Last Summer at Mars Hill (34 page)

When he woke later that morning, Andrew found Howell sitting in the same chair again, dozing with the dog Festus at his feet. Andrew straightened his robe and tried to slide quietly from bed. The dog barked. Howell blinked awake.

“Good morning,” he yawned, and coughed. “The phone lines are down.”

Andrew grinned with relief, then tried to look concerned. “How long before they’re up again?”

Howell scratched his jaw, his nails rasping against white stubble. “Day or two, probably. You said you live alone?”

Andrew nodded, reaching gingerly to let Festus sniff his hand.

“So you don’t need to call anyone.” Howell rubbed the dog’s back with a slippered foot. “He’s usually pretty good with people,” he said as Festus sniffed and then tentatively licked Andrew’s hand. “That’s good, Festus. You hungry—?”

He stumbled, forgetting the boy’s name.

“Andrew,” the boy said, scratching the dogs muzzle. “Good dog. Yeah, I guess I am.”

Howell waved toward the kitchen. “Help yourself. My son brought over stuff the other day, on the counter in there. I don’t eat much now.” He coughed again and clutched the chair’s arms until the coughing stopped. Andrew stood awkwardly in the center of the room.

“I have cancer,” Howell said, fumbling in his robe’s pockets until he found a pill bottle. Andrew stared a moment longer before going into the kitchen.

Inside the grocery bag he found wilted lettuce, several boxes of frozen dinners, now soft and damp, eggs and bread and a packet of spoiled hamburger meat. He sniffed this and his mouth watered, but when he opened the package the smell sickened him and he hastily tossed it into the trash. He settled on eggs, banging around until he found skillet and margarine. He ate them right out of the pan. After a hasty cleanup he returned to the living room.

“Help yourself to anything you want,” said Howell. “I have clothes, too, if you want to get changed.”

Andrew glanced down at his robe and shrugged. “Okay. Thanks.” He wandered to the far wall and stared a moment at the photos again. “You’re an astronaut,” he said.

Howell nodded. “That’s right.”

“That must’ve been pretty cool.” He pointed to the Men of the Year portrait. “Did you fly the shuttle?”

“Christ, no. That was after my time. We were Apollo. The moon missions.”

Andrew remained by the wall, nodding absently. He wanted to leave, but how? He couldn’t take off right away, leave this man wondering where he lived, how he’d get there in three feet of snow. He’d wait until tonight. Leave a note, the robe folded on a chair. He turned back to face Howell.

“That must’ve been interesting.”

Howell stared at him blankly, then laughed. “Probably the most interesting thing I ever did,” he gasped, choking as he grabbed his inhaler. Andrew watched alarmed as the astronaut sucked the mouthpiece. A faint acrid smell infused the room when Howell exhaled.

“Can’t breathe,” he whispered. Andrew stared at him and coughed nervously himself.

Howell sighed, the hissing of a broken bellows. “I wanted to go back. I was queued next time as commander.” He tugged at the sleeves of his robe, pulling the cuffs over bony wrists. “They canceled it. The rest of the program. Like that.” He tried to snap his fingers. They made a dry small sound. “Money. Then the rest. The explosion. You know.”

Andrew nodded, rolling up his sleeves until they hung evenly. “I remember that.”

Howell nodded. “Everybody does. But the moon. Do you remember that?”

Andrew shook his head.

“You forget it?” said Howell, incredulous.

“I wasn’t born,” said Andrew. He leaned against the wall, bumping a frame. “I’m only fourteen.”

“Fourteen,” repeated Howell. “And you never saw? In school, they never showed you?”

The boy shrugged. “The shuttle, I saw tapes of that. At school, maybe. I don’t remember.”

Howell stood, bumping the spaniel so that Festus grumbled noisily before settling back onto the floor. “Well, here then,” he said, and shuffled to the bookcase. “I have it, here—”

He fingered impatiently through several small plastic cases until he found one with NASA’s imprimatur. Fastidiously he wiped the plastic cover, blowing dust from the cracks before opening it and pawing the tape carefully.

In the corner a television perched on a shelf. Beneath it was a VCR, meticulously draped with a pillowcase. Howell removed the cloth, coughing with excitement. He switched the set on.

“Okay,” he announced as the flickering test pattern resolved into the NASA logo. “Now sit back. You’re going to see something. History.”

“Right,” said Andrew loudly, and rubbed his eyes.

Static. A black expanse: dead black, unbroken by stars. Then a curve intruding upon the lower edge of the screen, dirty gray and pocked with shadow.

