Warhead

by Jeff Henigson

  “Thanks,” I said, wishing that I hadn’t labeled the piles, because now his eyes were going through their contents. Of course he saw the rocket glider, which he leaned down to pick up off the floor.

  “I remember this,” he said, slowly nodding. “You’re not getting rid of it, are you?”

  “Rockets are for kids, Dad. I haven’t launched one in years.”

  “We sure enjoyed launching this one, though,” he said. He turned it in his hands, just like I had moments before, with an expression more nostalgic than the one that had probably shown up on mine. It was obviously a sweet memory for him, too, and I found myself annoyed by the satisfaction he was feeling from seeing the rocket again. Sweet memories for me—at least ones that involved my father—were few and fleeting.

  A few months before, in response to his comment, I would have said something sarcastic. I was inclined to at first, but just as quickly I realized the need wasn’t there. Somehow, I’d managed to let it go.

  “Look, I’d like to get back to this. I’ll meet you upstairs, okay?” I glanced toward the door. He got the point, placing the rocket on the bed and looking at his watch.

  “Your mother asked me to inform you that dinner will be served at seven o’clock.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The second Dad left, I glanced at the clock. It was a little past 6:30. If I focused, I could get everything cleared out before heading upstairs.

  I filled one of the U-Haul boxes with my Keep pile—a framed photo of the Mercury astronauts, a picture of Monique that her mother had given me, a handmade card Loretta had delivered to me in the hospital, and a few other things that were close to my heart. I turned to my desk next, emptying all the drawers and distributing their contents among the piles across the room.

  I saved the letters for last. I sat at my desk, breathing for a moment, deep and slow, before opening the drawer.

  The pouch felt different, as if there was some distance now.

  I checked the clock. Ten minutes. I could set the pouch aside, deciding what to do with the letters down the line, but something about that idea bothered me. I wanted to finish what I’d started.

  There was no thought of getting rid of the letters—I was definitely keeping them. The question was whether I’d place them in that box, which meant relegating them to the past, along with other things from my childhood that brought me warmth or meaning, or do something with them in my life now, or in the near future. I sat there, with the clock ticking away on the wall across from me. No answer came.

  I thought about my first conversation with Monique, when we were talking about what my wish would be and she told me to close my eyes and just let it come. So that’s what I did, still breathing slowly, but nothing about the letters emerged.

  Instead, Monique showed up. She appeared in quick flashes—the two of us at her party, burning up the patio dance floor; then a telephone call with her laughter warming me; then the pier in Santa Monica, where I’d kissed her in my dream.

  The last flash was of her death—my rushing out to the hospital, seeing her in the ICU, saying goodbye, and then, by way of a miracle, understanding that she’d moved on.

  I realized I needed to move on, too.

  I opened my eyes. They landed on the pouch in my lap. Lifting it, I pressed it close to my chest, and mouthed spasibo—“thank you” in Russian—to the writers. I carried it over to the box.

  I was about to close everything up when I remembered a copy of the Pasadena Star News that had been sitting on my bookshelf. Dated February 7, 1988, it had a story about my experience with brain cancer and my wish for world peace: Poly Student Fights the Big Fight. For a while I’d contemplated having it framed, to mark the whole crazy experience. But I knew seeing it would just return me to the past. I pulled it from the shelf, folded it in half, and placed it on top of the letters.

  After sealing the box shut with packing tape, I grabbed a Sharpie and wrote “NOSTALGIA” in block letters along the top. Satisfied, I picked it up, carried it to the far corner of the walk-in closet, and tucked it away.

  Just as I stepped back into the room, I heard Mom call down from the staircase. “Dinner’s ready,” she said. “And no ice cream if you’re late!”

  “Got it,” I called, smiling. I was heading toward the door when I saw my old rocket glider sitting on the edge of the bed where Dad had left it. I picked it up, gave it a kiss, and assigned it to its fate.

