by Homer Hickam
Startled, he frowned at me. “Who made you king?”
“We’re already late,” I muttered.
Sherman put down his screwdriver. “Sonny, I’m working as fast as I can. Now, unless you want to get in here and do it yourself, go away.”
Sherman had taken my measure. Roy Lee and Billy were at the pad, checking the launch rod. Billy was whistling. He always seemed to have a good time at the Cape. I walked over and, without a word, knelt to inspect the wires leading into the rocket. There was a heating element inside, a piece of Nichrome wire I’d borrowed from my mother’s new turkey roaster. As far as I could tell, it had been inserted properly. I stood up and slapped the black slack dust off my knees. Roy Lee and Billy were looking at me. “You don’t trust us?” Billy asked.
“I’m just inspecting,” I said. “That’s the way they do it at Cape Canaveral.”
“How do you know how they do it?” Billy snapped, his mood turned as sour as mine.
I was puzzled. I wasn’t used to Billy griping. In fact, I couldn’t remember Billy Rose ever being anything but agreeable. “What’s stuck in your craw?” I asked.
Billy gave me a sharp look. “What’s stuck in yours?” The color had risen in his face.
We stared at each other. I couldn’t figure out if I was picking a fight with Billy or he was picking one with me. We were both in an odd mood, that much was certain. I blinked first. “Sorry,” I grumbled. “Forget it.” I stalked away and fumed by the blockhouse until Sherman announced the ignition system was ready. Then I got O’Dell’s report that the theodolites were set up. Roy Lee and Billy slouched back from the pad and hunkered down in the blockhouse. I gave a short countdown and pushed the launch button. At least that was something I could do right. Auk XXII-F jumped off the pad in a burst of fire and smoke and whistled aloft, a dot against the sky. I’d packed in some high-sulfur propellant at the top of the casement, and, as designed, the rocket began to smoke heavily, allowing us to track it easier. Billy called out that the Auk was wobbling a bit, but the new clamped-on fin design I’d come up with was apparently doing its job. The rocket landed downrange on the slack, and we ran off to begin the inspection process. O’Dell called out the time, and after a mental calculation I determined the rocket had not performed up to snuff. After it cooled, Quentin put his eye up to the nozzle end. “Erosion,” he groaned.
He was right. The higher-carbon steel hadn’t helped a bit. We all stood around looking at it. I couldn’t think of a thing to do to solve the problem.
Finally, Roy Lee said, “Why don’t we line the nozzle with some kind of clay or something?”
Quentin stared at him. “You mean, of course, a ceramic of some kind,” Quentin said. “A very good idea, Roy Lee, a very good idea, indeed, prodigious and rigorous.”
Roy Lee jammed his hands in his pockets and kicked at the slack. “Well, I just thought . . .”
Quentin looked at him suspiciously. “You came up with this on your own?”
Roy Lee shrugged. “Well, sure . . .”
“Will wonders never cease?” Quentin asked the group at large.
All the other boys nodded their heads, and O’Dell socked Roy Lee in the shoulder, the ultimate compliment. “Oh, hell, guys,” Roy Lee said.
“Not bad for the Big Creek lovemaster,” I said, giving him a smile. I agreed it was a really good idea, although I had no clue how to do it.
“I shall put on my thinking cap,” Quentin said. “It will require rigorous thought.”
By the time I got back uprange, Ginger and her parents were in their Buick, just pulling out. Roy Lee caught me looking longingly her way. “Melba June Monroe,” he said.
I saw Billy coming up the slack, carrying Quentin’s theodolite and his telephone wire around his shoulder. Quentin was crouched by the rocket, his chin in his hands. I supposed his “rigorous thought” had begun. Either that or he was using it as an excuse to get Billy to carry his stuff. I crossed the slack to intercept Billy. “Hey, if I said something wrong, I apologize.”
“You didn’t say anything wrong,” he said. He kept adjusting the wire on his shoulder and wouldn’t look at me.
“All I meant—”
Billy walked past me. “Sonny, just leave it alone, okay? Just leave it alone!”
AT the supper table that night, Dad chewed his corn bread and kept looking at Mom out of the corner of his eye. I knew he had something to say and I think she knew it, too, but she wasn’t about to make it easy for him by asking him what it was. Finally, he cleared his throat, then took another drink of milk. “Well, Elsie, I got a call from Ohio today,” he said.
