Her apartment looks a mess because it’s small: a stack of milk crates turned to bookshelves, overflowing with paperbacks and used textbooks. A small lacquered pine board dresser in stages of advanced decay, its side crisscrossed with bumper stickers bearing logos of bands Vlad does not recognize. A couch that slides out to form a bed, separated from the kitchenette by a narrow coffee table. Sheets piled in a hamper beside the couch-bed, dirty clothes in another hamper, dishes in the sink.
She opens her eyes, and steps out of the circle formed by the shoulder strap of her fallen bag. Two steps to the fridge, from which she draws a beer. She opens the cap with a fob on her keychain, tosses the cap in the recycling, and takes a long drink. Three steps from fridge around the table to the couch, where she sits, takes another drink, then swears, “Motherfucker,” first two syllables drawn out and low, the third a high clear peal like those little bells priests used to ring in the litany. She lurches back to her feet, retrieves her bag, sits again on couch and pulls from the bag a thick sheaf of papers and a red pen and proceeds to grade.
Vlad waits. Not now, certainly. Not as she wades through work. You take your prey in joy: insert yourself into perfection, sharp as a needle’s tip. When she entered the room, he might have done it then. But the moment’s passed.
She grades, finishes her beer, gets another. After a while she returns the papers to their folder, and the folder to her bag. From the milk crate bookshelves she retrieves a bulky laptop, plugs it in, and turns on a television show about young people living in the city, who all have bigger apartments than hers. Once in a while, she laughs, and after she laughs, she drinks.
He watches her watching. He can only permit himself this once, so it must be perfect. He tries to see the moment in his mind. Does she lie back in her bed, smiling? Does she spy him through the curtains, and climb on a chair to open the skylight and let him in? Does she scream and run? Does she call his name? Do they embrace? Does he seize her about the neck and drag her toward him while she claws ineffectually at his eyes and cheeks until her strength gives out?
She closes the laptop, dumps the dregs of her beer in the sink, tosses the empty into the recycling, walks into the bathroom, closes the door. The toilet flushes, the water runs, and he hears her floss, and brush her teeth, gargle and spit into the sink.
Do it. The perfect moment won’t come. There’s no such thing.
The doorknob turns.
What is he waiting for? He wants her to see him, know him, understand him, fear him, love him at the last. He wants her to chase him around the world, wants a moonlit showdown in a dark castle.
He wants to be her monster. To transform her life in its ending.
The door opens. She emerges, wearing threadbare blue pajamas. Four steps back to the couch, which she slides out into a bed. She spreads sheets over the bed, a comforter on top of them, and wriggles under the comforter. Hair halos her head on the dark pillow.
Now.
She can reach the light switch from her bed. The room goes dark save for the blinking lights of coffee maker and charging cell phone and laptop. He can still see her staring at the ceiling. She sighs.
He stands and turns to leave.
Moonlight glints off glass ten blocks away.
* * *
His wife has almost broken down the rifle by the time he reaches her—nine seconds. She’s kept in practice. The sniper scope is stowed already; as he arrives, she’s unscrewing the barrel. She must have heard him coming, but she waits for him to speak first.
She hasn’t changed from the library. Khaki pants, a cardigan, comfortable shoes. Her hair up, covered by a dark cap. She wears no jewels but for his ring and her watch.
“I’m sorry,” he says, first.
“I’ll say.”
“How did you know?”
“Dust on your collar. Late nights.”
“I mean, how did you know it would be now?”
“I got dive-bombed by crows on the sidewalk this morning. One of the work-study kids came in high, babbling about the prince of darkness. You’re not as subtle as you used to be.”
“Well. I’m out of practice.”
She looks up at him. He realizes he’s smiling, and with his own teeth. He stops.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that already.” Finished with the rifle, she returns it to the case, and closes the zipper, and stands. She’s shorter than he is, broader through the shoulders. “What made you stop?”
“She wasn’t you.”
“Cheek.”
“No.”
“So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know. I thought I was strong enough to be normal. But these are me.” He bares his teeth at her. “Not these.” From his pocket he draws the false teeth, and holds them out, wrapped in plastic, in his palm. Closes his fingers. Plastic cracks, crumbles. He presses it to powder, and drops bag and powder both. “Might as well kill me now.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m a monster.”
“You’re just more literal than most.” She looks away from him, raises her knuckle to her lip. Looks back.
“You deserve a good man. A normal man.”
“I went looking for you.” She doesn’t shout, but something in her voice makes him retreat a step, makes his heart thrum and almost beat.
“I miss.” Those two words sound naked. He struggles to finish the sentence. “I miss when we could be dangerous to one another.”
