Orbital Decay (32 page)

“Oh, hell,” Hamilton murmured. Popeye glanced at him and saw that the hydroponics engineer had his eyes tightly closed.

“You okay, Jack?” Bruce murmured, not taking his eyes from the controls. “I’ve got a bag in here if you want it. I think.”

“I’m fine. Just have to get myself reoriented. Don’t do anything too radical, that’s all.” Hamilton slowly opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and took a deep breath. “I’m okay. Going from sideways to vertical just throws me, that’s all.”

He grinned and unsealed a hip pocket on the shorts he was wearing. He pulled out a plastic bag filled with brown squares: brownies. He opened the bag and pulled out a brownie, then from another pocket he produced a single pink wax candle. He stuck the candle into the brownie’s frosting and handed it to Popeye. “Sorry we can’t light it,” he said, “but Bruce says that even if we didn’t have an oxygen atmosphere in here, it would be too dangerous to have flame and smoke inside something this small.”

“Fuckin’ A, buddy,” Virgin Bruce agreed. He had eased the controls into a neutral position, and was tapping instructions on the navaids computer’s keypad. Glancing through the canopy, Popeye could see that they were now off-center from Olympus Station’s axis, moving slowly toward the rim, although keeping the same distance. Bruce glanced over his shoulder at Popeye. “Just put her on automatic, man,” he explained. “Polar orbit. We’re just going to glide along here and have us a little birthday party. Yo, Jackie! Gimme one of those
fine
brownies. And let’s hear some music.”

He reached up and punched the playback button on the tape recorder. The Grateful Dead’s lilting rock poured out, and Jerry Garcia’s voice sang:

“A lotta poor man make a five-dollar bill,

“Keep him happy all the time.

“Some other fellow’s making nothing at all,

“And you can hear him cryin’…

“Can I go, buddy, can I go down,

“Take your shift at the mine?”

Virgin Bruce’s hands gently slapped his thighs in time with the music. “They don’t make music like that no more.” He accepted a brownie that Hamilton handed to him, and hoisted it toward Popeye in a salute. “Happy birthday, Popeye the Sailor Man.”

Without realizing it, Popeye found himself smiling. He waved his brownie at Bruce, then gently pulled the candle off and let it drift in the air in front of him while he bit into the soft square. A few crumbs broke off and danced in front of his face, and his mouth was filled with the taste of chocolate. He let his eyes close in satisfaction. Real chocolate; not like the watered-down, antiseptic chocolate pudding that was served on the mess deck, but the real McCoy. However, there was an odd crunchy texture to this brownie, and a funny, aromatic taste to it. He ignored it. It was hard to find a good brownie in outer space.

Hamilton was munching on a brownie of his own, a small nebula of brown crumbs dancing in front of his face. “Got one of the cooks on the mess deck to whip these up,” he said, and added, “Secret family recipe.” He winked at Virgin Bruce, and Bruce winked back. Popeye decided to ignore that, too.

“How did you guys know it was my birthday?” he asked.

“Oh, I just happened to ask Doc Felapolous if anyone’s birthday was coming up soon,” Hamilton replied. “He looked up his records and, lo and behold, it was yours which was coming up. The guys decided that, y’know, you’re a nice guy and you’re quiet all the time, so it was high time someone did something nice for you. So here we are.”

“So here we are.” Popeye shrugged and polished off his brownie. “I appreciate it. Thanks.” Without his asking, Hamilton pulled another brownie out of the bag and put it in his hands. “Good brownies,” Popeye said, and took a bite out of it. “Been a while since I’ve had anything this good.”

“Glad you like ’em,” Hamilton said. “Hey, can I ask you a personal question?”

Hooker hesitated. “Yeah. Sure. What’s your question, Jack?” he said through a mouthful of crunchy, weird-tasting chocolate.

“Maybe it’s none of my business, but why are you so quiet? I mean, what is it that you have on your mind?”

“
I’m not sure if I should be telling you this
,
Hook
,”
Whitey said
,
hunched over a beer at the table in Mikey’s.
“
I got a family
,
right
?
I try to keep my nose clean
,
but you hear things
,
y’know
?
But I try to stay away from that stuff. You understand
.”

