Chapter 17
On the morning that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, we all gathered around our television set to watch the event. Extraordinary things were happening all around me that summer and now we had a man on the moon too. It was a time of miracles; things were stirring in the heavens and I was convinced it was all related.
Danny sat on Joe’s lap, her little plaster legs sticking straight out in front. He sat there patting her hair and kissing the top of her head every once and a while. Beth sat with Harold on the floor while I sat in between Ma and Mrs. K. on the couch. For the most part we sat quietly, with only the occasional hushed whisper because we were all mesmerized by the scene unfolding before our eyes. When Mr. Armstrong finally touched the surface of the moon and said his now famous words about “one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind” we all clapped like we were watching a movie and not something real. I think I even saw Joe quickly brush a tear from his eye. Ma told me once that Joe’s boyhood dream was to be a pilot. He had a fascination for flight, loved planes, birds and was forever looking skyward, so this was an amazing thing to him, to actually see someone accomplish something he could only dream about.
“Those Americans,” he said as he got up to go outside, carefully placing Dan on the chair like a china doll, “they sure know how to fly.”
“Yeees!” Mrs. K. called to him, with her Finnish accent dragging out the yes lazily, but by then Joe was gone, the screen door flapped itself shut.
Beth took pictures of us all watching the television; one of us as a group and the rest were all individual portraits. She had been recording the events of our lives since the day she bought the camera. It was always hung around her neck like a giant necklace. It was there at the love-in, at the movies, at the A and Dub, Double Gee, in her backyard or mine, when Joe chopped down the tree. She was like a spy photographer, shooting from the hip. Half the time she didn’t even look through the lens, inconspicuously stealing images and pieces of our little lives without anyone even noticing. That night I went to Hobo Creek. It was the first time I had gone there since Joe chopped down the tree. Like all the other nights that I stole away I was hot, restless and couldn’t sleep. Ma and Joe were already in bed. I could hear Joe snoring as I opened the front door to escape. Once on my bike I peddled as fast as I could through the dark quiet streets. It was a routine I had done so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. Other than the first time I went there, my fears of the dark, and what could happen to me, were long gone. I was more frightened by the scary things that happened at home sometimes. At that hour of the night, I was the only inhabitant of the creek. The air was so thick, and at times it was so unbearable I prayed for rain, for some brief but powerful relief from the relentless heat and humidity. I went to my usual spot by the edge of the creek and laid on my back looking up at the moon. I thought about Neil Armstrong walking around up there and wondered what that might be like. I thought about Joe and his lifelong desire to fly. As far as I knew he hadn’t even been on a plane, much less fly one. I thought about how tenderly he stroked Dan’s hair and his sweet soothing kisses on the top of her head, the tear he shed when Mr. Armstrong touched the surface of the moon. I wondered about his dreams and how he ended up working in a bakery. Surely people in their right minds don’t deliberately set out to do something like that. He must have wanted something more. I never could figure out why he didn’t become a pilot when he had the chance—why he joined the army and not the airforce. I guess there’s wishing and dreaming. Maybe the only thing separating the two was courage. I never saw much of that around our house.
I thought about Ma too. What did she dream about? Did she ever lie on her back on a starry night and dream about doing something really wonderful with her life or did she just meet Joe and fall so deeply in love that she was willing to abandon everything to be with him? Ma and Joe never seemed really happy. There was always this sadness beneath the surface, an emptiness that could never be filled by me and Dan and our life together. Something was missing; the evidence was there all the time. I thought about little Dan and where she’d end up one day. She was a lot like Ma. I could see her giving up her life for love. Either that or I could see her becoming a veterinarian or an animal trainer and devoting her life to fur balls and fleas. I thought about Robert and wondered if I would ever see him again, if I would ever ride on the back of his motorbike, my body warm next to his. Mostly I thought about Beth and what was happening to her. Every day was a new adventure with Harold, Dan and I along for the ride, except lately there was a sense of desperation like she was running out of gas. I wondered about her parents and how little we knew about them. Since they moved across the street they were two shadowy figures in her life. We hardly ever saw them, nor did Beth talk about them much. It was like she was completely uninterested in them and they in her. As desperate as I felt about my own life, in the end I wouldn’t trade it for Beth’s because beneath all her laughter and adventures she was lonely, one of the loneliest people I had ever known.
