Phases of Gravity (34 page)

Tucker laughed, removed a stogie from his shirt pocket, and clamped it between his teeth. "Camel pissing out," he said and laughed again. "I like that."

Baedecker waited until Tucker exited and then he crouched, grabbed a metal bar above the hatch, and swung himself out into the delivery-room brightness of the white room.

Early on the morning of the launch, Baedecker sat alone in the coffee shop of his Cocoa Beach motel, watching the surf break and rereading the letter he had received from Maggie Brown three days earlier.

November 17, 1988

Richard,

I loved your last letter. You write so rarely but every letter means so much. I know you well enough not to know how much you think about and how much you care about . . . and how little you say. Will you ever allow anyone to share the full depths of your insights and feelings? I hope so.

You make Arkansas sound beautiful. The descriptions of early mornings on the lake with the mists rising and crows calling in the bare branches along the shore made me want to be there.

Boston is all slush and traffic and tired brick right now. I love teaching and Dr. Thurston thinks that I'll be ready to begin work on my thesis next April. We'll see.

Your book is fantastic—at least the bits and pieces you've let me read. I think your friend Dave would be very proud. The character studies make the pilots come alive in a way I've never seen equaled in print, and the historical perspectives allow a lay person (me, for instance) to understand our current era in a new light—as a culture choosing between a frightening future of exploration and discovery, or a retreat into the safe and familiar harbors of internecine wars, stagnation, and decline.

As a sociologist I have more than a few questions (not answered by your book . . . or the fragments I've seen) concerning you astronaut-critters. Such as—why do so many of you hail from the Midwest? And why are almost all of you only children or the oldest siblings? (Is this true of the new mission specialists—especially the women—or just the ex-test pilots among you?) And what are the long-term psychological effects of belonging to a profession (test pilot)

where the on-the-job mortality rate is one in six? (Could this lead to a certain reticence in showing feelings?)

Your references to Scott in the last letter sound more optimistic than anything I've heard previously. I'm so pleased he's feeling better. Please give my warm greetings to him. From the tone of your letter, Richard, it sounds like you're rediscovering how complex and thoughtful your son can be. I could have told you that! Scott was indulging his stubbornness when he wasted a year in that stupid ashram, but as I've suggested before, part of that stubbornness comes from his reluctance to let any experience pass unexamined or to remain less than totally understood.

Where could he have gotten that trait do you think?

Speaking of stubbornness, I will not comment upon the mathematical section of your letter. It's not worthy of a reply. (Other than to point out that when you're 180, I'll just be a spry 154. It may be a problem then.) (But I doubt it.)

You asked me in your letter about my own philosophical/religious views on some things. Are we still talking about the places-of-power idea we confronted in India eighteen months ago?

You know about my love of magic, Richard, and about my own obsession with what I think of as the secrets and the silences of the soul. For me, our quest for places of power is both real and important. But you know that.

All right, my belief system. I composed a twelve-page epistle on this since your letter posed the question, but then I tossed it away because I guess my whole system of beliefs can be boiled down to this:

I believe in the richness and mystery

of the universe; and I don't believe

in the supernatural.

That's it. Oh, and I also believe that you and I have some decisions to make, Richard. I won't insult both of us with clichés or the travails of keeping Bruce at bay seven months after the deadline I promised him, but the fact is that you and I have to decide if we have a future together.

Until recently, I felt that we did. The few hours and days we have spent together over the past year and a half convinced me that the universe was richer—and, strangely, more mysterious—when we encountered it together.

But, one way or the other, life is beckoning to each of us right now. Whatever we decide, you need to know that our time together has widened and deepened everything for me, backward and forward in time.

I think I'll go for a walk now to watch the sculls on the Charles.

Maggie

Scott joined him at the table. "You're up early today, Dad. What time are we going over for the launch?"

"About eight-thirty," said Baedecker and folded away Maggie's letter.

The waitress came over and Scott ordered coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs, wheat toast, and a side order of grits. When she left, he glanced at Baedecker's solitary cup of coffee and said, "Is that all you're having for breakfast?"