“
No, I don’t understand
,”
Hooker said angrily.
“
Laura took off this morning with a couple of hundred bucks that belonged to me. Okay, so you tell me that you know where she might be and what she’s doing with it
,
but you also say you don’t want to tell me about it because you want to keep your nose clean. I mean
,
why the hell haven’t you told me anything before
?”

Whitey clasped his fists together on the table top.
“
C’mon
,
Hooker
,”
he mumbled
, “
don’t put that shit on me. I didn’t know she’d use your money
.”
He looked over his shoulder. The bar was almost vacant
;
only Kurt the bartender was in there
,
reloading the cooler with a case of beer. Late morning sunlight streamed through the windows.
“
Remember that guy who was dancing on the bar last night
?
The guy from Louisiana
,
the shark-fishing guide
?
Rocky
,
Fat Rocky
?”

“
Yeah
,
I remember the feep. What about him
?”

“
He doesn’t just guide. I hear he’s a drug dealer
.”
Whitey lowered his voice.
“
He sells the stuff from a place out near the beach. Someone told me that Laura’s one of his regular customers. You know what I mean
?”

“
I know what you mean. You’re a real asshole for not telling me. Don’t say anything
,”
he added coldly.
“
Just tell me where he lives
.”

“I don’t have anything on my mind. I just like to be by myself. What’s wrong with that?”

“Not a thing. Unless it starts to get to you.” Hamilton gobbled down the rest of his brownie. “It’s like cabin fever. I once heard a story about a trapper who lived alone in a cabin up in Alaska. As the story goes, the guy would only come down out of the cabin once or twice a year, to this little town to buy a truckful of groceries and supplies, then head back to his cabin. He had a radio, but rarely did anyone ever hear from him. Nobody even seemed to know his name. Well, a winter passed and no one saw this guy, so a state trooper or a friend or somebody went up into the mountains to try to find him. He found the cabin, and…”

“He found the guy hanging from a rope from the rafters,” interjected Virgin Bruce. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

A flash of gold disappearing
…
gone
…
gone
,
forever gone
…

Hamilton looked at Virgin Bruce balefully. “No. The trooper, or whoever he was, found the guy in his cabin. He stopped outside the door and listened to him talking to himself. He was telling a joke, and at first it sounded like he was telling it to someone, except that the trooper knew that the guy was alone. The guy told this long, complicated joke, and when he got to the punch line, he cracked up. He broke up laughing, but he didn’t finish the joke… and then he started to tell it all over again.”

“Weird,” Virgin Bruce said flatly. “Gimme another brownie and promise you won’t tell us any more bullshit stories.”

“I promise I won’t tell any more bullshit stories,” Hamilton said, reaching into the bag for another brownie. “But do you see what I’m getting at, Popeye? You’re setting yourself up to be like that trapper. All you’re doing is telling yourself the same thing over and over, whatever that thing is. But you’re not in a cabin in some godforsaken part of Alaska, man, you’ve got a hundred people here with you. There’s no reason for you to hide. Tell us what’s bugging you, Popeye.”

Popeye didn’t say anything. He put his back against the bulkhead behind him and gazed through the canopy. Olympus’ rim was coming into view, a ring of cylinders reflecting the sunlight off their sides. When he looked closely, he could see the ring moving. In the background he could see the Moon coming into view from the far right, one-quarter in shadow. He felt lightheaded, and wondered dully if something was wrong with the oxygen-nitrogen mix in the pod’s atmosphere, but almost as quickly as the thought occurred to him, it went away. He was beginning to feel good, whatever the reason.

“I don’t like my nickname,” he mumbled.

Virgin Bruce whooped. “
You
don’t like
your
nickname! Jesus H. Christ! You think I like
mine
?” His head went back and he howled with laughter. “Do you know what it’s like to be called a virgin all the time, when you probably qualify for a gold medal in the Sex Olympics?”

Hooker saw what Bruce did, even though Bruce himself didn’t realize what he was doing; he saw Virgin Bruce’s finger punch the activation button on the communications board. He howled into his headset mike: “Sex! I want sex now!”

A second later his eyes went wide and he settled back into his seat. “Ah, negatory on that, Olympus Control,” he intoned. “I think we have a communications dysfunction, ah, malfuck, um, malfunction here. No, we’re… I mean, I’m in good shape, Beta House over.”

