Learning to Swear in America (27 page)

“Not in years.”

“Okay. I think a guy who doesn’t want his underwears to show would stick to a classical swearing style. If someone tells you to do something you don’t want to, you say ‘Hell, no!’ If something bad
happens, you say ‘Shit,’ kinda dejected-like. If the situation doesn’t seem quite right for either of those, just say ‘Damn.’ That’s simple and elegant. ‘Damn’ is an all-purpose swear word. You really can’t go wrong.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“And if you’re really surprised, or you want to lighten things up a little, you can say ‘Holy shit!’”

“What’s holy about it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s angel shit.”

“I’m atheist.”

“So you believe in the shit, but not the angel?”

“Something like that,” Yuri mumbled. “Is Dovie there?”

“Ask for her with your new skills.”

“Pardon?”

Yuri could hear Lennon breathing. Waiting.

“Damn, may I please speak with your sister?”

“Eh. You’re not fluent yet, but it’s a start. Dooovie,” he shouted. “Phone for you.”

Yuri rolled his shoulders against the desk and sniffed his armpits while he waited. How many days had it been since he’d showered?

“Yuri?”

“Hey.” And then he could think of nothing else to say. All that came to mind was “damn,” “shit,” and “hell.” Dovie saved him.

“So Lennon taught you to swear?”

“Yes.”

“That’s good. Now or never, right?”

“We’re done, Dovie. We’re going to be okay.”

“Because that thing is actually casting a shadow.”

“Oh. I guess it would.”

“You guess it would? And you’re the guy who’s supposed to shoot it down?”

“Well, one of them. I just haven’t been outside in days. Not since prom. I forgot to ask if you got in trouble because of me.”

“No—school’s out.”

“Oh. What have you been doing?”

“I painted some, and I played Lennon’s video game with him. Mom made a sugarless tofu cheesecake.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. We’re not sure we’ll survive long enough to get smashed by the meteor.”

“Hey, Dovie? If it doesn’t work—if we miss asteroid—will you have sex with me real fast before it gets too cold?”

“No, you perv.”

He sighed. “That’s incredibly depressing.”

She laughed, and clicked her tongue stud on the mouthpiece.

At 9:45 p.m. the scientists attached to NASA’s Near Earth Object Program, located at the Jet Propulsion Lab, assembled in the media room with its banked rows of seats. Yuri slipped in next to Simons.

“Pirkola went to the hospital. He had no reason to stay now,” Simons said.

“Oh.”

The screen at the front of the room was the size you’d find in a movie theater. It showed a distance view of a heavy concrete missile silo lit by huge floodlights. There were a few tiny humans in coveralls in the picture, but they didn’t seem to be doing much. Yuri guessed the real action was going on underground, inside the silo. Fletcher sat in the front row without saying anything. Somehow Yuri had expected a speech. Something.

At five minutes until 10:00 p.m., the sound came on, and voices from the silo filled the room. A minute later, a man’s voice said, “Understand we have NEO with us. Hope you’ve got us pointed in the right direction.” Then the voices went back to their own discussions.

A countdown began at sixty seconds, which seemed like a long time for a countdown. At ten seconds Yuri leaned forward, along with everyone else, as the room’s mass distribution shifted toward the screen.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then the flux accelerator was in the sky, sleek and thin and fragile-looking. Yuri never saw its nose exit the silo; it was just suddenly in the air, white fire behind it, thrusting it up to defy Earth’s gravitational pull and escape its orbit. The assembled scientists clapped, a tired kind of applause, polite almost, like something you’d hear at a
piano concert. Yuri tried to get in rhythm and after a moment realized they weren’t falling in together. The Americans were all clapping to their own beat. He gave up and dropped his hands.

The camera pulled back to show the accelerator streaking across the sky, stars providing the reference points by which to check its progress against the night.

“This is it,” a sixtyish astrochemist behind him said, and Yuri swiveled to look at him. “Of all that humans have ever flung into battle—old Scandinavian berserkers, Zulu spearmen, doughboys in trenches—this is it. The last front. The final armada.”

Yuri stared at him.

“If we survive, there’ll be more wars,” the man next to him said. “Nobody will learn anything from this.”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” the astrochemist said. “Not sure which scenario is more depressing.” He paused. “It seems wrong that it’s just one accelerator going into battle by itself. Such a lonely sight.”

The other man shrugged. “It has all of us behind it. Every person here has a hand on that accelerator. We’re wielding it together.”

No, Yuri thought. It’s just me. Only one hand, only one weapon. Only one chance.

As they filtered up the stairwell, Yuri whispered to himself, “The final armada.” Lennon would claim that they were off to fight the space pirates, but the thought of it didn’t make him smile.

Yuri dragged a cot into his office and slept like a stone dropping through water, or a rock falling through space. His sleep was heavy and dreamless, but he woke repeating a phrase in his head:
I am the asteroid. I am the asteroid.

There was a knock at his door, and he realized it was the second one. He stood and stretched his arms over his head. It was light outside—already morning on June 9. Impact was at sunset, which meant that he had just slept through the last sunrise. He opened the door. A guard stood there, and behind him he could see Lennon sitting in his wheelchair, holding a book.

The guard looked uncomfortable.

“This guy says he’s from the bookstore, that you asked him to bring you a book.”

Lennon raised his eyebrows and nodded at Yuri.

“Um, yes. Bring it in, okay?” he said, motioning Lennon inside.