“You think you’re the only one who does? You think the PTA meetings and the ask your mothers and the how’s your families at work, you think that stuff doesn’t get to me? Think I don’t wonder how I became this person?”
“It’s not that simple. If I lose control, people die. Look at tonight.”
“You stopped. And if you screw up.” She nudges the rifle case with her toe. “There’s always that.”
“Paul needs a normal family. We agreed.”
“He needs a father more. One who’s not too scared of himself to be there.”
He stops himself from shouting something he will regret. Closes his lips, and his eyes, and thinks for a long while, as the wind blows over their rooftop. His eyes hurt. “He needs a mother, too,” he says.
“Yes. He does.”
“I screwed up tonight.”
“You did. But I think we can work on this. Together. How about you?”
“Sarah,” he says.
She looks into his eyes. They embrace, once, and part. She kneels to lift the rifle case.
“Here,” he says. “Let me get that for you.”
* * *
The next week, Friday, he plays catch with Paul in the park. They’re the only ones there save the ghosts: it’s cold, but Paul’s young, and while Vlad can feel the cold it doesn’t bother him. Dead trees overhead, skeletal fingers raking sky. Leaves spin in little whirlwinds. The sky’s blue and empty, sun already sunk behind the buildings.
Vlad unbuttons his coat, lets it fall. Strips off his sweater, balls it on top of the coat. Stands in his shirtsleeves, cradles the football with his long fingers. Tightens his grip. Does not burst the ball, only feels the air within resist his fingers’ pressure.
Paul steps back, holds up his hands.
Vlad shakes his head. “Go deeper.”
He runs, crumbling dry leaves and breaking hidden sticks.
“Deeper,” Vlad calls, and waves him on.
“Here?” Vlad’s never thrown the ball this far.
“More.”
Paul stands near the edge of the park. “That’s all there is!”
“Okay,” Vlad says. “Okay. Are you ready?”
“Yes!”
His throws are well-rehearsed. Wind up slowly, and toss soft. He beat them into his bones.
He forgets all that.
Black currents weave through the wind. A crow calls from treetops. He stands, a statue of ice.
He throws the ball as hard as he can.
> A loud crack echoes through the park. Ghosts scatter, dive for cover. The ball breaks the air, and its passage leaves a vacuum trail. Windows rattle and car alarms whoop. Vlad wasn’t aiming for his son. He didn’t want to hurt him. He just wanted to throw.
Vlad’s eyes are faster even than his hands, and sharp. So he sees Paul blink, in surprise more than fear. He sees Paul understand. He sees Paul smile.
And he sees Paul blur sideways and catch the ball.
They stare at one another across the park. The ball hisses in Paul’s hands, deflates: it broke in the catching. Wind rolls leaves between them.
Later, neither can remember who laughed first.
* * *
They talk for hours after that. Chase one another around the park, so fast they seem only colors on the wind. High-pitched child’s screams of joy, and Vlad’s own voice, deep, guttural. Long after the sky turns black and the stars don’t come out, they return home, clothes grass-stained, hair tangled with sticks and leaves. Paul does his homework, fast, and they watch cricket until after bedtime.
Sarah waits in the living room when he leaves Paul sleeping. She grabs his arms and squeezes, hard enough to bruise, and pulls him into her kiss.
He kisses her back with his teeth.
Copyright © 2014 by Max Gladstone
Art copyright © 2014 by David Palumbo
“Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future.” —Walt Disney
1901:
Walter Elias Disney born.
H. G. Wells publishes The First Men in the Moon.
1903:
The Wright brothers make first manned flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes Exploring Space with Devices, a seminal technical text of rocketry.
1912:
Wernher von Braun, inventor of the V-2 rocket and first director of NASA, born.
1914–1919:
Robert Goddard granted two US patents for rockets using solid and liquid fuel, and several stages.. He fires rockets for US Signal Corps and Army Ordnance at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
1920:
Timothy Leary born.
1921:
Chester Thaddeus Hall born.
June Elizabeth Foster born.
1923:
Hermann Oberth publishes The Rocket into Interplanetary Space.
1923:
Wernher von Braun receives a telescope as his first communion present. He begins reading science fiction, including Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon, and scientific rocket research.
1927:
Society for Space Travel founded in Germany.
1928:
Disney releases Steamboat Willie, the world’s first sound-synchronized animated film.
Hermann Oberth is a scientific consultant for Fritz Lang’s Woman in the Moon. A publicity rocket built by Oberth blows up on the launchpad.
1930:
American Rocket Society founded in New York City.
Von Braun is an assistant to Willy Ley and Hermann Oberth in launching liquid-fuel rockets.
1930–1935:
Germans, Russians, and Americans launch a variety of experimental rockets.
