Cross Country Murder Song (3 page)

He'd left quietly at two in the morning, a lone silver figure on the slick tarmac under the floodlights, the gleam of his domed helmet ricocheting crosses of light. He turned to wave as he entered the tip of the rocket, but there was no one to wave to – the remote figures in the control tower were hazy and a long way off – so he made do with shaking the hands of the lieutenant and his assistant who were helping him board. There was a reassuring grip on his shoulder as he was pulled tight and then the satisfying click as he was locked into place, the door closing with a gasp, cocooning him into the vacuum. He lay there, knees raised, appraising the darkness before him. There were no stars to see, but somewhere up there was a point he and his ship were already allied to. The voices murmured in his ear, he heard someone say good luck, someone else said break a leg and there was a round of good-natured laughter. Then the world was shaking and smoke obscured his view, but his eyes were already closed as he was raised heavenward, a slight cylinder easing upwards leaving a trail of flames, like torches spiked across the night showing the way, before the rocket was gathered up, leaving only wonder for those who might have seen it pass.

He was to stay there for three days, looking out on the encroaching darkness, while they recorded his heart rate, checked his blood pressure, made calculations and wrote them down, dissected him, recorded earthly things as he paraded high above them, above the shimmering glow of the world. He'd fall into a stupor momentarily, be with his family, standing with his father looking out across his land, spot crows circling overhead, wary of the static figure in the field below. Nights they'd sit out on the step of their farm and watch storms crash into the land around them. Bolts of lightning careening into the crops, corn bending with the weight of the rain. He'd bow his head involuntarily as the sky shook, he thought he'd never get used to the sound of thunder. He'd jump and his dad would chuckle and lay his hand on his head and pull him close. The earth, he'd say, never smells as good as once a storm's passed. His father would stand there the next morning, a silhouette against the sun, head tilted back, feeling the warmth of the day on his face. He'd take a breath and hold it, letting it go with a sigh.

The Indian Ocean was below him; he recognised it from his sheaf of maps and charts, its shape at least. It glimmered invitingly and he wanted to be up to his shoulders in its warm waters, gazing up into the pale blue that folded up into the darkness that held him. When he'd first flown jets at the edge of space, at the edge of the sky, he'd seen the orange light flatten out into shades of blue, azure and purple and into black. He had forced himself to hold his line, wanting to wrest himself away from the precipice, maintaining his position between heaven and earth until the voice in his earpiece called him down, letting him drop his wings and fall back to the familiar criss-cross of runways that signalled the approach of his base. When they told him they were sending him into space, he had felt elation and fear. He'd seen the stratosphere, said the Colonel across the desk, now it was time for him to reach out and touch it. Exosphere, he'd told him, not stratosphere, he'd be touching the exosphere. The Colonel had creased his brow and pushed the envelope filled with his orders at him and he'd left the office without another word. At home he'd sat at his kitchen table, the papers fanned out before him, Confidential stamped across every page. He stroked a bottle of beer distractedly, making notes and doodles in the margins. It broke down into three simple parts; take off at night, orbit the planet for seventy-two hours – his vital signs tattooed back to earth by electrical impulse – then land in the ocean off the Florida coast just before dawn where they'd fish him out of the sea and, debrief him for days. He was promised leave afterwards, but in the confines of the camp, in case they needed to keep an eye on him. You never knew what could happen, they said, to the first American in space.

His father spoke to him first. He was upside down when the voice filled the capsule. He looked up and realised he was looking down towards the earth, inverted in his seat. It was morning and the sky outside was glowing which meant that snow had fallen overnight. His bedroom was white as if the flakes had seeped in at the ceiling's joists and settled in deep drifts. His father was outside calling his name, Joe, Joey, get out here. He looked out of the window, his father's footsteps leaving tracks that led away from the house into the cornfield to the west. The sun on the snow dazzled him; he thought he could see his father waving, his black jacket, the red hat he pulled onto his head almost every time he stepped out of the door, a gloved hand making a wide arc in the air, then the corn rustled as he disappeared among its long stems. He was outside now, each crunching step leading him to the perimeter of the field. Far above and below the African continent drifted by, the distant sun striking his capsule as its beams reached down to bake the ground. The light hurt his eyes even behind the reflective pane of glass that dominated his helmet. He stepped into the corn and was lost, each time he pulled a stalk aside snow fell into his hair, onto his hands. He'd forgotten his gloves, his hat, his bunched fingers were already pink and numb. He pushed his way in, light breaking through momentarily as the dense swathes of the tall, pale grey crop moved aside, closing behind him with a crack, shuddering and upright, resuming their unwavering stance. What ocean was that? He was losing his bearings. His father was standing before him as his capsule turned into the brightness of the sun, the yellow light burning into white. His father was saying something to him, pulling him close, the corn behind him, he reached out to touch his father's face, a child's hand on his ruddy cheek, the wind picking up, everything drawn in detail. His father's hand covering his own, you're cold, he said, and pulled him close. The sun became engorged and huge, bearing down on both of them, everything consumed, glowing like hot coals, the quickly melting snow and then a rumble and clap and the searing flash of burning white and then they were gone leaving just the corn and the crows above picked out like small black crosses scratched on the great steel plate of the sky.

