The Night of the Comet

by George Bishop

  The Great Comet of 1607: Seen all over Europe. Floods, plagues, massacres. Called “the Red Knife in the Sky” by American Indians, it incited them to war against the English settlers; by its light, they captured John Smith, who escaped with his life only when the Indian maiden Pocahontas laid her head across his own as the fierce Chief Powhatan, her father, raised his club to murder Smith.

  Napoleon’s Comet glowed with a ruby-red luster at the birth of Bonaparte. Later, the Great Comet of 1811 blazed for a full year and a half like a giant torch on the horizon, lighting the Emperor’s invasion of Russia. The Comet of 1821 shone for only one night over France and the island of St. Helena, the night Napoleon died.

  Halley’s Comet, in its 1835 apparition, was shaped like a giant red whale in the sky. Bloody wars erupted throughout Central and South America; bubonic plague wiped out the population of Alexandria; the Great Fire of New York burned for three days and three nights, reducing much of the city to ashes; and in Texas, under its red glow, the Mexican army massacred Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and hundreds of American soldiers at the Battle of the Alamo.

  The Great Sun-Grazing Comet of 1882 appeared suddenly one morning in September above the Southern Hemisphere. It shone so brightly that it could be seen alongside the midday sun, until, six months later, it exploded into five pieces and faded from view.

  The San Francisco Comet of 1906: It flared for one night only over California as the earth shook, buildings fell, and San Francisco burned to the ground.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  THE sky was a gunmetal gray with low bundles of pink-lit clouds. The air smelled damp, like wet leaves, and here and there smoke snaked up from a neighbor’s chimney. Some houses already had sheets of newspaper or pieces of cardboard taped up inside the windows, per my father’s suggestion. Squirrels skittered around to the sides of trees and froze on the bark, their tails flicking, their eyes alert, as Peter and I pedaled our bikes through the neighborhood and turned onto Franklin Street.

  We rolled down the sidewalk toward the square, cars passing us on the road. Peter wore his oversized army coat, along with the hat he’d made from his rabbit pelt; it looked like a furry swim cap with flaps covering his ears. Swerving back and forth on his bike beside me, he talked excitedly about what we might expect from the comet tonight.

  Lots of people had seen it already, he said. You just had to know where and when to look. His cousin Trent, in Napoleonville, he saw it three days ago. They were at his farm, they walked out into the field, and it was hanging right in front of them like a burning spear. Some people were afraid to even go outside at night now. They were buying up food and water. His daddy said his tanks were almost dry and soon there wouldn’t be any more gas left in town. Since Peter had begun working at the Conoco, he’d seen people coming in every day to fill up their cars and generators, just in case.…

  I was barely listening. I was still thinking about the horrible scene I’d just witnessed between my mother and Frank Martello. I knew that marked the end to any association between my parents and the Martellos; they wouldn’t be crossing the bridge to visit one another again anytime soon, I was sure of that. But what about me and Gabriella? What did this mean for us? Despite this complication with our parents, and despite the fact that I hadn’t been able to deliver my note to her, I clung to the hope that I would still see her tonight, and as Peter and I approached the center of town, I kept my eyes open for her.

  Two blocks before the square, the traffic backed up to a crawl and the sidewalks became crowded with people. Peter and I hopped off our bikes to walk them. We passed Mr. Coot’s Conoco; the lights were off, the bay doors closed, and Mr. Coot’s truck was parked out front. Across the street, the McCall’s Rexall had stayed open late; a teenage boy stood to one side of the entranceway filling helium balloons from a tank as folks passed in and out of the store. At the end of Franklin Street a policeman stood next to his car, directing traffic around the square.

  Seeing all the cars and people, I felt a surge of confidence in my father. I hadn’t expected to see this kind of turnout; I hadn’t expected to see much of anything, really—maybe a handful of people in a near-empty square. But he’d pulled it off, hadn’t he? Everything was just like he’d said it would be.

