Instead, I got up to clear the dishes.
Buster stopped me. “I’ll get those,” he said. “You cooked. It’s only fair.”
So that’s what happened. Buster cleared and washed all the dishes, while I went into the living room, sat down on the couch, and put my feet up like a lady of leisure. It did occur to me that if my dad always did the dishes after my mom cooked, like Buster was doing right now, my mom might appreciate that fact. And now that I’d taught my dad how to wash dishes, maybe he might do that someday. If they ever came back.
Not long after the sound of running water stopped, Buster came in with forks and big slices of the cake we made together yesterday, all set out on plates. We ate those and had seconds. I’d forgotten to make the Jell-O, but a person can’t always remember everything.
And then you know what we did, Michael Collins? We just watched and waited. Picture a big clock on the wall, the minute hand sweeping round and round while the hour hand goes more slowly.
It’s a funny thing about waiting for something for a real long time. No matter how worried or scared or even flat-out excited you are because of all the things that still might happen, tiredness gets you. In the end, it was all I could do to keep awake and it felt like, if it wouldn’t be so painful, I could have sure used some of those fancy toothpicks to prop my eyelids open. And Buster looked the same.
But then, just as I was about to drift off, it happened.
“Holy moly!” Buster cried.
And just for once, I said “Holy moly!” right along with him, because there, running as a caption along the bottom of the Magnavox color TV screen, it now read, in words that it would have been impossible to imagine before: LIVE VOICE OF ASTRONAUT ARMSTRONG FROM SURFACE OF MOON. I’d seen Live from Ohio and Live from Paris and even Live from Vietnam and Live from almost any other place you can imagine, but no one had ever seen this before, what people were seeing on television screens across the country, the world even:
LIVE … FROM SURFACE OF MOON
There was Neil Armstrong—shadowy, but still, there he was—backing down the steps of the Eagle. The legs of the Eagle looked like they were covered in tinfoil as he backed down the steps still separating him from the moon. Nine steps, to be exact. I know because I counted them. And when he got to the bottom, he placed a foot on the moon.
At 10:56 p.m. today, on July 20, 1969, for the first time ever, a man put a foot on the moon.
I tell you, Michael Collins, Buster and I were wide-awake now.
We were awake to hear Neil Armstrong say, as he set that first foot down, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I tell you something else, Michael Collins. Buster always says that you can learn anything in the world from books, and I know he’s right. You can. Certainly, there are a lot of words in books. But there aren’t words, not really, to describe what it is like to witness a miracle firsthand.
A man, Michael Collins. On the moon.
There are facts, and facts don’t begin to cover it, but I will try to tell you what some of them were, since you are one of the few people who was not able to see this on the TV tonight. I may get the order of some of the facts wrong, but that is because there was so much excitement and so much happened and I am finishing this letter so late.
Walter Cronkite said, “Armstrong is on the moon. Neil Armstrong—thirty-eight-year-old American—standing on the surface of the moon!”
I felt Buster’s hand close over mine.
We watched as Neil Armstrong took pictures with a camera, collected rocks and samples to bring back, and set up experiments for scientists at home. For about twenty minutes, Neil Armstrong was the only man walking on the moon, the only man who had ever walked there. Then finally, at 11:15 p.m., Buzz Aldrin joined him.
Once they were together, they put up an American flag and Buzz Aldrin saluted it. It looked like it was quite a struggle to get it right, and Walter Cronkite said it had wire sewn into it to keep it stiff, because otherwise it would just hang straight down, limp, with no wind to buoy it.
Buzz Aldrin tried to run but wound up just bouncing all over the place like a kangaroo. They both did.
“You see those footprints they’re leaving?” Buster said. “There’s no rain or wind on the moon. Their footprints will be there forever.”
But not yours, Michael Collins.
Then President Nixon called—in a telephone-radio transmission from the Oval Office of the White House to the surface of the moon—to congratulate the astronauts and to say, “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one. One in their pride in what you have done. And one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.”
I suppose I should have paid more attention to that last part of what President Nixon said, but I didn’t. Things were happening too quickly now. There was too much to see.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin put up a plaque. It said:
HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON
JULY 1969, A. D.
WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND
I have to tell you, I liked that it said “men from the planet Earth” instead of “American men from the planet Earth.” I liked that it just says “men,” no country specified, even if sometimes it feels like we’ve been competing in the space race with the Russians forever. It did have President Nixon’s signature at the bottom, with “President, United States of America” under that, but it didn’t seem to me like that part mattered as much as the rest.
For two and a half hours, Buster and I watched this miracle together. At moments, I wondered if my various family members, wherever they each were now, were watching, too. Were they seeing exactly what I saw? And if so, what did they think of it all?
And then Armstrong and Aldrin climbed back into their four-legged spider, the lunar module, the Eagle. Right before getting back inside, they jettisoned their backpacks from the top of the nine-step staircase.
“What are they doing that for?” I said.