They pulled him out of the sea around four thirty in the morning, minutes behind schedule. He told them drowsily he admired their timekeeping as they carried him from his craft to theirs. He saw his capsule rising from the choppy waters; it looked minute even when wrapped in chains; they were already covering it with heavy tarpaulin, secreting it away. It would undergo as many tests as him over the next few days. He felt the sway of the boat, the low thrum of the engine making headway towards the coast. Then he was in the air, the swish of the helicopter's blades making hazy revolutions above him. How's he doing? asked the pilot, looking back at him over his shoulder, his black visor covering his eyes. He's doing great, someone said, and he wondered if it were true.

Three days later and the base psychologist was looking over his testimony, eyes momentarily distracted from the page, assessing him over the top of the file he was holding. His eyes darting across the page, then a flicker of curiosity and he'd appraise him again, as if staring across at him might suddenly reveal an insight missing from the information he had been given. Your vital signs were all good, he said, laying the file on the table, his hand tapping distractedly on its cover. The things you said you saw, no irregularities even then, nothing untoward, nothing out of the obvious. The windows were frosted, the sound of the base outside; the drone of trucks and jeeps, the call and return of conversation, someone said sir abruptly, aircraft buzzed by. The office was still, however; the psychologist wore a white coat as if they were in lab conditions.

What do you think you saw out there? he said. I don't know what I saw, he replied. It might have been a dream, I suppose. I had no concept of day or night, up or down. He didn't think it was a dream though, but now he wished he'd never mentioned his father, his figure filling with light, how the interior of the capsule became so bright that he felt the light passing through his eyelids and filling his skull. He'd filed his report, told them of the hours spinning in space, the feeling of weightlessness, the earth from above, the ache of solitude, how the heavens made him feel cold even though his body temperature remained consistent throughout. He didn't tell them that he'd been scared, terrified of the windows of his ship splintering in their frames, the pressure worrying his skeleton down to nothing, his eyes being forced deep into his head. Machismo had made him wary of telling them about that, but touching his father's face, being suspended in space, feeling elation then the terrible loss, he thought that might be important, that every journey might cost more than toil, than money, that you might have to pay with something intangible, that you might have to give of yourself.

The universe, he said to the psychologist seated opposite him, it might take as well as give. He told him about the emptiness, about the new hollow at the core of his being and the wonder he found out there among the stars. And while they talked, the doctor nodded and made agreeable noises in the back of his throat and his hand dashed across his notebook taking everything down.

He was formally discharged three months later. They draped him with honours, guaranteed him a pension for life and made him write his name on dozens and dozens of sheets of paper. His endless looping signature guaranteeing his silence and his loyalty. The colonel told him he was sorry to see him go, but he couldn't hide the surprise in his eyes when he saw how much weight he'd lost. Later, he'd ask if the pilot's shrinking frame had anything to do with the space flight and he was told that they didn't know for certain, that it would take time, that it might be the grief that was causing him to fade. Grief? said the colonel. The mission was a success, what did he have to grieve over? They didn't know, they said, they just didn't know.

At home he sat at the kitchen table, staring with new wonder at the night sky. He could still hardly believe that he'd been pinned up there among the stars, gazing down onto this planet. He wished that his father would come at night while he slept, that the blaze would reignite in his head and carry him home. The sky flickered at the corner of his eye like a light switch going on and off. The fragmented bolts of lightning coming down in shards towards the earth. He hurried outside instinctively, like a dog sensing a stranger in the yard. A heavy rain was beginning to fall; he felt it on his face, the weight of it in his hair. Another flash and the serrated edge of a distant tree-lined hill was backlit and then quickly shrouded in the darkness. The sky roiled and thundered, the rain became more insistent. He ran to his kitchen, grabbed a bucket and started emptying cutlery and pans into it. Next he went out to his work shed, grabbing sheets of tin, a ball of string. He rattled around picking up squares of sheet metal, oblongs of iron, he pulled the metal panelling off his back door, throwing it all into the back of his truck. He pulled out on to the road, each rut and bump made his pickup jangle.

He stood exposed, forcing pieces of tin into the waist of his trousers, securing it into place with his belt, tightening it around his chest. He placed the colander on his head, cast knives and forks and spoons around his feet, strapped pieces of corrugated iron to his arms. He felt tethered to the earth, moored in place. The energy came up in waves from the ground, the dense corn fanned out, almost flattened by the wind. He counted to three and the flash of light rose up before him, a giant curtain obliterating the night. He heard his father, saw him follow on in the jagged lustre. The sky reared up and the rain drove him back one faltering step, but he thrust his chin forward, an antenna tuning the universe in.