Gemini Summer Page 6

  School finished on the seventeenth. As usual, Beau had done well, and Danny rather poorly. Danny is a pleasure in the classroom, his teacher had written in the report. But I wish he would apply himself harder. The Old Man, after reading that, said he should apply his hand to Danny’s backside, but of course he never did. He only offered to reward them both by taking them to the A&W. Danny said he would like that, but Beau said he was “kinda busy.”

  The next day Danny followed his mother all over the house on his hands and knees, pretending to be a dog. He scraped at the back of her leg with his fingernails; he sat up and begged for his breakfast, then ate his cereal on the floor, lapping it from the bowl. He barked for more, until his mother finally said, “Great balls of fire, Danny. If you keep this up, they won’t know whether to put you in the nuthouse or the kennel.”

  On the nineteenth, she took Danny into the city so that he could do his shopping. He sat on the knees of nine different Santas, one in each place that they went to, telling each one the same thing—in a voice loud enough for his mother to hear—that he wanted a puppy for Christmas. He plunked himself down and bellowed in their ears. He knew, of course, that they were just men in red suits, but he was still disappointed to have a Santa Claus tell him, “Pipe down, will ya!”

  The tree went up on the twenty-first, and then the presents began to appear. Danny took them one by one in his hands, squeezing and shaking and sniffing, hoping to find a collar and leash, or a food bowl, or a squeaky toy. On Christmas Eve he discovered a big box that rattled when he shook it, and he was certain it was full of puppy food.

  That afternoon the Old Man filled a big jug with water. He poured some into the tree stand, then left the jug nearby, and Danny’s heart took a little jump, because he knew what that was for. He tried to pretend that he didn’t, so as not to spoil the Old Man’s pleasure, but couldn’t stop himself from asking. “Why are you leaving the water there?” he said, so excited he could hardly talk.

  “Why lug it back and forth?” said the Old Man. “There’ll be a need for it tomorrow, I’m sure.”

  That was all Danny needed to know. His heart filled with joy, and he went out in the snow, to Killer Hill, to watch the dogs chasing sleds and snowballs. For a moment he wished, with sadness, that he hadn’t lost Billy Bear’s name tag. But he was too happy to stay sad for long, and all evening he wondered how the puppy would be presented to him. He hoped it would be lying on his bed in the morning, nestled in the bend of his knee, or pressed against his neck, and that it would wake him with little nips and kisses, with its tiny tail wagging furiously. Or, he wondered, would he find it tied to the tree by a red ribbon, and would it leap forward to meet him when he came into the room, tugging so hard at the ribbon that the tree would shake and the ornaments tremble? Or would it be waiting outside, out in the truck, so that he wouldn’t hear it barking? No matter how it would happen, he would take his puppy for a walk right away, and he would have to beat a trail through the snow to let it follow behind him. Just before bedtime, he placed his boots by the register in the mudroom so that they would be toasty in the morning.

  Old Man River followed the boys to their room. He had to duck his head as he passed below the airplanes and the rockets that dangled from the ceiling on Beau’s side. Then he sat on Beau’s bed and opened a book, and read “The Night Before Christmas,” as he did every year. With the last sentence, “A merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night,” he closed the book softly. He tucked the boys in tightly and kissed them good night.

  Danny thought he wouldn’t sleep at all. He lay awake, staring at the patterns of frost on the window, as names of dogs went racing through his mind. Every one he’d thought of, and every one he’d forgotten, came to him in a great rush, like a babble of shouting. There were others now, too, all Christmasy things like Sugarplum and Marzipan, and the swirl of names seemed to sweep him along into darkness.

  But there was no puppy on his bed in the morning. There was no puppy tied to the tree, and no one told him to go out and look in the truck. He opened the box that he’d thought was dog food and found it was only a Crazy Clock game, with all its plastic pieces rattling. One after the other, he tore open his presents and put them aside. No leash. No squeaky toys. No dog food bowl. Beside him, Beau was shrieking at his finds—a bank like a Mercury space capsule, a Jupiter four-color signal gun, and a big Rocket Base USA. He fired one of its missiles and hit Danny in the back of the head.