She sipped her coffee. “Do tell.”
He shifted uneasily in his chair and cleared his throat again. “Yes, well. You see, they’re on an economy wave this year as you already know and . . .” His mouth stayed open but his lips were moving as if he were having trouble wrapping them around what he had to say. Mom looked at him, her eyebrows raised. “I’ve been ordered to stop underwriting all nonmining activities.”
Mom waited. When he didn’t say anything more, she asked “Such as . . .?”
He took a deep breath. “The Christmas Pageant, for starters.”
Mom slowly put her cup down. It landed in her saucer with a soft clinking sound. “What?”
Dad’s lips went flat. “I’m sorry.”
Mom sat back in her chair. “Homer, this isn’t right. You know how everybody looks forward to the pageant.”
Dad said, “I fought this decision, Elsie, but they said if I wanted money for the Christmas Pageant, all I had to do was cut off a couple more miners. They knew I wouldn’t do that.”
Both my parents fell silent while I reflected on how I’d hoped that the Christmas Pageant would get canceled. I’d gotten my wish and it shamed me.
Later that night, while I was studying, Mom opened the door unannounced and came in and sat on my bed. She had Chipper on her shoulder. The little rodent jumped off and swung on the window curtains, stirring the interest of Daisy Mae. She moved underneath and got ready to pounce just in case he lost his grip. He spotted her and moved to the precise spot that was just out of her reach, no matter how hard she jumped. One of her ears went down, a sign of frustration. Chipper giggled. Frustration of all living things save my mother was his ultimate game.
I turned from my books to see what Mom wanted. She seemed to be weighing what she had come to say. That made me pretty nervous. I started going through all the things she could have possibly caught me on. I was pretty sure she still hadn’t tried out the turkey roaster Dad had bought her for her birthday. On the sly, I’d pretty much stripped out its guts for our rocket-ignition system. I figured there’d be a problem over that around Thanksgiving time, but I’d worry about that then. And then there was that garden spade she’d bought down at the Big Store to use on her rose bushes. I’d taken it down to the Cape a month or so ago to use to dig out our rockets when they buried themselves in soft ground. I figured I had until spring before she missed it. Then there was . . . “Sonny, let’s talk,” she said, interrupting my criminal litany. “I know we don’t do much of that in this house, but I need to talk to somebody and I guess you’re it.”
It was about the last thing I expected. “Ma’am?”
“Just listen to me, okay?”
I nodded. What else could I do?
“Do you remember how we lived before your dad took the Captain’s job?”
I did, pretty much. It had only been about five years ago. “Was it any different than now?” I asked. Answering one of Mom’s questions with a question was sometimes the safest thing for me to do. Sometimes I could get her way off track that way. But not this time.
“Maybe not for you,” she said. “But do you remember the women who used to come to the house? Louise, Virgie, Rodie, Naomi, Charlotte? A bunch of women. They were all my friends. How many of them come to see me now?”
I gave it some thought. “Sometimes Mrs. Keneda comes,” I said.
&n
bsp; “Naomi’s the only one,” she agreed. “But not the rest. And you know why? It’s because of who your father is. Either the other women are mad at him because of something he’s done at the mine, or they’re afraid somebody’s going to accuse them of playing favorites for their husbands. Since your dad took the Captain’s job, I’ve lost almost all of my old friends, Sonny, and that’s the truth of it.”
I noticed that her eyes had taken on nearly the same expression they had when I’d looked into them at the broken-down float. But it was more than despair. I could see that now. There was loss there, too. I had been with my mother, Mrs. Elsie Gardener Lavender Hickam, nearly every day for going on seventeen years. I’d seen her under almost every situation there was. I’d seen her happy and I’d seen her sad. I’d seen her mad, too, and grieving. I knew her every look and every move. She could crook a finger and I knew what it meant. “I don’t blame your dad,” she went on. “It was right for him to climb as high as he could go. And,” she sighed, “I guess if I worked at it, I could be really good friends with Mrs. Dantzler, or Doc’s wife, or maybe some of the Coalwood teachers. But they’re all college-educated women. Who am I to push myself off on them?” She shook her head. “You want to get down to it, I guess I’m like a kitten that’s been thrown out of the litter. I can’t go ahead and I can’t go back.”