  The process of writing a memoir is at first one of collection—recollection is probably more accurate, as memories are not perfect facts—and then, when too much presents itself (and it invariably does), synthesis and elimination.

  A number of memories didn’t make the cut. Some were painful, like the phone conversation a well-intentioned social worker set up between me and another brain cancer survivor whose tumor, I learned in the course of our chat, had recently returned. Others were considerably warmer, among them an appearance my mother and I made on Good Morning America in San Francisco. Mom was so nervous, they had to redo her makeup.

  There is one I thought worthy of sharing: an extraordinary trip I embarked on with the Starlight Children’s Foundation in the beginning of 1988, before I left for the Soviet Union. Emma Samms, the Dynasty soap opera star and cofounder of Starlight, asked if I would be interested in joining her at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada, as the organization’s world peace envoy. I could bring a guest, she said, so of course I invited my mom.

  Accompanied by Carol Brown, the then-director of Starlight, Mom and I flew first-class to Calgary. We were met by two producers from ABC Sports: Noubar Stone, our point man, and Geoffrey Mason, who managed all the behind-the-scenes miracles. Soon after, we had the delight of meeting Emma Samms, and in her company watched a number of extraordinary competitions, met athletes from around the world, and enjoyed five-star treatment by the ABC Sports team.

  Noubar, well aware of my wish, made arrangements for me to meet with a number of Soviet athletes. The first was Irina Rodnina, who’d won three successive Olympic gold medals for the Soviet Union in figure skating. She was hardly five feet tall, but her presence was commanding.

  Ms. Rodnina was stunned by my wish. She asked what had inspired it. I said it didn’t make much sense for our countries to spend so much money trying to come up with more effective ways of killing each other.

  Ms. Rodnina’s face broke out into a broad smile. She nodded. When Noubar told her we had to leave for an ABC Sports appointment, she said, “Jeff must first meet a great man.” We followed her through an adjacent building, where she found a man my height but built like a tank. “Vladislav Tretiak,” Ms. Rodnina called out to the captain of the Soviet ice hockey team, “let me introduce you to an American hero.”

  In Russian, she shared with him my wish and what I was hoping to achieve during my trip to their country. When she finished, Mr. Tretiak turned to me and said, “It is truly an honor to meet you.”

  That evening, Mom and I, accompanied by Emma and Carol, watched the Soviet ice hockey team trounce Norway 5–0. I waved to Mr. Tretiak when the game was over—we were just a few feet back from the ice—and he motioned for me to come down. He called his team together and introduced me, I think briefly relaying my story.

  “Prosty. Moy roosky ochen ploha,” I said. I’m sorry. My Russian is very bad.

  Mr. Tretiak smiled. “I say to them you will bring us peace.”

  “Spasibo bolshoi,” I said. Thank you very much.

  Hey Jeff!

  Should I even write that the story about you really shook me up?

  I’m sure you will receive tons of letters. I know English pretty good, but right now I’m too excited to search the shelf for a dictionary and try to explain myself to you in your language.

  I’m Natasha. I’m a sophomore in Shipbuilding Leningrad University. I’m completely in love with
theater! Especially the student theater I’m a part of. It’s the best in the whole university.

  During New Year’s Eve we performed on Nevsky Prospect. You know, it truly is amazing here on New Year’s! In the fall we went on tour.

  I really want for you and your friends to understand that we have such lovely, beautiful and kind people. They really know how to love, believe and sacrifice themselves!

  You know, Jeff, I was always able to get everything I wanted in life. All I wanted to do was want really really bad. I want for you to live! This is why I’m writing to you.

  Jeff, in July I’m going into the mountains, Pamir, it’s in Central Asia. I know now that while I’m there, on the ice, fighting to keep going, fighting not to throw away the heavy backpack and send everyone to hell, I will be thinking about you.

  And you will help me, I know it!