  Danny didn’t even move. He was so disappointed that he just sat and stared at the boxes and the wrapping paper. He kept hoping that somehow a puppy would appear, but it never did. He would have sat there and cried if he hadn’t known how much it would hurt his parents’ feelings to see him do that on Christmas. So he played with his Jumbo the Bubble-Blowing Elephant, and let Beau shoot missiles at the bubbles it made. And he played with his Agent M Radio Rifle, and bounced his Superball, and hoped he would get his dog in 1965.

  twenty-two

  The sheriff grew bored with standing in the doorway. He tugged at his belt and shifted his feet. In the cell, the lady kept talking.

  The blond-haired boy watched her closely. She reminded him a lot of his mother, with her old-fashioned clothes and the golden band on her finger. Her voice was like his mother’s Scarlett voice, all bright and chirpy, rising often into questions that weren’t really questions at all.

  She told him about the little town and the people who lived there. Then he asked if she’d been to Cape Canaveral, and she said, “Just once,” so he made her tell him all about it. She said she’d toured the space center. “I got a little ol’ book from there?” she said, like a question.

  “Did you meet any astronauts?”

  “Not real ones, no. But I got my picture taken with a cardboard astronaut,” she said.

  “I want to go there,” said the boy. “That’s where I was trying to get to.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?” she said.

  “I can’t tell you,” said the boy. “I would, but you’d laugh at me.”

  “Now why would I do something like that?” she said.

  “Because no one believes me,” said the boy.

  twenty-three

  In the spring of 1965, as the snow was melting, Mrs. River was longing for summer and her trip to Georgia. It was spring as well in the novel she was writing, and as she looked out the kitchen window she felt as though she was in her story, gazing at plantations battered by the guns of the Civil War.

  It was a Tuesday in March, but she wasn’t writing today because both the boys were home from school. Beau had space fever again, and Danny had caught a dose of it. They were watching TV in the living room, waiting for the launch of Gemini 3. She heard Beau shout.

  “There he is! Look, Danny!” he said, in that voice that hadn’t quite broken. “Aw, Danny, aren’t you watching?”

  “Sure I am,” said Danny. “It was Gus Grisson. I seen him.”

  Mrs. River raised her voice and called through the house, “You saw him.”

  “He didn’t! He wasn’t even watching,” answered Beau.

  She took one more look at her dolls, then went into the living room. Beau was sitting on the floor, cross-legged like a snake charmer, and Danny was sprawled in the armchair. On the television screen, two astronauts were squeezing into a little elevator. She watched them come out at the top of the rocket and climb one after the other into the capsule. “What a tiny door,” she said. They had to go through it feet-first, with men in white coats trying to help. “Couldn’t they give them a bigger door than that?”

  “It’s a hatch,” said Beau. “It has to be small.”

  “And this is what you want to do someday?” she asked.

  “It’s not just what I want,” said Beau. “I’m really going to do it, Mom.”

  “It looks so dangerous,” she said. “You’d rather fly in rockets than be a doctor or a lawyer?”

  “Or a septic man?” asked Danny.

  Beau didn’t look away fr
om the television. “There’s nothing else I wanta do. I’m gonna fly in a fighter jet. And I’m gonna float around in space. You’ll see.”

  “Well, don’t ask me to go down and watch you blast off,” she said. “I’ll be sitting right here crossing my fingers and crossing my toes and—”

  “Shhh!” said Beau. “Mom, please, I can’t hear.”

  Mrs. River didn’t mean to sit and watch the launch, but she did. She found that she couldn’t walk away from the television, and so she settled like a bird on the arm of the sofa. The countdown was going on as the astronauts vanished into that capsule. She saw one of the white-coated men reach through the hatch, and the hand of an astronaut come up to shake his. It amazed her that this was really happening at this very moment, hundreds of miles away. Even as she watched, the astronaut was squeezing the hand of the man in the coat, and the man was squeezing back, and they both knew that in minutes the astronaut would be riding a rocket through space. Then the door was closed and latched, and the men in white coats went down in the elevator. And the poor astronauts, thought Mrs. River. The poor astronauts, they must be feeling so lonely.