He punched out of the comlink, closed his eyes, and let out a sigh. “For the love of Mike,” he murmured, rubbing his eyes while the others laughed, “we must be getting stoned on that stuff.”

Hooker laughed for a few more seconds until what Virgin Bruce had just said sank in. “Getting stoned on what stuff?” he asked.

“Don’t change the subject,” Hamilton said. “C’mon, Popeye. It’s just between the three of us. Virgin Bruce told everyone in the rec room last week about his sordid past. Now it’s your turn. You used to be a shrimp trawler, right?”

“I was never a boat,” Popeye said, laughing. Remarkably, he
was
feeling good. For the first time in weeks, maybe months, he felt relaxed. It was an easiness he used to feel when he looked through the telescope in Meteorology, until he gave that up, following the blowout of the hotdog. As the pod rounded the rim of the space station, Earth swam into view, half in shadow, half in light. Automatically, his eyes sought the Gulf of Mexico.

“C’mon,” Hamilton prodded. “Tell us about it and I’ll let you in on the secret ingredients for that brownie you just ate.”

“My wife,” Popeye said. “My ex-wife, actually, though I kept on sleeping with her after our divorce.” Somehow, he felt detached from himself, as if he were standing outside his own body, looking in, listening to himself speak. “I loved her a lot, even after I found out she was stealing money and using it to buy cocaine.”

He was sure the fat man had cheated him on the deal
,
though he couldn’t be sure. He had never bought coke before
;
it was one thing he had always tried to stay away from. But it didn’t matter
,
even if you could prove the little cellophane wrapper in his hand contained less than the two grams Rocky had promised or if it was considerably less pure than claimed. It didn’t matter.

“
To be honest with you
,
I’m surprised that you’re buying from me
,”
Rocky said as he counted the tens and twenties Hooker had just handed him
, “
but if you’re interested in trying it
,
I assure you that you’ll like its quality and tell you that it’s always available from me. However
,
if you’re just trying to set me up for a bust, I’ll also be candid and let you know that’s a foolish thing to do. The cops have been bought and paid for
,
and if you go to them with an accusation
,
my friend behind you will gladly visit you at home and break your arms
.”

“That’s bad news,” Virgin Bruce said sympathetically. “It’s that shit which got me in trouble, too. So what’d you do?”

Hooker flipped the packet around a couple of times between his fingertips
,
then slipped it into the breast pocket of his denim jacket.
“
I don’t plan to do either. It’s for her.
”

“
Ah.
”
Rocky smiled at him.
“
It’s a present for her. I can dig it. I’ll give you a little bonus
,
then
,
since you’re a new customer. She hasn’t been here yet. If you want to give her your present
,
I’ll let you wait here
.”
He smiled his treacherous
,
hungry smile
,
which had probably made little girls smile and made their mothers wonder if he should be reported to the police for suspected child molestation.
“
I have everything you need right here
,”
he added.

“Did you bake pot into those brownies?” Popeye asked. From the smiles he got from Hamilton and Virgin Bruce, he knew he had pegged the funny consistency and taste of the confections correctly. “Thought so. They’re not bad.” He sighed and settled his back against the rear bulkhead again. “Man, I used to enjoy smoking pot. Got into the stuff some nights when I’d be out on the ocean alone. Midnight on the Gulf, letting the nets drag with the
Jumbo Shrimp
at one-quarter throttle, drinking beer and smoking reefer, listening to jazz on the radio. Watching the Coast Guard boats’ lights going back and forth along the eight-mile mark, looking for smugglers or immigrants. That was a lot of fun.”

“How long were you a fisherman?” Hamilton asked.

“Most of my life, I guess. Parents died when I was young, in a jet crash at Miami International. I barely remember them, I was so little. Spent a few years in the orphanage before being adopted by a shrimp fisher who lived on St. Simon’s Island in Georgia. When he died, I took over his boat, the
Jumbo Shrimp.
Second biggest boat in the state, next to the old
Georgia Bulldog.
A couple of years later I sold it and used the money to buy a smaller boat I could handle by myself without having to hire a crew. Named it the
Jumbo Shrimp II
and moved to Cedar Key, Florida.” He smiled at the fond memory. “Those were good days. My wife was a bitch, that was the only problem, but I enjoyed myself.”