She fell silent, her eyes on the floor. My heart was thumping in my chest. My mom had never, ever told me anything so personal about herself, and I was pretty uncomfortable with it. I didn’t know what to say to her, so I didn’t try. I just sat there while the seconds passed. Finally, she took a deep breath, and then her face settled into a mask of determination. “I’m going to talk to the club ladies about the Christmas Pageant. Even if the company won’t help, we can figure something out. I may not have many friends left in this town, but I’m just not going to let it be said that Elsie Hickam lost the Veterans Day parade and then gave up on the Christmas Pageant, too.”
There was something about my character that, every so often, made me as spiteful as a blue jay spying a cat. This was one of those times. I guess it had to do with the resentment I couldn’t shake over how Mom had forced me to be with Dad and Poppy the previous Christmas. Whatever it was, her proposal instantly got my feathers ruffled and I wanted no part of it. Rather than confess how I really felt, I just frowned and drummed my fingers on my books, showing her I was trying to study. She saw what I was doing and rose to leave. “I just needed somebody to listen,” she said. “Sorry to bother you.”
I wanted to say it was no bother, but I couldn’t manage even that. Sometimes, the pique that I was capable of surprised even me. Mom plucked Chipper off the curtain and started to leave. She stopped before closing the door. “Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to help me. I know you’ve got more important things to do.” Then she eased the door shut. I would have felt better if she’d have slammed it. How had Coach Gainer put it in one of his famous boys’ health lectures? “A woman’s mildness,” he’d said, “will provoke a man’s guilt far better than ever her wrath.” It apparently worked just the same for mothers and sons, too.
Daisy Mae came over and jumped up on my lap, asking to be consoled because Chipper had escaped her again. I scratched her head, but I don’t think it consoled her much. I didn’t feel very consoled, either. I felt mean and nasty because that’s exactly what I was. Selfish, too. What was with me, anyway? Mom had tried to do a good thing by sending me with Dad to see Poppy. It hadn’t worked out, but that wasn’t her fault. So why was I punishing her? Maybe just because I could? Was this a part of growing up, wanting to hurt the people who loved me the most? If so, I wanted no part of it.
I stared at my bedroom door. I wanted to chase after Mom, tell her of course I’d help her with her Christmas Pageant if that’s what she wanted. But I didn’t. It just wasn’t in me to do. Daisy Mae nuzzled my chin and then curled up on my lap, tucking her nose between her paws. I envied her ability to find tranquillity after disappointment. I doubted, at that moment, I’d ever be able to do the same.
9
THE COALWOOD SKY
THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, Quentin asked me to sit down with him in the auditorium before classes. He looked loaded for bear, and I was the bear. When I sat down beside him, he cracked his knuckles, something he often did when he was preparing to lecture me about something. He leaned forward in his chair and I leaned in, too. “Sonny, I must say I am disappointed in you,” he said.
I started to say “Join the crowd,” but I didn’t. I just listened. “Have you honestly given a moment’s thought to Roy Lee’s idea of the ceramic-lined nozzle? No? I thought not. Really, my boy, it seems to me you’re dragging your feet these days. And when are we going to do the calculations according to Miss Riley’s book? All it takes is a little calculus.”
“Quentin,” I said fiercely, “I had a lot of homework to do over the weekend. Remember, I’m trying to make all A’s this semester. Don’t ask me why, but I just want to do it because I never have. I know that doesn’t mean much to you. You’ve always made A’s in all your classes, not counting phys ed.”
“Studying is your excuse?” He sniffed. “I cannot accept such a proposition.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “Dammit, Sonny. You must work harder. There’s not a day to waste.” When I just sat there and looked at him, he shook his head and sighed deeply. Then he performed a little archeological dig into his briefcase and excavated a torn piece of notebook paper. “While it’s clear to me that you are losing your ardor for our entire enterprise, perhaps this will get your attention. I hitched to the county library after our rocket launch on Saturday and researched the various methodologies for applying ceramics to metal surfaces. I believe I have identified just the thing we need. It’s called water putty but don’t let the name fool you. It comes in powder form and all you have to do is add water to it and—voilà!— you get a supple, moldable ceramic.” He crossed his ankle over his knee to prop up his paper. I noticed one of his socks was blue. The other one was plaid. “My research further shows that it is a very easy material to apply, hardens rapidly, and sticks quite well to metal surfaces. Of course, when and if you ever get around to it, you’ll have to make your calculations such that the ceramic layer will not cause inefficiency within the gas flow. Water putty, Sonny. Find some and let’s get going! Here, I’ve even written it down for you. Water putty!”
