Rise (6 page)

Becky left the dishes in the sink and came with him to bed. She'd cleaned out the bedroom. The bicycle was gone and all her nursing books. The laundry was sorted and the hampers were closed, and there were new shades on the windows. She'd bought vinyl black-out shades and screwed them into the frames herself. She'd gotten the holes off center on one of them, and he felt a surge of gratitude when he saw how it hung crooked. His eyes welled up, and he didn't know why.

She waited until his spot was warm, and then she moved in close. “I'll stay awake until you sleep. We'll stay awake together.”

The artists on the second floor were having another party. A woman was shouting over the music.
I knew it
, she said.
I knew it all along
. Something broke, glass shattered, and people clapped and laughed. He met them sometimes on the stairs, his neighbors, and they never said hello. He was invisible to them. He was just another pale guy in a suit. They wore their youth like armor.

He rolled onto his back, but he didn't let go of her hand. They'd gone to the badlands once together. In her peacock blue Chevy Cavalier. They took the trip right after she'd finished nursing school. He'd dropped out of law school and was waiting for the next thing, and it was the last time they'd both be free. He didn't know it then, of course. Back then he didn't know much except that he loved her. Ten
days driving the desert up through Nevada and Utah and back into Colorado. They stopped at the Green River and looked at the dinosaur bones. At night they rolled the windows down and opened up the sunroof. There were no lights anywhere, no cars and no people and nothing outside but rocks and the wheeling stars.

Her breathing was deep and steady, but she was still squeezing his hand. She was telling him she was awake. He squeezed it back. The rocks had looked like shipwrecks in places. It hurt to look at the sky. They'd stood together by the bank and watched that slow green water. He'd wanted to buy a canoe right then and follow where it went. Even now he felt its pull.

The party downstairs was winding down. The music stopped midsong, and the door opened and closed and opened again. The guests were laughing as they went down the stairs. They talked in loud drunken voices. He should have told her. She shouldn't have to hear things from his mother. He squeezed her hand again. He closed his eyes and waited.

F
irst he drilled out the top of the cartridge. It was one of the empties from his dad's old BB gun. He opened up the shotgun shells next and gathered up their powder. His friend Bean had given him four shells. Bean who was scared to hold a gun even though his daddy was a soldier. He tamped the powder into the cartridge and dropped the BB in. Bean leaned in close to watch.
Let me clamp it
, Bean was saying.
I know how to do it, Mason. I know it well as you
. He crowded in beside the vice, but Mason ignored him because he didn't have a gentle touch with the metal. It needed only a little bend, just enough to keep the BB in once the powder had ignited.

Bean took the cartridge when Mason was done. He had the match heads ready. He stuffed them down the canister's neck, working them in tight. He stuck his tongue out the way he did when he was taking a test. Mason stepped back and let him work. The fuse was easy. Not even Bean could mess it up. Bean tore the filter off one of the Marlboros that lay on the workbench. He stuck the cigarette in the hole so the tobacco touched the match heads.

It was dark outside though it wasn't even five. Dark as January and just about as cold. People stayed inside this time of year. They sat on their sofas and watched their shows, and their living room windows glowed blue. Mason went first, and Bean followed in his yellow parka.
Idiot
, Mason said.
Take it off and leave it
. Wearing colors instead of black. What good were those grades Bean got, what
good all his science experiments, if he had no sense when it mattered. Mason pointed at the parka, and Bean took it off and went outside in his camo shirt.

They walked along the street, their heads low because the wind was blowing. “My fingers are stiff already,” Bean was saying. “I need to go to Miami. I'm gonna go to South Beach and look at the Brazilian girls.”

“Miami, Ohio maybe.” Mason held the canister against his parka. He cradled it in his hand. “Next year you'll be at Loaf 'n Jug if you're lucky. You'll be wiping down the windows for those Seventh-day Adventists.”

Bean laughed at that. He knew his shortcomings, even Mason had to agree. He wasn't afraid to look stupid. They came up to old Foster's metal mailbox. It was the nicest mailbox on the street. It had two wooden blue jays perched on top and lilac branches painted down the sides. It was like everything else at the Foster house. Immaculate and a little fussy.

Mason gave the canister to Bean, who held it like a chalice. Mason took a breath and looked along the street to make sure nobody was turning at the corner. His hand shook when he flicked the lighter. Bean started fidgeting. He was shivering from the wind. “Hold still,” Mason said. “Quit your shaking before I burn you by mistake,” but his hands shook a little, too.

They tried to act casual once the bomb was inside. They tried to move slowly, but they ended up running anyway. They ran, the both of them, they ran with their arms pumping, and they slipped along the ice where old Mrs. Fieberling always forgot to shovel. Who knew skinny Bean could move like that. He was fast as Mason who could have been on track, that's what the coach said.
If only you'd apply yourself
. They reached Bean's old Camry at the same time and knelt down against the tires. Mason closed his eyes. He covered his mouth and waited. The air was so cold it burnt going down. So cold he felt his nose hairs freeze, and he was just where he wanted to be.

The cigarette was burning in the mailbox. That perfect orange circle was coming closer to the hole. The cigarette would light the match heads, and the powder would ignite. All that pressure inside and nowhere to go. Nowhere because the neck was bent and the BB was blocking the way. His hands were numb, and he rubbed them together. He cracked his knuckles in turn. This was only the beginning.
He'd find a bigger canister. He'd get more shells and empty out the powder.

Twelve minutes in and Bean shook him by the shoulder. “It should have gone by now.” He pointed to his watch. His voice went up high as a girl's.

“Maybe it's taking a little longer. Maybe it's the cold.”

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Bean said. “I knew we'd mess this up.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. He was talking about how it was a crime to mess with mailboxes. It was a federal offense.