  When the night comes and we will be sitting by the fire, when next to me will be those closest people, my wonderful friends, when we will be remembering our beloved Leningrad, when we will be singing our songs about sea to the sounds of a guitar in someone’s hands, and when everyone gets quiet, thinking about those who are in sea at that moment, and when only the thousands of lonely stars and the outline of the mountains surrounds us that night, I will also remember a young boy in USA who wants peace and happiness for all the people.

  It’s great that you came to us Jeff, believe me, you don’t have to think about it, but you found a lot of people who think like you do, a lot of truthful, smart and kind people who would really want to be your friends!

  You know, I have grand plans for the future. I want to do a lot of acting in theater, I want to conquer Seventhousand in Pamir, I want to ply the seas on a yacht, to travel the entire country, swim in Lake Baikal, walk with geologists through tundra, travel abroad. And I believe that all of these will come true! I believe that there will no longer be wars because there are such wonderful people like you. And there are a lot of them and they can do anything! Thank you, Jeff!

  Until we meet, you hear!

  Natalia Pozemova 24.06.88

  Leningrad

  Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

  Throughout Warhead, there are references to the Soviet Union and the Cold War. Because both are essential components of the story—and of history—here’s some background information you might find helpful.

  WHAT IS THE SOVIET UNION?

  While Russia shows up frequently in the news, you’ve probably heard less about the Soviet Union. From 1922 until 1991, Russia was part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, a communist country and a rival of the United States. The Soviet Union was composed of fifteen republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Today, each of the former Soviet republics exists as an independent country.

  WHAT IS THE COLD WAR?

  A conventional war is carried out through armed conflict. A cold war, on the other hand, involves economic, political, and military rivalry without direct combat. When we speak of the Cold War, we are referring to a period of geopolitical rivalry between the Soviet Union, with its allies in Eastern Europe (together known as the Eastern Bloc), and the United States and its allies (known as the Western Bloc) that began after World War II.

  Eastern Bloc countries were united by communism, an economic, political, and social ideology under which businesses, goods, and property are publicly owned and controlled, and separate socioeconomic classes—like the rich, the middle class, and the poor—cease to exist. Communist Eastern Bloc governments were repressive and often brutal, limiting free speech, controlling the media, and imprisoning people who opposed their policies and practices. Western Bloc countries were political democracies, where the civil and political rights of the people are protected by constitutional law, and they had capitalist economies, which allow for private ownership of businesses, goods, and property. Many political theorists considered these two systems incompatible and believed that the survival of one required the destruction of the other.

  The Cold War was a fierce conflict between capitalist and communist forces, represented by the superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively. Each superpower labored, directly and indirectly, to expand its influence. They also invested in new technologies, some of which were ultimately good for the world. But among them were increasingly sophisticated arms, including nuclear weapons systems powerful enough to threaten human existence. The fast-paced competition to develop ever more destructive weapons systems is known as the arms race; at its peak, the U.S. and the Soviet Union had stockpiled as many as seventy thousand nuclear warheads. The danger nuclear weapons represents to humanity prompted public outcries around the world. Nearly two hundred thousand people participated in an antinuclear protest in Spain in 1977; 100,000 people marched in Hamburg, Germany, four years later; and in the summer of 1982, one million people demonstrated in Central Park in New York City.

  Growing public unease in the West, pressure from antinuclear groups, and concerns expressed by national security experts helped galvanize support for nuclear disarmament. The Soviet Union, in the middle of a massive economic downturn, couldn’t afford to continue in an arms race that threatened to bankrupt the country. The result was increased support on both sides for arms control. Agreements reached between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s were substantially expanded in the 1980s.

  HOW DID THE COLD WAR END?

  When Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, the country’s economy was stagnant. He introduced radical reforms to open political discussion and reignite the economy and reached out to U.S. President Ronald Reagan to reduce East-West tensions. But the Soviet economy did not recover, and the new political openness only magnified Soviet citizens’ growing dissatisfaction with communist rule. The country’s influence across Eastern Europe declined. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the fifteen nations that comprised it ultimately became independent countries. The end of the Soviet Union brought an end to the Cold War.