"I'm not very hungry this morning," said Baedecker.

"You didn't eat anything yesterday either, come to think of it," said Scott. "I remember you didn't have dinner on Wednesday either. And you didn't touch the pie last night. What's wrong, Dad? Are you feeling all right?"

"I feel fine," said Baedecker. "Honestly. Just not much appetite recently. I'll have a big lunch."

Scott frowned. "Just be careful, Dad. When I used to go on long fasts in India I'd get to the point after a few days where I didn't want to eat anything."

"I feel fine," Baedecker said again. "I feel better than I have for years."

"You look better," Scott said emphatically. "You must have lost twenty pounds since we started running at the end of January. Tucker Wilson asked me last night what kind of vitamins you've been taking. Jesus, you look great, Dad."

"Thanks," said Baedecker. He took a sip of coffee. "I was rereading Maggie Brown's letter and remembered that she said to say hello to you."

Scott nodded and looked out at the ocean. The sky was a flawless blue to the east, but there was already a haze in front of the rising sun. "We haven't talked about Maggie," said Scott.

"No, we haven't."

"Let's talk," said Scott.

"All right."

At that second Scott's breakfast arrived and the waitress filled their coffee cups. Scott took a bite of toast. "First of all," he said, "I think you've got the wrong idea about Maggie and me. We were friends for a few months before I went over to India, but we weren't all that close. I was surprised when she showed up to visit that summer. What I'm trying to say is, even though the idea occurred to me a few times, Maggie and I never got it on."

"Look, Scott . . ." began Baedecker.

"No, now listen a minute," said Scott, but as soon as he said it, he took time to eat some scrambled eggs with that total focus of attention that Baedecker remembered from as far back as his son's first feedings in his high chair. "I've got to explain this," Scott said at last. "I know it'll sound weird, Dad, but from the first time I met Maggie on campus she reminded me of you."

"Of me?" said Baedecker, at a loss. "How?"

"Maybe reminded isn't the right word," said Scott. "But something about her made me think of you all the time. Maybe it was the way she used to listen so hard to people. Or the habit she had of picking up on little things people do or say and remembering them later. Maybe it was the way she never seemed satisfied with explanations that satisfied the rest of us. So anyway, when I had the chance in India, I tried to arrange it so you and she could have a few days to get to know each other."

Baedecker stared at his son. "Are you saying that's why you had her meet my plane in New Delhi? That's why you kept me waiting a week before I could see you in Poona?"

Scott finished his egg, dabbed at his mouth with a linen napkin, and shrugged ever so slightly.

"Well I'll be damned," said Baedecker and scowled at his son.

Scott grinned and continued grinning until Baedecker found himself grinning back.

The launch was scrubbed with three minutes remaining before ignition.

Baedecker and Scott sat in the VIP stands near the Vehicle Assembly Building and watched across the turning basin canal as high cirrus from the west quickly were replaced by cumulonimbus. The launch was scheduled for 9:54 A.M. By 9:30 the clouds were overhead and the wind gusts had risen to twenty-five knots, close to the maximum allowed. At 9:49 there were lightning strikes visible to the north and rain began to fall intermittently. Baedecker remembered sitting in these same stands when lightning had struck Apollo 12 as it lifted off, knocking out every instrument in the Command Module and causing Pete Conrad to say some candid things into a live mike. At 9:51 A.M. the voice of NASA's Public Affairs Officer came over the loudspeakers to announce that the mission had been postponed. Because of a very tight launch

window—less than an hour—they would recycle the countdown for a launch the next day between two and three P.M. At 10:03 the speakers announced that the astronauts had been removed from the shuttle, but the voice was talking to an empty grandstand as the would-be spectators ran through the growing rain squall to reach automobiles or shelter.

Baedecker let Scott drive the rented Beretta as the flood of vehicles inched its way west across the causeway. "Scott," he said, "what are your plans if the launch goes off tomorrow?"

"Just what I'd planned before," said Scott. "Go up to Daytona for a few days to visit Terry and Samantha. Then fly to Boston next week to see Mom when they get back from Europe. Why?"