  Peter and I pushed our bikes between cars and across the road. We saw some of our classmates from school, as well as some teachers, parents, and a young mother pushing a baby stroller. Coach DuPleiss raised a hand in greeting as we passed him on the sidewalk; he was accompanied by a thin, anxious-looking woman with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

  We found my father in front of the courthouse. It was a square, modern building with a broad concrete porch and a low flight of steps flanked by two lamps. He stood beneath one of the lamps, giving instructions to three or four Cub Scouts and their den leader. One scout wore binoculars around his neck; another rested his hands on a long cardboard telescope box propped up between his feet, listening carefully to my father. The rest of the scouts were busy carrying folding chairs out from inside the courthouse. Mr. Coot directed them, waddling and huffing as he showed them where to set up the chairs.

  “Line it up. Line it up,” he said. “Pete, Junior, give these kids a hand.”

  We left our bikes at the side of the porch and helped the scouts arrange the chairs in rows facing the courthouse. Looking up from under their caps, the boys asked if we had seen the comet yet and how big we thought it’d be tonight. Peter told them about the sighting by his cousin Trent in Napoleonville. One kid insisted that he wasn’t afraid of the comet, he just wanted to get a good look at it, that was all. They hoped to earn their astronomy pins tonight, and they told us what all they needed to do for that.

  My father, meanwhile, had started helping people set up their telescopes near the bottom of the steps. He was an unmistakable figure in his black raincoat, plaid hat, and glasses, and as he hustled back and forth, people seemed drawn to him. “Hey, Professor!” they called, and he turned and waved, pointing repeatedly to the southwestern sky for anyone who asked.

  “Look who’s here,” Peter said, and pointed to Mark Mingis cruising along the edge of the square in his red Camaro. He had his window down, his elbow resting on the door, the radio playing loudly. Peter said that since Mark had gotten his driver’s license he came by the station two or three times a week now. He always ordered full service, and if Peter was working he had to wait on him. “Hey Pete-Pee, use your premium. None of that watery stuff,” he’d say. “Hey Pete-Pee, don’t get any grease on my car.”

  “Asshole,” Peter said. “I hope he wrecks his damn car.”

  Mark disappeared behind the courthouse as he looped around the square, and just then I had the notion that he was looking for Gabriella, too. Like me, he must’ve come here tonight expecting to meet her. Maybe she was already here, out strolling with her girlfriends. I scanned the crowd, searching for her dark head of hair. Dusk was lowering in the square, swelling the sky with orange and pink. Suddenly I was sure that our whole future together, my and Gabriella’s, depended on who would be standing beside her when the comet came.

  “Where’re you going?” Peter asked as I turned to leave.

  “I have to find Gabriella.”

  “Is she here?”

  If she was, I was determined to reach her before Mark did. As I hurried off, the lamps at the courthouse were just coming on. Their white globes glowed in the air like small moons floating above the heads of Peter and the scouts.

  I circled the square on the outside walkway, looking for her face among the crowds of people. I passed a hippy couple, an older boy wearing a floppy hat and a long purple coat with his arm around a girl in a psychedelic miniskirt and purple stockings. I must’ve been staring, because the girl puckered her lips and blew me a kiss, making her boyfriend laugh. I kept walking, past a black family gathered around a park bench.

  “You’re not going to say hello?”

  It was Christine; I hadn’t seen her. I stopped
and she introduced me to her family—her sister, her aunt, her mother and father, a few kids. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said. “I said we’ve got to go see that comet. I told them how your daddy showed it to me on the telescope.”

  A little boy standing at my knees waved a cardboard tube. “I got a telescope.”

  “That’s my littlest one, Jeremy,” said Christine. The boy put the tube against his eye and looked up with it. “What do you see? You see anything?” she asked him.

  “The Moon,” the boy said, and everyone laughed. The boy looked around worriedly, not sure why this was funny, and hid his face against Christine’s legs.