1936:
California Institute of Technology scientists begin testing rockets near Pasadena, California; this is the precursor of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
1937:
Von Braun joins the Nazi party. His rocket group moves to Peenemünde.
Goddard’s rocket reaches nine thousand feet.
Leningrad, Moscow, and Kazan chosen as test sites for Russian rockets.
1940:
Disney Studios releases Fantasia.
Von Braun joins the SS.
1942:
Timothy Leary, acquitted via court-martial for behavior infractions at West Point, receives an honorable discharge.
The US Army moves into Disney’s studio, which produces US propaganda films during the war.
1943:
Von Braun begins using concentration camp prisoners as slave labor at the V-2 Mittelwerk plant. Twenty to thirty thousand slave laborers die of starvation, exhaustion, and summary execution under von Braun’s supervision.
Albert Hofmann discovers the psychoactive properties of LSD.
1944:
Over one thousand V-2 rockets launched against London.
1945:
Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency accepts the surrender of von Braun, Arthur Rudolph, and other important German scientists. American Army transports over one hundred V-2 rockets from Peenemunde and Nordhousen to White Sands, New Mexico. The Nazi past of the German scientists is expunged from their records, clearing their path to US citizenship.
1949:
Sandoz Laboratories brings LSD to United States for use in experimental trials.
1950:
Carol Elizabeth Hall born.
1952:
Collier’s publishes “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!”, von Braun’s vision of space exploration and settlement.
July 17, 1955:
Disneyland opens at Anaheim. Ninety million people watch live on television.
Carol Hall, five years old, is parked in front of the black-and-white television set an hour before the Disneyland grand opening television special is to begin. Chet, her father, a jet propulsion engineer presently at North American Aviation, had wanted to go to the beach that beautiful Sunday, but when Carol had gotten wind of his plan she had thrown herself on the floor, sobbing, “We’ll miss the grand opening!”
“How did she hear about this all-consuming event?” Chet asks as he rummages in the icebox for olives. Tall and loose limbed, Chet looks good in a suit and tie. His blond hair is cut in a flattop, his eyes are hazel, and he wears the heavy black glasses of his jet-propulsion-engineer tribe. Just now, he wears khaki slacks, sandals, and a short-sleeved sport shirt with the tail out. The windows of their new ranch house are open, and a breeze flows through the kitchen. From the boomerang pattern of the Formica countertop to the Eames chairs in the living room that they found, astonishingly enough, put out in the trash on Sunset Boulevard, the house and the lives of the Halls lean and yearn toward the sunny future and away from the war, the bomb, sacrifice, and uncertainty.
June says, “I think the olives are behind the milk, honey. They’ve been talking about the grand opening on the Disney show for months.” June’s short blond hair falls in soft natural waves around her face. Her eyes are blue, her legs are long, she is tall and beautifully proportioned, and she has a BS in chemical engineering. She and Chet make a nice couple, as they have frequently been told since 1949, when they met and married. She rarely wears her expensive, fashionable suits any longer, but is still a knockout when she does. Carol likes to clunk around in the green snakeskin peep-toed shoes June wore on her honeymoon in Cuba. Now that June is a mother, she mostly wears white Keds.
“You’re going to miss it!” yells Carol from the living room.
June and Chet settle on the couch, armed with martinis. Though it’s early, they feel fully justified.
Carol has a glass of milk-—with a straw in it that makes it taste, distantly, like strawberries—which is getting warm on the coffee table behind her. She sits cross-legged on green wall-to-wall carpeting, coonskin hat jammed over blond braids. She holds her life-sized rubber bowie knife upright, as if she might be a grizzled frontiersman waiting for a slab of bear meat in a backwoods river tavern, or maybe she’s planning to stab Mike Fink in the gullet. Her knife has a gray blade and a green handle. She is forbidden to stab things with it, but when she thinks no one is looking she does a lot of stabbing—furniture, walls, dirt, trees—all to no avail, since the blade curls up, but it’s still entertaining. She also has a six-shooter cap gun an
d a holster, but she’s only allowed to play with it outside. It makes real smoke and noise.
She jumps up. “Look! There’s Walt Disney! He’s the train engineer!”
“Yup,” says Chet. “A man of many talents.” The camera follows a parade down idyllic Main Street. “Oh, boy! It’s Yesterdayland! We’re back in 1900! No world wars.”
“I don’t think there’s a Yesterdayland,” says Carol doubtfully. The camera moves to another live grand opening scene. “Who is that man? He talks funny.”
“Why, it’s good old Heinz Haber. I met him in Germany and saw him at a seminar just last week. Guess you have to have a German accent to get a job with Disney.”
“He’s a physicist, isn’t he?” asks June.
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