“That's for U.S. mailboxes, imbecile. Not Foster's painted birds.”

Bean stood up. “I'm going to get it. I'll take it out before anybody sees.”

“Don't be stupid.” Mason grabbed Bean by the elbow.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Bean said again. He shook himself free and stepped away from the car.

Bean walked slowly this time. He didn't listen when Mason called. He walked instead like it was summertime, and he latched his thumbs in his front jean pockets. His arms were skinny as knitting needles. They looked almost blue in the light. He went past Mrs. Fieberling's house, and Mason stood up to watch. The streetlights were coming on, first on Pikes Peak Avenue and then along the side streets. They shone over the snowbanks and the cars. Bean stopped just before the Foster house. He wasn't twenty feet from the box. The wind had stopped blowing and the stars were out, and Mason felt it before it happened. He felt it through the stillness and the beating of his heart. The flame was coming to the powder. It was quiet in the street. Peaceful how it must have been right before the stars were born. He held his arms out the way conductors do. All the windows shook in the houses as if responding to his signal. They rattled in their aluminum frames, and a smoke ball rose over the mailbox. It made a perfect mushroom cloud.

Bean went to his knees like somebody who saw Jesus. He covered both his ears. Mason stayed where he was, and things moved slowly around him. Those painted birds flew over the street. They were bent at strange angles. The mailbox looked like a porcupine from all the metal pieces that had blasted their way out. It leaned over on its base, and Foster was opening his front door. He was wearing a plaid bathrobe and his mouth was open wide, but Mason didn't care. He saw
only how beautiful things were. How the smoke drifted upward, how it was white against the sky and it wasn't even done yet and he was thinking about the next one. He'd use a bigger cartridge. He'd find some sprinkler pipe.

One hundred fifty hours sweeping the streets. Picking up garbage from the interstate. People dropped diapers along the shoulder and scuffed up tennis shoes. They left crates behind and headless Barbie dolls and broken TV sets. Mason gathered them up and bagged them. He walked through the weeds, and all he thought about was a piece of pipe.

Bean wasn't the same, not even after the bones in his ears had healed. He talked about his body and how it was a vessel. There was a city by the river, and the river was of gold. They cleaned roads together on Thursdays. They filled up their bags, and Mason asked him for more shells.
Just a few
, he said,
just to tide me over
, but Bean shook his head. God had saved him for a reason, Bean said. It was time to set his face like flint. He had no need for shells anymore. He wanted no more fires.

Mason's mother wore amethyst and smoky quartz to help her concentration. Sometimes if he had a cough she set a rutilated crystal beside his bed.
It's as good as Robitussin
, she'd say.
It'll clear up all your passages
. She believed in chakras and Chinese herbs and the healing powers of talk therapy. Another three credits and she'd have her counseling degree.

She had a talk with him right after the sentencing. She talked about his needs and how she was here to help and not to judge because she'd made plenty of her own mistakes. She sat at the foot of his bed and sandwiched his hand between hers. “You were trying to tell me something,” she said. “I should have listened more.” She smiled a little, but her face was serious the way it used to be in church. She hugged him, and he pulled away and that was how it went.

•

The rocket club met on Thursdays in the soccer field behind the school. Sometimes he watched them from the bleachers. They used model rockets mostly, with single-use motors no bigger than a G. No metal parts and no liquid fuel and they had less than 125 grams of propellant. And still it was something when the rockets lifted. They made a beautiful ripping sound. Mr. Duffy the physics teacher ran between the launch pads. He was checking all the igniters and the fins. He waved to Mason and when Mason didn't come, he waved again and waited. His sweatshirt was tight across his belly. It said, “No Smoking. Unless you're on fire.”

“Get over here,” he said. “You can't see from where you are. You have to be real close.” He set his hands on his hips and squinted, and his hair stuck to his forehead in wisps.

Mason stood beside him and watched some sophomores get their rocket ready. Theirs was bigger than the others, and they worked around it like surgeons. Three boys and a girl in overalls, but even through the loose bib he could see the outline of her breasts. The kids were kneeling around the pad and checking the fit of the airframe against the lugs. The rocket was painted red and it said “Copperhead” along the side. “Theirs is special,” Duffy was saying. “They made it all by hand. They'll go to nationals with that one. They'll take an egg up 750 feet and bring it back unbroken.” He left Mason and went over to the three kids to see about the switch.

Everybody stepped behind the orange cones that marked the safety zone. They shaded their eyes and waited. The sky was clear, but the wind was blowing from the mountains. He should have brought a jacket. He stood with the others and watched Duffy fuss with the solenoid switch. The taller boy had his arm around the girl's waist. He pulled her close, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. Her hair looked like copper in the sun.

Duffy started the countdown at ten instead of five. He shouted out the numbers, and everybody shouted with him. Mason joined in without meaning to. The air smelled sweet like chemicals and burning paper, and the rocket tore upward when they reached one. It was perfect the way stingrays are, perfect like eagles and diamondback snakes. It moved toward the sky with a predator's grace.

They caught the rocket when it floated back down. It barely
missed some trees. The red-haired girl came running. She held it high like a trophy. “Look at that,” she said. “Look how sweet she landed.” She was talking about the bulkhead and the o-rings in the chamber, but Mason wasn't listening. Who cared if the chute deployed or if the rocket made it back. It was the fire that mattered. It was the propellant and the blast and that sweet white chemical smoke. It was better than the black cats he'd shot off last July with Bean, better even than the canister that blew up Foster's mailbox.

Duffy came back to where Mason was standing. He was drinking coffee from a dented thermos. “Don't be so shy,” he said. “We could use another set of hands.” He gave Mason a serious look. “I've got a monster in my garage. You should come and see. The next one will be liquid fuel. Kerosene and liquid oxygen and there's nothing that kicks better.”