The image shifted. Static snarled into a voice, crisply repeating numbers. A beep. Silence. Another beep. The left side of the screen now showed a dark mass, angular limbs scratching the sky.

“What’s that?” asked Andrew. It was all out of focus, black and white, wavering like cheap animation.

“The lander,” said Howell. “Lunar lander.”

“Oh,” said Andrew: the moon. “They’re there already?”

Howell nodded impatiently. “Watch this.”

The mass shuddered. The entire horizon dipped and righted itself. From a bright square within the lander something emerged clumsily like a tethered balloon, and descended the blurred pattern that must be steps. Andrew yawned, turning his head so the old man couldn’t see. A voice answered commands. Garbled feedback abruptly silenced so that a single voice could be heard.

The figure bounced down, once, twice. The landscape bobbed with him. Andrew fidgeted, glancing at Howell. The old man’s hands twisted in his lap as though strangling something, pulling at the hem of his robe. His eyes were riveted to the television. He was crying.

The boy quickly looked back at the screen. After another minute the tape ended. Angry hissing from the television. Andrew stood and turned down the volume, avoiding Howell’s face.

“That’s it, huh?” he remarked with hollow cheerfulness, hitting the rewind button.

Howell stared at him. “Did you see?”

Andrew sat back on his heels. “Yeah, sure. That’s real interesting. The moon. Them landing on the moon.”

“You never saw it before?”

He shook his head. “No. I like that stuff, though. Science fiction. You know.”

“But this really happened.”

Andrew nodded defensively. “I know. I mean, I don’t remember, but I know it happened.”

Howell coughed into a handkerchief, glaring at the boy. “Pretty boring to you, I guess.” He stepped to the machine and removed the tape, shoving it back into its case. “No lights. Nothing exciting. Man lands on moon.”

Embarrassed, Andrew stared at him. Howell returned his gaze fiercely, then sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Who cares,” he coughed; then looked suddenly, helplessly at the boy.

“That’s all I ever wanted to do, you know. Fly. And walk on the moon.”

“But you did. You went. You just told me.” Andrew gestured at the walls, the photographs. “All this—” He hesitated. “
Stuff,
all this stuff you got here—”

Howell stroked the videotape, gnawed fingertips catching on its plastic lip, and shook his head, shameless of tears that fell now like a disappointed child’s. Andrew stared, horrified, waiting for the old man to stop, to apologize. But he went on crying. Finally the boy stood and crossed the room, turned to shut the bathroom door behind him, ran the water so as not to hear or think of him out there: an old man with a dog at his ankles, rocking back and forth with an old videotape in his hand, heedless of the flickering empty screen before him.

Andrew made dinner that night, a couple of meals on plastic trays slid into the microwave. He ended up eating both of them.

“I’ll bring in some wood tomorrow,” he said, pausing in the kitchen doorway to hitch up his pants. Howell had insisted on him wearing something other than the old hospital robe. Andrew had rummaged around in a bureau until he found faded corduroy trousers and a flannel shirt, both too big for him. Even with the pants cuffed they flopped around his ankles, and he had to keep pushing back his sleeves as he ran the dinner plates under the tap. When he finished the dishes he poured Howell a glass of scotch and joined him in the other room. The old man sipped noisily as the two of them sat in front of the cold fireplace, Andrew pulling at his frayed shirt cuffs. In the kitchen he’d swallowed a mouthful of scotch when Howell wasn’t looking. Now he wished he’d taken more.

“I could bring in some wood tonight, I guess,” he said at last.

Howell shook his head. “Tomorrow’ll be fine. I’ll be going to bed soon anyway. I haven’t had a fire here since Christmas. Peter built it.” He gestured at the half-burned spruce. “As you can see. My son can’t build a fire worth a tinker’s damn.”

Andrew pushed a long lock of hair from his eyes. “I don’t know if I can either.”

“That’s okay. I’ll teach you.” Howell took another sip of scotch, placed the glass on the floor. Festus stood and flopped beside Andrew, mumbling contentedly. The boy scratched the dog’s head. He wondered how soon Howell would go to sleep, and glanced at the back door before turning to the old man. In the dim light, Howell’s cheeks glowed rosily, and he looked more like the man on the magazine cover. Andrew tugged at the dog’s ears and leaned back in his chair.

“You got Man of the Year,” he said at last.

“We all got Man of the Year. Peter was just a kid. Not impressed.” Howell grimaced. “I guess it comes with the territory.”