I must have slept for a few hours by the edge of the creek. I woke up when the sun was just edging its way up the horizon. My back was sore, my clothes damp and cold. Joe would be heading off to work soon. He’d be furious if he knew I had left the house again, tree or no tree. Instead of heading home I went to Harold’s. I propped my bike against the wall underneath his window, stood on the seat and tapped on the glass. He cracked open the curtain just enough to expose his nose and one eye. My face was practically in front of him so I must have scared the snot right out of him because he let out a screech.
“Shut up Korkala,” I whispered. “It’s only me!”
“Jeeezus Jo! You scared the crap out of me. What time is it? What are you doing here?” he asked, rubbing his eyes with the back of his fists like a child.
“For God’s sake just let me in,” I said.
“Here? Now? Through the window?” he asked, his face twisted with confusion.
“Yes. You idiot!” Harold opened the window as wide as it would go and dragged me in. We landed on his bed, which was strategically placed under the window to catch any incoming air. After spending the night on the damp, hard shores of Hobo Creek it was warm and inviting. Harold was practically naked except for white jockey underwear, bikini style, and because I had interrupted what was obviously a very interesting dream, he was aroused in more ways than one. And like me, he was also very tanned, his skin had completely cleared up and without his glasses he actually looked good. The truth is he looked great but it was early in the morning and it was Harold, so good was all I was willing to admit even in my own mind. This was only about the third time I had ever been in his room, which in a way seemed odd considering we grew up together but the truth was he had only been in mine as many times. Our bedrooms were off limits to anyone of the opposite sex even if it was someone who was practically your brother. But Harold’s room never interested me anyway. In fact, the thought of going in there was creepy. The room had changed considerably from the last time I was in it, with posters of our favorite rock bands lining the walls. In one corner, next to his small wooden dresser there was a bookshelf with a turntable and a stack of L.P.s filling one entire shelf. The remaining shelves were lined with books, pocket books mostly, the Tolkein Lord of the Rings Trilogy and a host of other science fiction writers I never heard of. Harold liked to read, especially fantasy and science fiction. I never understood his fascination with Hobbits and other strange creatures but there was so much about Harold that I didn’t understand. On his dresser he had a collection of photographs all framed in identical gold frames. They were ancient black and white photos of us growing up, at birthday parties and family gatherings, sitting under our Christmas tree, me scowling at the camera holding a baseball glove and Harold with a lopsided grin clutching his chemistry set, pictures of us at the beach when we were five or six, too young to remember the event, the photograph the only evidence that we were actually there. There were photos of us dressed up for Halloween, me as a witch with black lips and eyes and warty nose and Harold as a pirate, a patch over one eye and a small baby Danny poking here head between our legs, her face made up like a little cat with black whiskers and black button nose. There were other pictures too of us sitting on our front steps sucking on Popsicles with Danny between us rubbing her eyes, and another one with both our families gathered around the dinner table, mouths full of food, unaware that we were in the middle of a Kodak moment. Ma was absent from the photo so she must have been the photographer. In fact, judging by the photographs, my guess was that Ma took them all. Ma liked to record the events of our lives but I had forgotten about these. I guess we had similar photos in albums at home but seeing them all together like that in tidy little gold frames broke my heart, touched me so deeply in a place I didn’t know existed. I started to cry uncontrollably, my body convulsing and heaving so badly that Harold’s bed was vibrating like one of those cheesy beds in hotels where you put a quarter in. Harold took me in his arms and held me, stroking my hair, silently, quietly, stroking my hair and kissing the top of my head just like Joe did to Danny when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. I fell asleep cradled in the peaceful, safe and reassuring arms of the boy I had spent my whole life with, the one I teased, fought with, screamed at, ran from, cringed at the sight of, the boy I had loved all my life, the evidence of which sat on a beat up old dresser in a poster-lined room just a breath away from my own.