"Just wondering," said Baedecker. He listened to the windshield wipers tick away in their useless effort against the downpour. Brake lights flashed in the long line ahead of them. "Actually," said Baedecker, "I was considering flying to Boston today. If I wait until after the launch tomorrow afternoon, there won't be enough time before my appointment in Austin on Monday."

"Boston?" said Scott. Then, "Oh, yeah . . . that might not be a bad idea."

"Would you go up to Daytona tonight, then?"

Scott thought for a second, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "No, I don't think so," he said. "I already told Terry I'd be there tomorrow night or Sunday. I think I'll stay here and watch the launch."

"You don't mind?" asked Baedecker, looking at his son. The months they had spent together the previous spring and summer had helped him become much better at gauging Scott's true reaction to things.

"Naw, I don't mind a bit," said Scott and his grin was sincere. "Let's go by the motel and get your stuff."

The rain had let up considerably by the time they turned south on Highway 1.

"I hope Thanksgiving wasn't too much of a letdown," said Baedecker. They had eaten alone at the hotel before going to the crew's dessert gathering.

"Are you kidding?" said Scott. "It was great."

"Scott," said Baedecker, "do you mind if I ask what your plans are? Long-term plans, I mean."

His son ran his fingers through his short, wet hair. "See Mom for a while, I guess. Get through this semester."

"You're definitely going to finish?"

"With five weeks left before graduation? Damned right I am."

"What about after?" said Baedecker.

"After graduation? Well, I've been thinking about it, Dad. I got a letter from Norm last week and he said I can get back on his construction crew and work right on up until mid-August. It would help pay for the doctoral program in Chicago."

"Are you planning on that?"

"If the philosophy program is as good as Kent says it is, I'm very tempted," said Scott. "And even though the scholarship offer is partial, it's the best deal I've seen. But I've also been thinking about going into the service for a couple of years."

Baedecker stared at his son. He could not have been more surprised if Scott had calmly announced that he was flying to Sweden for a sex-change operation.

"It's just a thought," said Scott, but there was something in his voice that suggested otherwise.

"Don't commit yourself to anything like that unless I get a few hours . . . or weeks . . . to try and talk you out of it, okay?" said Baedecker.

"I promise," said Scott. "Hey, we're still going to spend Christmas vacation at the cabin, aren't we?"

"I'm planning on it," said Baedecker.

They drove east over the 520 Causeway and turned south again past endless rows of Cocoa Beach motels. Baedecker wondered how many times he had driven this way from Patrick Air Force Base in a mad rush to get back to the Cape. He said, "What branch?"

"Hmmm?" asked Scott, searching for their motel entrance through a renewed downpour.

"Which branch of the service?"

Scott pulled into the drive and parked in front of their unit. The rain pounded on the roof. "Gee, Dad," he said. "You need to ask that of me? What with me growing up in a family proud of three generations of Baedeckers in the U.S. Marine Corps?" He opened the door and jumped out, hunkering down in the rain just long enough to say, "I was thinking Coast Guard," and then ran toward the protective overhang of the motel balcony.

It was snowing in Boston and already growing dark by the time Baedecker took a cab from Logan International to the address near Boston University. Still sunburned from the three days in Florida, he looked out through the gloom at the brown, icy water of the Charles River and shivered. Lights were coming on along the dark banks. The snow turned to dirty slush to be thrown up by the cab's tires.

Baedecker had always pictured Maggie living near the campus, but her apartment was some distance to the east, not too far from Fenway Park. The quiet side street was lined with stoops and bare trees, a neighborhood that looked to have been on the edge of decay in the sixties, saved by young professionals in the seventies, and now would be on the verge of invasion by the middle-aged affluent with an urge to homestead.

Baedecker paid the driver and ran from the cab to the door of the old brownstone. He had tried calling from Florida and again from Logan, but to no avail. He had pictured Maggie out shopping for groceries, returning home just as he arrived, but now he glanced up at the dark windows and wondered why he thought he would find her home on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving.