The Dream Life of Astronauts Read Online Free PDF Page A

president’s speech dragged on, and the camera kept moving in closer and closer, until the knot of his necktie was cut off by the bottom of the screen. He’d never been a quitter, he said, and then, a few minutes later, he told us he was quitting. But he continued to talk, and talk. Finally, he said he would leave each and every American with a prayer, and I felt like groaning, but the prayer was mercifully short. “May God’s grace be with you,” he said, “in all the days ahead.” The screen went black. Please, I thought, let it be over. Not just the speech, but the entire whatever it had been that had eaten up so many shows.
    Robbie draped his head back and let out a low whistle.
    My mother laid her hand on top of mine and squeezed it—as if the two of us had suffered more than anyone else.
    I was waiting for the show to come back on, but my father lowered the footrest of his recliner, got up, and turned off the set.
    And even that wasn’t the end of it, for the next morning, the programming was interrupted again so that we could all watch the president say goodbye to his staff and then walk out to his helicopter with his wife. She climbed the steps ahead of him, and just before he ducked inside he turned and waved, smiling, and then threw his arms open wide and made the victory sign with both hands.
    Robbie and I were sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, playing domino-monkey-sticks. “Little guy,” he said, “you just witnessed history.”
    My mother was still asleep. My father was standing at the front window, gazing out at the street. He’d taken the day off and was dressed in his weekend outfit—canvas deck shoes, khakis, a polo shirt—and he was holding a coffee mug. “Whose car is that?” he asked without turning around.
    “You mean the Mustang?” Robbie said. “That’s mine. I bought it a week ago. You’re just now noticing it?”
    My father said nothing for several moments. Then, still with his back to us, he said, “You know, things haven’t been so good since you’ve been here.”
    Robbie had a plastic monkey in each hand. He looked at me and chuckled. “You can’t exactly blame Watergate on me, can you?”
    “I don’t mean that,” my father said. His voice was calm, level. “You move in, you eat our food, you sit on your ass like it’s some goddamn resort. Like everything’s a big joke. And all this time, you’ve got the money to buy a car?” He turned around. “You could have offered to help out a little.”
    Robbie opened his mouth, but hesitated. “I can,” he said finally.
    “You could have bought some goddamn groceries,” my father said.
    “I can do that,” Robbie said. “I’ve got a little left over. I’ve just been trying to get on my feet.”
    “I think you should leave.”
    —
    H e stuck around for another two days. He didn’t argue with my father’s decision—my mother did that for him, but even she fizzled out after a few fights. She moped instead, and started drinking at lunch.
    I asked each of my parents, in private, why Robbie had to go, why he couldn’t just stay and pay for his own food. The sad truth of it, my father told me, was that people will take advantage of you, if you let them. People will railroad you, take the best part of you and twist it to fit their own needs. The only person who has your best interests at heart is you, he said, and the sooner I learned that, the better. My mother’s answer was more succinct: “Your father’s an ass.”
    I helped Robbie stuff his things back into his duffel bag and asked him where he was going to go.
    “Not sure,” he said. “Key West, maybe. I hear it’s closer to Cuba than mainland Florida.”
    I didn’t know anything about Cuba other than that it was a whole different country and sounded impossibly far away. Still, the antsiness crept back into my stomach until I figured out what it was I wanted to ask next. “Can I come?”
    He grinned, and a shine surfaced on his eyes. “I