  “Aren’t they scared?” she asked.

  “Only Gus,” said Danny, in his armchair.

  Beau became instantly furious. He turned and screamed at his brother. “You shut up!” He actually screamed, and his face was purple, and his eyes were bulging like a devil’s. She had never seem him so angry at anything, and over two words? “Beau!” she said.

  Danny looked stunned. “Gee, I was only fooling.”

  “Well, don’t!” shouted Beau. “You little moron. Get outta here, Danny.”

  “Now, Beau,” said Mrs. River. “Just whoa, Beau.”

  That was how she had calmed him ever since he was a baby. For thirteen years it had made him slow down, and then stop, and then smile. But now it didn’t work at all. He leapt up and wrestled Danny from the armchair, and Danny shouted, and she had to pry them apart.

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Take it back!” said Beau to Danny. “Gus Grissom isn’t scared. He’s never scared. You got no right to say it.”

  “Well, he certainly didn’t seem frightened to me,” said Mrs. River. “Oh, look. There’s the rocket standing there now and—see?—that thing is moving away.”

  The boys only glared at each other.

  “You’re stupid, Danny. You don’t know anything about him,” said Beau. “He was a colonel in the air force. He flew a hundred missions in Korea. He’s a hero, and he doesn’t get scared.”

  “Okay,” said Mrs. River. “Okay, we’ve settled that. Danny said he was only joking.”

  “Then it was a stupid joke,” said Beau.

  “Maybe it was,” she said. “But if you don’t sit down and watch, you’re going to miss the launch.”

  Beau turned away. He lay on his stomach and made blinkers from his hands, as though to block out all but the TV. Danny got back in his chair. He sulked for a while; then he said, “I’m sorry, Beau. I didn’t mean nothing.”

  “Forget it,” said Beau.

  “He’s the bravest guy in the world. I know it,” said Danny.

  “Just forget it, okay?”

  “In a minute he’ll be the bravest guy in space, too. He’ll be the bravest guy in the whole universe.”

  “Okay!” shouted Beau. But then he shook his head and rolled his eyes, and didn’t look angry anymore. Mrs. River sighed happily. The boys hardly ever fought, and they never stayed angry for long.

  All three of them counted out the last seconds to the launch, and all three leaned forward as flames shot from the base of the rocket, then clouds of smoke billowed in rolls. They gasped as the rocket started up—so incredibly slowly—and cheered as it went faster and faster. They could hear Gus Grissom talking on the radio, just as coolly and calmly as if he was sitting there with them, watching on TV.

  A camera was trying to follow the rocket, and the little white streak that was all they could see flickered and bounced across the screen. There was a sudden puff of smoke around it, and Mrs. River cried out, “Oh, no! What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Beau. “That was the first stage separating.”

  A man on the TV said the same thing a second later. Then Gus Grissom’s calm voice remarked on the shock, and the rocket went higher and higher.

  “Could we see it?” asked Danny. “If we went outside, could we see it?”

  “Nah, not from here.”

  “How high up are they now?”

  Beau didn’t answer.

  “How high, Beau?” asked Danny.

  He still said nothing. Mrs. River said, “Danny, he probably doesn’t know.” But then Beau said, “Seven miles,” and his voice was a bit hoarse. He said, “Now ten. Now twenty. They see the sky getting darker, and the stars coming out in the day. Now they see the world like a ball, and they keep going up and…”

  “And what?” asked Danny, after a moment. “And what, Beau?”

  Beau shook his head. He was crying, Mrs. River could tell. Or maybe not really crying, but awed by what he was seeing. The sight of a rocket going into space had struck him so deeply that he couldn’t even talk. Right then, Mrs. River decided that she wouldn’t try to stop him, not ever, no matter what he wanted to do.

  Gemini 3 was halfway to Russia already. Gus Grissom and John Young would fly the capsule three times around the world. They would share a corned-beef sandwich that Young had smuggled aboard, and scramble to catch the crumbs floating weightless all around them. They would see the sun rise and set in an hour, and look down on half of the USA in a glance. Then they’d ride the thing to Earth in a fireball.