  She opened a picnic basket beside her on the bench and invited me to stay and eat with them. They had chicken, biscuits, everything. “Peppers? You like peppers? That’s from my garden last summer.” I begged off, saying that I had to meet someone.

  “You’re in a hurry, that’s okay.” Christine returned the jar of peppers to the basket. “Tell your daddy I said hello. Tell him we were here.”

  I thanked her and said goodbye. The little kid waved his cardboard tube in the air at me as I moved on.

  I’d lost sight of Mark and his red Camaro; I didn’t see any sign of Gabriella yet, either. But cutting through the middle of the square, I heard music and turned around to see my sister. She was sitting cross-legged on a tie-dyed sheet on the ground in a corner of the square, playing guitar with Greg. She wore a tiara of yellow and white plastic flowers. Greg slouched beside her in a winter coat. The other members of the band lounged back smoking cigarettes and listening, glassy-eyed. I stepped across the grass to them.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  Strumming her guitar, Megan looked up. “Same as you. Came to see the comet.”

  “Alan Junior,” said Greg, and reached up for a soul shake. The drummer took a suck of gas from a helium balloon and said in a high, funny voice, “What’s up, dude?”

  I asked my sister if she’d seen Gabriella. She hadn’t. “The Comet Queen,” Greg said. “I remember her.”

  “You think we’ll see it?” the drummer asked, squinting up at me from the ground.

  “My dad says so.”

  He nodded. “That’d be cool.”

  Greg began strumming his guitar along with Megan. They got up a tune, and my sister took the high part, her voice sounding light and pretty. I looked over their heads to the end of the square. Night was falling fast; the streetlights had come on and the store signs were all lit now. On the corner, people were going in and out of the Rexall—

  A ridiculous hope, I knew, but it was worth a try.

  “Rock on,” the drummer said as I rushed off.

  The kid with the gas was still filling balloons at the front of the store, tying them off and attaching strings with a bored expertise. I held the door open for a woman coming out, and as I waited for her to pass I saw one of my dad’s fliers taped up inside the window. Across the top of the flier was a poorly reproduced black-and-white photograph of a comet; around the edges were hand-drawn stars and planets:

  Come See Comet Kohoutek! The municipality of Terrebonne will host a public comet viewing, to take place Sunday evening … Alan Broussard, local science teacher and astronomer, will be on hand to …

  Inside, then, and up and down the aisles. The lights were white, the air medicinal. The store couldn’t have changed much since my parents met here almost twenty years ago: same magazine racks, same shelves of stomach medicine. Coming around to the front of the store, I half expected to find, through some magical repetition of time and events, Gabriella waiting for me behind the counter. Instead, there was a thin black girl wearing the shop’s pink smock, her hair combed out into a large, well-shaped Afro. She leaned across the counter flirting with a black fellow about her age, one foot extended behind her rocking from side to side on its toe.

  “I’m not going to give you a discount. Why should I give you a discount?” she said.

  “Because I’m your friend,” the guy teased. “I’m your special friend.”

  She laughed. “Shoot. You think you’re my special friend.”

  No Gabriella, though. I went back outside. A damp, cutting breeze blew along the sidewalk as the last traces of daylight bled from the sky. I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and was about to cross the road for another pass through the square when I noticed the front fender of a blue car peeking out from the alleyway beside the drugstore.

  I stepped closer. It was our Rambler. My mother sat behind the steering wheel, her eyes on the square. I knocked on the passenger-side window and she jerked back, startled. Then she leaned over and unlocked the door to let me in.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  “IT’S cold out, isn’t it?”

  She still wore the navy-blue jacket and skirt I’d seen her in earlier at the Martellos’ house. Her pearls were gone, though, and her eyes were red and puffy. The motor was running and the heater on. I didn’t want to embarrass her by asking what she was doing here, and she didn’t seem inclined to offer any explanation, so instead we both pretended that it was perfectly normal that I should find her hiding in our car in the alleyway.

