“This thing is serious!”
A few hours ago, we were standing in the center of the roof. I had just finished setting the telescope on the tripod mount and Cole already had his eye glued to it, adjusting the aperture, focusing the eyepiece.
“I’m looking at the moon and I can see all the rays around the Copernicus crater! It’s like we could drive a truck right along the impact marks.”
He was so excited. I folded my arms, smiled, and watched.
“It’s crazy! If we were out in the country, where it’s really dark, I’ll bet we could see the Swan Nebula and maybe even the Virgo galaxy cluster with this scope!”
I touched the golden sun pendant that rested on my collarbone, and I wished my father could see how happy Cole and I were together. I think if he saw us, he really would understand.
“Can you see Neil Armstrong’s footprints up there?” I teased.
“Uh-huh. Sure can. Looks like he wore a size nine and a half space boot! ‘One small step for man,’” Cole put on a deep, serious news anchor voice, “‘one giant step for capitalist imperialism and multinational telecommunications industries!’” He chuckled softly and managed to pull his eye away from the scope long enough to shoot me a sly grin.
I put my arms around him and leaned my head on his back as he went on looking at the moon, moving the telescope a few degrees to the right and refocusing. I took a deep breath and inhaled his intoxicating smell: earthy, like the air along Button Box Lake, mixed with the tiniest bit of something sweet, burnt sugar or caramel.
With my ear to his back, I could hear Cole’s heart beating strong and steady. I sighed, gave his ribs a squeeze. “Cole Whitford,” I said, “you are the best thing ever.” He leaned back into my arms, still looking through the viewfinder. For a moment, I had a flash of memory that made my body go rigid. The country night sky, binoculars, the cool air beneath my nightgown. I unfocused my eyes and took in another deep breath of Cole’s scent. I lifted his shirt, tasted the sweat on his back, and remembered exactly where I was. On the roof, in the city, with Cole. Exactly where I wanted to be. Doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Cole turned around in my arms as I peeled his shirt over his head. I pressed myself up against him and felt his sure hands against my skin. We kissed and everything else disappeared. The gray-orange city sky above us, the black tar roof beneath our feet—gone. I felt weightless as Cole’s lips pressed against my neck, and the only sounds that remained were made by my blood pulsing through my veins, filling my ears with a rhythmic hum as every nerve ending in my body became electric with the charge that came to me from Cole.
Later, as we lay on our blanket in the shadow of the roof door, I must have dozed. I don’t know how or for how long, or what I was dreaming, but when I awoke I was sitting bolt upright, Cole at my side whispering, “Atty! It’s okay. We’re here, on the roof. Just you and me.” I looked at him and didn’t know who he was. His voice was comforting; I thought about his words.
“Right,” I said. “Of course. Minneapolis. The roof.” I squeezed his hand and went quickly down to my apartment, remembering that my father would soon be home.
Dream:
I am in a forest and it is night. The moon is out, but it is very dark anyway, and I am scared. Not of anything in particular, but of everything. I look down on the ground and see myself lying there, dead. The me that’s watching has a knife in her hand, and it’s my job to skin the me on the ground as if I were a rabbit at a butcher shop. Someone is watching closely, but I don’t know who it is. I start to cut my limbs off with the knife, beginning with the arms, and then I realize—I’m not actually dead. The me on the ground watches as I peel back her skin, exposing all her insides to the night air.
Memory:
I was four years old, but it’s as clear as yesterday. My father hadn’t been a police officer for long and still had lots of friends who weren’t American cops or reporters or respectable businessmen. His friends then were people like him who’d come from far-off places where the weather was warm year-round and the ocean was something everyone had seen. Cabdrivers, office cleaners, students, salesmen. They would come to our apartment and play cards or dominoes, slapping the pieces down loudly and shouting playfully to make a point. Everyone spoke Creole unless they were directly addressing Mama, who spent most of those evenings smiling quietly and drinking cans of soda. Papa spoke to me in Creole all the time, so I understood enough to be curious. One freezing February night the house was full. I settled in to my usual spot under the glass coffee table in the living room. On the TV were pictures of men and soldiers on the streets of a country I’d never been to. The streets were made of dirt, and the houses were all low and square, painted soft pastel colors with very small windows. English mixed with French and Creole, words and names floated around the room—Aristide, coup d’état, George Bush, Baby Doc, Tonton Macoute, the Leopards. I especially remember Jean-Paul that night. He had studied pre-law with Papa back home but was now doing it all again at Metro State. He and Papa had their heads close together, talking in whispers about the country where they grew up. I fell asleep and awoke to a silent house; my father was carrying me into my room. “Sweet dreams, ti chouchou, I’ll see you in the morning.”
Fact:
The oldest radio broadcasts from the 1930s have already traveled past one hundred thousand stars.