“They don’t need them anymore,” Buster said. “They’ll spend the night on the moon, sleeping in the Eagle, before trying to meet up with Michael Collins tomorrow.”
I should have thought more about that “trying,” just like I should have thought more about President Nixon’s “return safely,” but somehow I didn’t. Instead, I was thinking about Armstrong and Aldrin leaving their backpacks on the moon, about how right since liftoff you’d been getting rid of parts and things once they were no longer needed. It made me think again about what my dad had said about Apollo 11 not even being reusable, and how he’d made that sound bad. But so what if it wasn’t? So what if they kept casting parts aside once those items were no longer required? They’d needed it all, every last piece of it, to work properly together in order to get to where they wanted to be.
With the best part over, I turned off the TV. And then, without even discussing it with each other first, Buster and I went outside. We hadn’t noticed, but while we were watching, it had rained and the ground was all wet. It was also cooler.
Immediately, I began calling for Campbell, thinking if she’d been caught in the rain, for sure she’d want to come inside to get her feet dry even though the rain had stopped. Buster yelled for her, too, but nothing.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” he said, sounding confident.
“I’m sure, too,” I said, even though I wasn’t.
“Just a second,” Buster said, racing over to his house, from where I could still hear the sound of the party. When he came back, he had a beach blanket and he laid it on the ground.
“Here,” he said. “You don’t want to get your outfit all wet and dirty.”
I actually didn’t care about my outfit at that point, yet it made me feel good that he cared about it, for my sake.
Sometimes, I feel like I should tell you more about Buster than I do. But the fact of the matter is, Michael Collins, that Buster is just good, like
you, and that’s all there is.
You know how good he is? I think that, all night, even though he knew how happy I was to have him there, he also knew how much I missed my family. So right then, he gave me a gift out of the blue. Buster told me his real name, Michael Collins! I would love to tell you what it is. It is just as purely awful as promised. But I gave my word, and I have to keep my friend’s confidence. Some things I can’t tell even you, Michael Collins.
After that, we just lay there, side by side, thinking our own thoughts as we stared up at the moon, now that the rain was over and the clouds were gone. The moon was so much different to us now than it had been even the day before, so much different than it would ever be again. We lay like that until Buster’s mom started calling for him, later than she’d ever had to.
Then Buster was gone.
And I just stayed out in the backyard for a bit, me, alone, looking up at the moon, thinking about you spinning around it, alone. I hope the Columbia is spinning like it’s supposed to, so that it doesn’t get too hot from the sun, because then you would burn up and die. I hope that for the half of each orbit during which you are on the far side of the moon and therefore turned away from the Earth—and so are unable even to have any radio contact—you do not feel too alone. Has any man ever been more alone in the history of the world? Maybe John Fairfax in his rowboat. But other than him? Really, I hope you do not feel too alone.
Because you know what?
You give us hope.
After tonight, there will still be bad things going on all over the world. There will still be Vietnam. There will still be the race riots. There will still be all kinds of bad things. Even in my own house. But you and the other astronauts, tonight you give us hope that miracles can happen and things can get better and we can all come together to want the same good thing.
You give us hope.
Sleep tight, Michael Collins. Sleep tight.
Sincerely yours,
Mamie
Monday, July 21, 1969
Dear Michael Collins,
There’s something about a house without other people in it, not even a cat. When other people are there, even if those people are sleeping, it just feels different somehow, fuller. But when it’s only you, everything is just so quiet.
When I went downstairs for breakfast and opened the cabinet for the cereal, I was about to reach for the Froot Loops when something changed my mind. For some reason I felt that, even with no one else there looking, no one else to see, I should just eat the Cap’n Crunch instead, like my mom would want me to do.
So that’s what I did.
And I’ll tell you something, Michael Collins. For the first time it occurred to me that Cap’n Crunch has sugar in it, too. So I don’t really know anymore what my mom has against Froot Loops.
But you know what? This is no day for sadness. Yesterday, man walked on the moon for the first time. And today? Here are the headlines from the New York Times:
MEN WALK ON MOON
ASTRONAUTS LAND ON PLAIN;
COLLECT ROCKS, PLANT FLAG
The way they put it, it hardly sounds very impressive. But believe me, I watched it all, and it was.
I had no time to worry about the Times, though, because, not even bothering to call first, Buster was right there, knocking on my door.
“What’s wrong?” I said, thinking that for him to be coming so early without calling first, something new had to be wrong.
Only it wasn’t.
“Come on!” Buster said, taking my hand, pulling me outside and dragging me toward the stand of trees so abruptly, I didn’t get a chance to put any shoes on or even take the phone off the hook.
“What is it?” I asked, running to keep up with him and to keep from falling as he pulled me.
But all Buster would say was “Holy moly! You’ve got to see this!”
And then we were in Buster’s backyard, standing at the edge of the hole the men had dug for the swimming pool, and there, down in the shallow end, was a cat, with furry little kittens all around her.
“It’s Campbell!” Buster cried.
It most surely was.