  HOW HAS THE COLD WAR IMPACTED THE WORLD TODAY?

  After the Cold War ended, Russia and the United States agreed that the fourteen other countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union would hand over their nuclear arsenals to Russia. Arms control agreements reached between the United States and the Soviet Union have largely been upheld, and the number of nuclear warheads has been reduced to about 15,000 today.

  Still, in the wake of the Cold War, several countries have acquired nuclear weapons, and some are investing in ever more powerful systems. Key arms control treaties are at risk of being terminated. An important lesson from the Cold War is that the voices of everyday people matter—and that politicians are listening. The safety of the world, for this generation and those to come, depends on all of us—politicians and citizens alike—engaging, listening, and working together.

  No one these days, or, I imagine, any days ever, writes a book alone. I had tons of help. Here are the folks who fill my List of Serious Gratitude:

  Paul Rhim. Yup, that Paul, the one who shows up in the first chapter, my awesome friend of three-plus decades. For the past five years, I read to him every work day, and he gave me invaluable feedback, inspiration, and first-class pep talks. Thank you, my dear friend and wonderful human being!

  Daniel Lazar, my extraordinary agent at Writers House, has expertly worn every imaginable hat in this project, from advocate to cheerleader to whip cracker to deeply insightful editor. Helping him—and me—was his superb assistant, Victoria Doherty-Munro. It’s been a pleasure working with you, Dan.

  Kate Sullivan, my editor at Delacorte Press, artfully steered me through four rewrites of the manuscript, holding my hand throughout a
s she helped me refine the story. She works with a thoughtful, dedicated team at Random House Children’s Books: Beverly Horowitz, Alexandra Hightower, Colleen Fellingham, John Simko, Ray Shappell, and many others played a part in the production of this book. My thanks to all of you.

  A number of folks—aspiring writers, published authors, teachers, and avid readers—provided crucial editorial input throughout the project. Early feedback came from Lenore Appelhans, Elaine Attias, Katie Cunningham, Elisabeth Diaz, Cara DiMassa (the same Cara who pops up in the book), Lisa Gossels, Sharon Grobeisen, Jennifer Hoffman, Laura Sidoti, and Tori Ulrich.

  Members of my writers’ circle offered many useful critiques: Frantzie Bazile, Nick Broad, Cara O’Flynn, Jenine Holmes, Lisa Kirchner, Sheila McClear, Dorri Olds, Eddie Sarfaty, Court Stroud, Lavanya Sunkara, Wendy Toth, and Dean Wrzeszcz. One of them, Piper Hoffman, added inspiration, encouragement, and a key lesson in self-discipline.

  Three pros in the writing world, author extraordinaire and editor David Ebershoff, literary agent Bonnie Nadell, and writer and teacher Sue Shapiro, gave me critical direction.

  Brian Gresko and Xeni Fragakis helped me package my manuscript, drawing together its many elements and persuading me to let go of a few that didn’t quite belong.

  My memories of the events covered in this book, and of the period, one during which my brain was under fairly regular assault, weren’t completely intact. I was fortunate enough to have my old journals to refer to, but I also had help. My mom, Phyllis Henigson, and her assistant, Debbie Post, pored over calendars, notebooks, and records from the period. My cousin, Loretta Clark, told me stories of when I was in the hospital. Hugette Anstead, Monique’s mom, recounted my visits with her daughter, and what she heard of our phone calls. Poly classmates Paul Rhim, Cara DiMassa, and Bianca Medici, along with Grace Hamilton, my favorite teacher and very dear friend, shared their memories of those days at school. Joni Ashworth recounted my volunteering in her classroom at Monterey Hills School. Billie Hopkins and Chace Warmington walked me through the trip we took together to the Soviet Union. Irina Titova, Svetlana Krylova, Dina Rayzman, and Eugenia Zhurbinskaya helped with translation and made sure I portrayed their country of origin accurately.