I took Quentin’s grimy scrap of notebook paper with the tips of my fingers. I didn’t have any water putty or the slightest idea how to make such calculations and told him so. “Let’s wait until after semester exams,” I suggested. “Then I’ll get right on it. The water putty, the calculations from the book, everything.”
Quentin looked aghast. “Sonny, we can’t wait!” He looked at his wrist (although there wasn’t a watch on it) and then shook his head in despair. “The county science fair is in April, practically tomorrow in cosmic terms! A ceramic lining in our nozzles will be just the thing to distinguish our work. Water putty, my boy! Find some and then get going with your calculations. I can see it in Basil’s paper now. Big Creek boys solve nozzle erosion problem! Wernher von Braun asks for their help! Our missile program will be by far the most rigorous in the nation!”
Quentin was referring to Basil Oglethorpe, a writer for the McDowell County Banner, a grocery store newspaper. Basil had begun to regularly feature us in his column in 1958. “Rocket Boys Vault into the Heavens” was one of his tamer headlines.
“Quentin,” I replied, sighing, “if you’re so hot to get all this done, why don’t you get rigorous and do it yourself?”
“And how do you expect me to do that?” he asked, his frost-blue eyes narrowing. “I could do the calculations, certainly, but you’re the one who needs the mathematical practice, not me. And as for the required machine-shop work and the acquisition of water putty, clearly that is for you, the Coalwood superintendent’s son, to accomplish.” He spread his hands. “A poor Bartley boy, the son of a poor, itinerant miner
, could hardly be expected to do more than I do already.”
At his mention of being poor, I noticed the white shirt he was wearing had a frayed collar. A closer look showed a patch on one of its sleeves. The mismatched socks I had earlier noted were easily observed because the faded khaki pants he wore with his heavy brown brogans were about an inch too short. Except for Roy Lee, the Big Creek lovemaster, none of the Rocket Boys cared much about the clothes we wore, but Quentin had gotten it down to a science. Still, in Quentin’s defense, the fact was his dad had been cut off from the Bartley mine for months and there were a lot of mouths at his house to feed. And I was, indeed, the superintendent’s son, from whom all riches flowed. He had me dead to rights. “All right, Quentin,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
A grin cracked his thin face. “Prodigious, Sonny! You see what a little pep talk can do?” Now that he’d gotten what he wanted, he turned friendly. “Say, how about that problem of yours—your mental manifestation? The inordinate sadness? Ever get a handle on that?”
“I might have part of it,” I said, and then I told him about Poppy and Dad last Christmas. He listened with his head cocked, his eyes quizzical. That was one thing about Quentin. When he listened, he really listened.
He made a fist and rested his chin on it in the classical thinker’s pose. “Let us break it down,” he said at length. “Because you thought about your problem logically as I suggested, you have perhaps figured out a portion of what is upsetting you. Good! We’re making progress! Now perhaps, you may want to consider that your manifestation is so complex that your particular mind simply cannot deal with it.”
I sorted through his words. “You think I’m going nuts?”
Quentin shrugged. “I suppose that is a possibility. But what I really believe we have here, Sonny, is a complex mental situation. That is why it is nearly impossible for you to discern it.” He leveled his gaze on me. “I have noticed something about you that I am loath to admit but I will tell it to you now. You have a keen mind. When there is a problem with our rockets, I usually come up with the most complex solution possible to resolve it. You, on the other hand, nearly always come up with the simplest solution. Your new fin design is an example. I would have never in a million years come up with the idea to take two rectangles of metal and bend them so as to make four fins. My advanced brainpower can’t handle such simplicity!” He shook his head tragically. “But your thought processes are defeated when the problem actually does require a complex algorithm. That is why you can’t figure out what is bothering you with standard thinking. The answer is complex! I think, therefore, you must break it down into its simplest forms.”