The guard shifted his weight.

“I can let him back out,” Yuri said. Lennon tossed the volume on the desk chair.

The guard looked at the book, then at Lennon. Finally he shrugged and left.

“They made me sign in,” Lennon said.

“How did you get out here? Did Dovie drive you?”

“No, I took a taxi. By the way, you owe me thirty-seven fifty.”

“For small paperback?” Yuri said, indignant.

“You should cover my cab fare, too,” Lennon said. “Seems only right after my thoughtful gesture.”

Yuri stared at him, then forked over two twenties.

“That’s not much of a tip,” Lennon said.

“I didn’t order any book,” Yuri hissed.

Lennon shrugged and looked around the office.

“So this is where you’ve been working?”

“Yeah.”

“Smells like sweat.”

Yuri shrugged.

“Wasn’t time for shower.” He decided to change the subject. “Why didn’t Dovie give you ride?”

“I kind of didn’t want her to know I was coming out here. It’s sort of a private visit.”

“Oh.” He waited.

“I need a favor,” Lennon said. “That’s why I brought the book—as a favor to you, too. Well, and as cover to get in.”

“You made me
pay
for it,” Yuri said.

Lennon shrugged. Yuri sighed and waited.

“Thing is,” Lennon finally said. “I’ve been thinking about the asteroid. If it hits, it’ll be pretty bad, right?”

“Right.”

“And it’ll knock everything around?”

“Yeah. Stay away from glass.”
Like it would matter
.

Lennon stared at the sliver of blue carpet between his footrests. He whispered.

“I’m afraid of getting knocked out of my chair.”

It took Yuri a moment to understand, and then he tossed the book on the floor and sat in his chair, scooting it toward Lennon, so they were sitting facing each other.

“From impact?”

“Yeah. I’m helpless without my chair, man. I mean, I keep imagining pulling myself around with my arms, and buildings collapsing around me. Rocks falling from the sky, everybody’s running, and I’m dragging myself along.” He swiped angrily at his eyes. “It would be humiliating.”

Yuri nodded. Two guys talking, both staring at their feet.

“I get that I won’t be able to climb over rubble. If the house catches fire or something, I’ll have to sit there and roast. But I want to do it in my chair.”

“Yeah. That makes sense.” Yuri cleared his throat. “Um, what can I do?”

“I was thinking you could make some kind of seat belt for me. Some good kind, like NASA-proof or something.” He risked a glance into Yuri’s face.

“Sure,” Yuri said, thinking of the rocket ship seat Simons was making for his grandson. “I’ve never done anything like that, but I think we can rig something up.”

Lennon nodded.

Yuri put his shoes on, called the front desk, and made a couple of inquiries, and then he led Lennon outside. They crossed the street and went down a couple of buildings. It was strange to be outside, to feel sun on his skin. How long had it been?

“Did you see the shadow?” Lennon asked.

“From asteroid? No, I’ve been inside.”

“It was like having Death pass his hand over your face,” Lennon said, and a shiver ran up Yuri’s back.

Nobody asked what they were doing in the lab building. It wasn’t part of the Near Earth Object Program’s facilities, but nobody cared.

In a few hours, the accelerator would destroy the asteroid, or it wouldn’t. The building was deserted—everyone was home with their families. The labs were locked, but there was a junk room filled with all sorts of crap, including a couple of harnesses used to secure dummies into capsules for velocity experiments. Yuri took the smaller one, untwisted the black straps, and looked it over. It looked like regular seat belt material to him, like the kind of harness that keeps a kid in a car seat.

He held it up.

“Made of maximum-strength, NASA-grade Einsteinium, with titanium threads for extra durability.”

Lennon rewarded him with a whistle.

Yuri slipped it over Lennon’s arms, tried to straighten the belts out, then removed it and made a second attempt, passing it over his head.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course. I took advanced biometric restraints at Moscow State University,” Yuri lied.

The front worked now, with Y-shaped straps over Lennon’s shoulders, connected to a belt around his waist. There wasn’t a way to fasten it in the back, though. Yuri rummaged through a cardboard box and found a spare buckle, threaded it onto the straps and fastened it behind the chair.

“Can you get out from front? Unsnap front buckle?”

Lennon tried it and grinned.

“Yeah.”

He refastened it.

“Yeah, man, it works.” He punched Yuri’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

Yuri rifled through the boxes.

“What are you looking for now?”

“Um. This is all private, right?”

“Yeah,” Lennon said.

“From Dovie?”

“Yeah. She doesn’t have to know everything.”

Yuri found what he wanted, and pulled up a long piece of thin black rubber tubing. He started to thread it through his belt loops.

“I got to thinking earlier about concussions blowing people’s clothes off.”

Lennon’s eyes grew huge.

“No shit! Is that gonna happen? ’Cause I gotta get down to Hollywood if that’s gonna happen.”

“No, it’s not. But …”

“Are there gonna be naked actresses blowing around?”

Yuri paused for a moment, visualizing that. “No, but I suppose guys can dream.” He tied the piping and tucked the knot behind a belt loop. He knew the belt would last longer than his pants—or his skin. But he’d hit the line where his scientific expertise took a backseat to fear of exposing himself. “I know it’s not going to be my biggest problem, but if my belt breaks, I don’t want my pants to fall down.”

“Ah. Don’t want the naked actresses seeing your skinny ass.”