  I warmed my hands in the heat from the vents and watched the square with her. Policemen had begun blocking off the road around the square with sawhorses. Red brake lights winked on and off; above, soft blue comas haloed the streetlamps.

  My mother sniffed and wiped her nose with a tissue. “I’m surprised to see so many people.”

  “Me, too.”

  She peered up thoughtfully at the sky through the windshield. “Can it do that? Just appear all the sudden?”

  “I guess so. It’s supposed to be a good night for it.”

  “But it’s cloudy.”

  “I know.”

  “Where’s your telescope?”

  “With Dad.” I told her how I’d come with Peter, and how we’d been helping the Cub Scouts set up chairs. “I saw Megan.”

  “Was she with Greg?”

  “With him and his friends, yeah. Over there playing guitars.”

  “I like Greg. He seems like a nice boy. He probably smokes pot, but at least he’s polite.”

  My mother and I hadn’t spoken to each other since her phone calls to me the week before, when I’d hung up on her. Having witnessed her horrible humiliation at the Martellos’ that afternoon, though, I was finding it hard to stay very angry at her for abandoning us. Still, I wasn’t ready to just forgive and forget everything yet.

  Three of Gabriella’s girlfriends from school passed directly in front of us on the sidewalk. They were followed by some older boys who teased them as they walked. The girls jutted their chins and pretended to ignore the boys, which only provoked them more. The girls turned sharply to cross the street, and the boys chased after them.

  My mother smiled. “Look at them go.… Reminds me of when I was a teenager. We used to come here all the time. It was just like this. Families and kids, people out walking. Boys circling in their cars, chasing after the girls. You hardly ever see this anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. People like to stay inside and watch TV, I guess. Or maybe they’re afraid to go out at night now.”

  I fooled with the heater vents as she went on, her voice taking on a wistful, sentimental tone.

  “Do you remember when we used to take you and Megan to see drive-in movies? At that place out on Highway One? You got so scared the first time, I don’t know why.”

  I had a vague memory of huddling in blankets in the front seat between my parents as brightly colored giants went crashing and leaping across the night sky in front of our car.

  “It was something like Mary Poppins. You were so afraid!” She laughed.

  “I didn’t know it was just a movie,” I explained.

  “Probably not. You had nightmares for weeks after that. Because of Mary Poppins.” She laughed again, and I chuckled with her. She sniffed and wiped her nose, and then asked, “How’s yo
ur father?”

  “He’s all right, I guess.”

  “Did you two have dinner tonight? What’d you eat?”

  “Leftover chicken.”

  “He cooked it?”

  “No. God, no. Are you kidding?”

  We sat there a minute, looking out the windshield. I got the feeling we were both working up the courage to start in on what we really needed to talk about, which was the whole complicated issue of where we stood now as mother and son, and what would become of the Broussard family.

  Off to the right, I saw the guy who’d been flirting with the counter girl come out of the drugstore. He bought a balloon and ducked back inside.

  “It’s your famous drugstore,” I said.

  She looked across me out the window. “My famous drugstore.”

  “The one where it all began.”

  “Ha.”

  “It was on a night like this. You were working all alone,” I prompted. She didn’t say anything. “He was a new teacher, fresh from LSU.…” Still nothing. It suddenly felt important to hear the story again, as a reminder, for both of us, of how love was supposed to work.

  “Tell it,” I urged her.

  “No, not now.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too sad.”

  “How’s it sad?”

  “It just is.”

  “You should come home.”

  She looked at me and sighed. “Oh, honey.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “There’s so many problems now.”

  “No there aren’t.” I poked at the heater vent. “He misses you.”

  She bit her lip and turned forward. In the dim light of the alley her face was gray and shadowed. She was looking through the windshield, but she wasn’t seeing the scene outside anymore; she was seeing something else entirely, perhaps peering down into her own heart.