Andrew looked away. “I was impressed,” he said after a moment. “I just didn’t remember. They don’t have any of that stuff now.”

Howell nodded. For a few minutes they sat, the silence broken only by the battering of wind at the roof.

Then, “You’re a runaway,” said Howell.

Andrew stared fixedly at the dog at his feet. “Yeah.”

Howell rubbed his chin. “Well, I guess that’s not so bad. At least in Kamensic it’s safe enough. You found one of the abandoned cabins down there.”

Andrew sighed and locked his hands behind his head. “Yeah. We used to go there when I was a kid. My mother and I. Up until a few years ago.” He tousled Festus’s ears with elaborate casualness. “You gonna call the police?”

Howell peered at him. “Do you want me to?”

“No.” The boy drew back his hand, and Festus yawned loudly. “There’s no one to go to. My mom died last summer. She killed herself. My father died before I was born. Nobody cares.”

“Nobody looked for you?”

Andrew shrugged. “Who’s to look? My aunt, I guess. They have their own kids. I did okay.”

Howell nodded. “Until the first snow” He coughed. “Well, you must be a damned resourceful kid, that’s all I can say. I won’t call the police. But I can’t let you go back out there alone. It’ll snow again, and I won’t be around to find you.”

Andrew shook his head. “Just leave me alone.” He rubbed his stinging eyes. “No one ever cared except her, and she—”

“That’s okay,” Howell said softly. He coughed again, then asked, “What happened to your father?”

“Dead. He disappeared one day. They never found him.”

“The war?”

Andrew shook his head. “Up here—he was up here. Visiting. We had family. He—my mother said he died here in the woods.” He stared at the floor, silent.

He wants to leave,
thought Howell. In the dimness the boy looked very young. Howell recalled other nights, another boy. His heart ached so suddenly that he shuddered, gasping for breath. Andrew stood in alarm.

“Nothing—nothing—” Howell whispered, motioning him away. His head sank back onto his chest. After a few minutes he looked up. “Guess I’ll go to bed now.”

Andrew helped him into the bedroom. Not much bigger than the room in Andrew’s abandoned cottage, but scrupulously neat, and almost all windows except for the wall behind the double bed. Howell slipped from his robe, leaving Andrew holding it awkwardly while the old man eased himself into bed, grunting from the effort.

“Just put it there—” Howell pointed to the door. Andrew hung the robe on a hook. He tried to avoid looking directly at Howell, but there was little else: the black windows, a bureau, a closet door. Above the bed a framed NASA photo of the moon. Andrew pretended interest in this and leaned over Howell to stare at it. In the white margin beneath the moon’s gray curve someone had written in a calligraphic hand:

Come on all you

Lets get busy

for the speedy trips

to all Planets and

back to earth again.

“Huh,” said Andrew. Behind him, Festus shambled into the room and, grumbling, settled himself on a braided rug.

The old man winced, twisting to stare up at the photograph. “You like that?” he said.

“Sure,” said Andrew, shrugging. “What’s it mean? That poem or whatever. You write that?”

Howell smiled. He was so thin that it was hard to believe there was a body there beneath all the smooth quilts and blankets. “No, I didn’t write that. I’ll show you where it came from, though; tomorrow maybe. If you want. Remind me.”

“Okay.” Andrew waited: to see if Howell needed anything; to see if he would be dismissed. But the old man just lay there, eyes fluttering shut and then open again. Finally the boy said, “Good night,” and left the room.

It took Andrew a long time to fall asleep that night. He sat on the window seat, staring out at the snow-covered fields as he fingered the amulet around his neck. He didn’t know why he’d stayed this long. He should have left as soon as he could that morning, waited for the old man to fall asleep (he slept all day: he must be really sick, to sleep so much) and then crept out the back door and disappeared into the woods.

Even now…He pulled at the amulet, holding it so tightly it bit into the ball of his thumb. He should leave now.

But he didn’t. The wrinkled white face staring up from the double bed reminded him of his mother in the coffin. He had never noticed how many lines were in her face; she really hadn’t been that old. He wondered how long Howell had been sick. He remembered the astronaut he’d seen at the library that summer, a disappointment, really. Andrew had been expecting a spacesuit and something else: not ray guns, that would be dumb, but some kind of instruments, or moon rocks maybe. Instead there’d been an old man in Izod shirt and chinos talking about how the country had failed the space program. Andrew had fidgeted until his mother let him go outside.