear me talking about it more and more, they'll come and get me." He was very adamant that they would come and get him if he kept talking too much about this. So then I assured him that there were no microphones in his car and that he was just paranoid, and that he would be relaxed soon enough, if you know what I mean, and I kept at it for a few minutes. And traffic on route 40 was horrible. It seems that some guy in a black pick up truck was blocking traffic. It was really bizarre. When we finally got past him, he was kneeling down and licking the ground around a beer can. Apparently he dropped it out the window or something, and he really wanted his beer. But anyway, traffic was so slow that he decided to tell me what I wanted to know just to pass the time. So then he began telling his story.

Chapter 2:
It seems that he joined the navy at one point in his life. I don't remember when exactly it was, but he was definitely in the navy because he kept talking about submarines and how cool they were. He said they were huge and they made all kinds of neat noises and had cool dials and buttons and everything. He was very innocent about the whole thing. And he also mentioned lying in order to get into the navy, so he always felt like someone was watching him, like they were keeping an eye on him because he lied to the psychiatrist, and he thought they were on to him. So, then one night, while he was on a ship or a submarine that had surfaced or some such thing, he was watching the sky and there were some alien craft in the sky that went directly down into the water, and he began to freak out. He said he reported it to his superior officers who told him that there was no such thing and that it must have been his imagination. But he was insistent that he had seen an alien craft. Of course, everyone began to laugh at him. But he still wouldn't stop with the aliens, so eventually some men came to see him. It turns out that one of the men who came was the same man he had lied to. He was a psychiatrist, but Bill was convinced for some reason that he was also in the CIA. I don't know why he thought the guy was in the CIA, but that's what he told me. So anyhow, he says the CIA psychiatrist starts asking him all types of questions like does he hear voices and does he sometimes see things that aren't there, and Bill was convinced that if he told them about the voices or the things he sometimes saw that weren't actually there that they'd discharge him, and he didn't want that. So he starts steady lying to the CIA psychiatrist guy. So, the guy starts explaining away the aliens. He starts saying that maybe it was a meteorite, or maybe it was just his imagination, but at any rate, there was no alien ship, and that nothing showed up on the ship's radar or anything, and that they'd definitely know it if something had come that close to the ship. But Bill doesn't believe anything.

Chapter 3:
So, then he starts talking about how one day aliens will land on earth, only they won't be real aliens. Or they might be real aliens but we won't be able to tell whether they're real or not for some reason. And he says that what will happen is that the government will convince people that they should outlaw guns because some crazy rednecks might try and kill the aliens or something like that. The point of it was that they - the government, that is - would start trying to convince people to give up all their rights and that this somehow has to do with the aliens or something. I really don't remember. But right then was when we pulled up even with the black pick up truck that was blocking traffic. Bill got really interested in what was going on with the traffic, and I was trying to drive - Bill asked me to drive because he was so wound up and the traffic was bad - and look at the guy blocking the road at the same time. And just as we could see the man licking the ground, Bill gets all excited. He says, "There's something familiar about that guy." He says he's seen that guy before somewhere, but he couldn't place him just by the top of his head and the truck. But then the guy looks up and right at us. I was watching, so I saw him. And I said, "Bill, look!" But by that time the guy went back to licking the ground. But then, a few miles down the road, I spotted that truck in the mirror. It followed us all the way down to New Castle, where it turned off just before we got to the parking lot. I didn't say anything to Bill because he's always so paranoid, and he was already real nervous and I didn't want to make it any worse.

Chapter 4:
So, we get to the parking lot, and I start stretching, you know to get all limbered up for work and everything, and Bill starts counting out all his change and stuff. But then Bill starts getting all nervous about where we're parked. He says someone's watching us, and starts clutching at this K-Mart bag he's got in his hands. I told him no one was there, and that there was nothing to worry about, but apparently I was wrong. A few minutes later, Bill was still talking about moving, and I was trying to calm him down, and then there were these lights, red and blue flashing, and Bill starts screeching like a woman or something. I said, "Bill, it's OK, it's just the police, they just want us to move, but once they see who I am, I can just hook 'em up, and they'll let us alone." But Bill's not having it, he's screeching so loud my ears hurt, and I didn't think he was going to stop. But then the door of the police car opens, and he stops instantly, and just clutches at the bag. By this point, the windows are completely fogged up from his screeching, so the cop, not knowing it was me, taps on the window with his night stick. I start to open it, and Bill whispers to me, "Don't open the window, they'll kill me!" I says, "Calm down, Bill. It's OK. It's just Jimmy, he'll let us alone." So I get the window open and I say, "Hey, Jimmy!" and he says, "Hey, Mrs. Burns, that seminar you gave to all our wives worked wonders, you know? My wife is starting to get really good." And that's when Bill flips out. I mean really really flips out, and I don't know why because nothing happened. He starts yelling about how he's been shot, and how he's dying, and the cop starts freaking and drags me out of the car and puts me in the back of the police car to protect me from him, you know? 'Cause even though I know Bill and all, it was scary that he'd start talking like that when nothing happened.

Chapter 5:
Everything after that I see from the back seat of the police car. Bill gets out of the car, once again screeching like a woman, and he pulls this Casper the Friendly Ghost mask out of the bag, and puts it on. Then he's running around in circles with this mask on, yelling, and I mean loud, "I'm dead! I'm dead! I'm invincible! Boo!" The police are laughing like idiots, trying to catch him and falling all over the place because they can't laugh and run at the same time - it was like Keystone Cops. Ridiculous. So then, the police are just laughing and stuff, and more of 'em show up and they're all standing around howling at this guy running around yelling, "Boo! I'm dead!" Then he stops dead in his tracks and looks all serious like, and begins to talk. He says, "Don't let Karen touch the sauce." Then, like he's answering himself, he goes, "I'm stirring it!" And he keeps going on like that for like ten minutes before he starts running and yelling about being dead and invincible and boo and so on like a freak. But he said lots of crazy shit. Like, for example, he says at one point, "They both ran away and joined the SLA, you know I don't know why, oh I don't know why. Perhaps they'll die. Oh ya." And then he says, "I let my nut sack drag on the tile floor." I don't know what to tell you about him. I think once he said, "I wish it was a Sunday, that's my fun day." At one point he just plain says, "Ack," and then starts explaining how his name is Bill and he once died in a car accident when he was a rock star in a band called Deathtongue, with umlauts, whatever that means, and that his tongue was the only part of his body left after the crash, but his friend Oliver cloned him from the DNA in the tongue. Then, just before he starts running around screaming again, he goes up to this tree and pulls a sign out of the bag. He sits down under the tree, plants the sign in the ground and leans back against the tree like he's at the beach or at a resort, and he puts on a hat with an umbrella on top of it. So the cops walk up to him all slow like, and one of their flash light beams hits the sign, and at that point I saw that it said, "No Walruses." Pretty soon Rodney and Tommy drive up and see Bill running around screaming. They catch hold of him and take him away. That's about all that happened. But I still can't get those words out of my head. It haunts me to this day. "No Walruses."