I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more relieved in my life. Campbell was okay! And those tiny kittens! I suppose you could say that calling kittens cute is a cliché, but what else are you going to call them?
“How did you find her?” I asked.
“When I came out a little while ago, I thought to look for her for you. It’s early, so the neighborhood’s still quiet, and I guess some people are sleeping in after the excitement last night, so it was easy to notice any little sound. That’s when I heard the mewing. I followed the mewing, and there she was!”
Wow.
“We can’t leave her there,” Buster said. “It’s not safe. It’s amazing predators haven’t gotten to them already.”
You know, sometimes when Buster shares his extensive knowledge of things like science with me, like when he tells me all the ways you and the others might die, it does occur to me that he has too much knowledge. But then, when it comes to knowing about things like dangers to Campbell and her kittens posed by predators, that knowledge does come in handy.
I looked all around, ready to fight off a wolf or whatever might try to come their way.
“What do we do?” I asked. I’d never had a cat have kittens before, and I didn’t think I was supposed to just lift up the little tiny newborns and carry them away like that.
“I don’t know,” Buster said. “I’ll go wake up my mom.”
He was off before I could think to stop him.
A few minutes later, he was back with Mrs. Whitaker, who was wearing her summer bathrobe tight around herself, looking even more tired after her party than I felt after mine, her black hair for once out of shape and only the remnants of her Cleopatra eyes still there.
“Now, why would Campbell have gone there to have her babies?” Mrs. Whitaker said, looking at them down there in the shallow end of the hole. “That’s not what a cat would normally do.”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” I said, not thinking to choose my words carefully. “Maybe home just didn’t feel like home to her anymore.”
Mrs. Whitaker just stared at me. Well, of course she did. But all she said was “Wait here.”
She hurried to the house, coming back a minute later with a big soft blanket. Then, not even worrying about getting dirty, she climbed into that hole, laid down the blanket, and slid Campbell and her kittens onto it, moving them like they were just one piece. Then we got in there with her and, each taking a part of the blanket so we formed a triangular sling, we carefully lifted them out and carried them back to my house.
When we were there and had set them up in something more comfortable than a dirty hole, Mrs. Whitaker gazed down at them. The “something more comfortable” was a large drawer I’d pulled out of my dresser, dumping all the clothes out on the floor and then placing another soft blanket inside.
“They sure are cute,” she said.
“That they are,” I said.
She opened her mouth to say something more, but she just stopped. Then she put her head to one side, listening. And I knew what she was hearing: the sound of a house that’s empty of everyone but you.
It really is an unmistakable sound.
I thought she must know then, that there wasn’t anyone living here anymore other than me. Well, and now Campbell again and her kittens. I thought for sure she’d say something about it. And what would I do then? How would I argue with her if she said I couldn’t stay here anymore, not without adult supervision? Already, I was coming up with arguments in my head, or trying to.
But all she said, as she looked me in the eye, was “Are you okay here, Mamie?”
“I’m fine,” I said. I raised my chin. “I’m just fine.”
“Okay, then,” she said after a long minute. “But you be sure to call me if you need anything.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you, ma’am.”
Aft
er giving Campbell a pat on the head and telling her, “You’ve done a good job,” Mrs. Whitaker left, and it was just me and Buster and the kittens.
We lay on the floor, across from each other, watching Campbell and the kittens between us.
“Last night sure was something,” Buster said.
“And how,” I agreed. “Thank goodness that’s all over with and I don’t have to worry anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“Well,” I said, “when the astronauts lifted off the other day, there was always the worry that they could die right there on the launchpad. Then the worry about them flying to the moon and the million other things that could still go wrong. Then all the things you told me last night about the spacesuits. But they made it. No more worrying.”
“Of course there’s still stuff to worry about, Mamie.”
I looked at him real sharp then. “What are you talking about, Buster?”
That’s when Buster told me that in addition to takeoffs being one of the most dangerous parts of flight, landings are equally to be feared, not to mention everything that could go wrong in between. I don’t know how that had never occurred to me before, particularly after President Nixon said that part to the astronauts about praying they returned safely. I’d just been so focused on you all simply getting there, to the moon.
I think now maybe it’s because the human brain can only keep so many bad possibilities in it at one time. It’s like with my family being gone. Am I worried and upset? Sure. But I can’t think about it every second of the day. I have to take care of things, and I have to live—laugh even.
But now here was Buster, telling me about everything that could still go wrong today. Of course, he’d only hinted at the dangers before. But now? He got more specific.
“What if the rockets fail to ignite and the Eagle fails to lift off again?” he said. “They die. Because if they don’t lift off, they only have enough oxygen left for one more day. And if they lift off, but they make a mistake and miss docking with the command module? They could just drift away, and no one would ever see them again. Well, except for each other. And only that until they die. Even if they do successfully dock again with the Columbia? They’ll have moon dust all over them. No one knows what that’ll do when mixed with oxygen. Will it catch fire? But the astronauts need oxygen, so—”
I Love You, Michael Collins Page 12