  It would be four hours, fifty-two minutes, and thirty-one seconds between liftoff and splashdown. There would be news reports, and bits of film broadcast as soon as they were rushed in and developed. Beau spent nearly every moment in front of the TV. He got up only once, to fetch a pen and a sheet of paper, so that he could write a letter to Gus Grissom.

  Dear Mr. Grissom,

  Congratulations on being the first guy to go twice into space. You haven’t landed yet, but I know that you will and that you will NOT have the same troubles as last time in Liberty Bell 7! (Like your hatch blowing off and your capsule sinking.) I know you weren’t scared the first time. I laughed when I heard how you named this capsule Molly Brown, for that lady who couldn’t sink.

  Someday I’m going to be an astronaut too. I’m going to go into the air force like you did and I hope there is a war somewhere so that I can fly a hundred combat missions like you did. My dad says there might be a war in Vietnam and that’s why he is building a shelter in our front yard, but I would be happy.

  We are going to drive to Cape Canaveral this summer to see the launch of Gemini 4 or maybe Gemini 5. If you could take a minute to meet us that would be really great. But I know you might be busy with astronaut stuff.

  Well, that’s all. You’re going to be landing soon and I don’t want to miss it. GOOD LUCK!!!!! Don’t blow it. (Ha, ha!)

  Your great friend,

  Beau River

  twenty-four

  There was a problem with Gemini 3. It came down too soon and too fast, and Mrs. River and her boys sat fretting. They didn’t hear the great splash of the capsule hitting the water, or the crack as Gus Grissom’s helmet split across the faceplate. They didn’t hear the surprise in the men’s voices, but knew the capsule was beyond the reach of the rescue ships. They worried as the helicopters flew off to find it.

  “I hope those men are all right,” said Mrs. River. “I hope they’re okay.”

  When they saw the film, with the capsule floating on its side, Beau thought something was wrong. “It should be sitting up,” he said.

  But a man on TV said everything looked “A-OK.” He said the Gemini capsules were meant to float sideways like tipped-over corks. Then the helicopters dropped lower, and divers tumbled into the water with their frogmen suits a
nd fins. They swam to the capsule, and the hatch swung open, and Gus Grissom came through it, waving.

  Mrs. River and the boys stood up and cheered.

  By the time the Old Man came home, the mission was over, and the boys were out playing. Mrs. River gave him the letter that Beau had written, and she watched as he read it.

  “I’ve never seen a boy so passionate about anything,” she said. “Charlie, when the rocket went up he was crying. He didn’t want anyone to know, but he was. He was weeping, Charlie.”

  The Old Man stood there in his coveralls, the letter in one hand, his cap in the other. It took him so long to answer that he must have read the letter two or three times. Then he gave it back and turned toward the window, squinting out at his great mountain of dirt.

  “No son of mine’s going into the air force,” he said. “I won’t let him bomb peasants in the fields. Looking forward to war? I’ll show him what war’s all about.”

  “Oh, great balls of fire!” said Mrs. River. “Didn’t you see what he’s saying, Charlie? It’s not about going to war.”

  But the Old Man quoted from the letter, word for word: I hope there is a war somewhere. “Well, he’ll get his wish. It’s coming to that.”

  “Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have shown you this,” she said. “I was hoping you would—” She stopped and looked up at him. “It’s not the war, is it?” she asked. “That’s not what you care about. Charlie, you’re jealous.”

  “Huh. Jealous,” he said, and laughed.

  “You are. You’re afraid he thinks more of Gus Grissom than he does of you. You want to be his only hero. Well, Charlie, for heaven’s sake—”

  “That’s crazy,” he said. “Do you even know what’s happening in Vietnam now? Do you know how much it’s changed since I started digging out there? There’s B-52s blasting the country. Operation Rolling Thunder! It’s Operation Kill Peasants in Rice Fields. It’s Operation Drag Us into War, that’s what it is.”

  He picked up his cap and went out. Mrs. River saw him through the window, scaling his mountain for the first time that spring. With the coming of winter he had put layers of plastic in and around the hole, and now he started pulling them away.