Adam Troy Castro & Jerry Oltion by The Astronaut From Wyoming

Author:The Astronaut From Wyoming [Wyoming, The Astronaut From]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-01-26T00:38:28+00:00

He took Alexander downstairs, zipped him up in his jacket, took his hand, and walked him into the backyard. They had a big backyard. They were at the edge of town, just south of the hills, on a slope that was the first of a long bumpy ride to the horizon. Their property was entirely surrounded by chain-link fence, not high enough to keep away determined intruders, but enough to discourage the merely curious. Alexander had seen folks with cameras scramble over once or twice; he’d also seen his Dad chase them away, shouting words that Alexander himself was not permitted to speak. But there hadn’t been an incident like that since his last birthday.

Mark unlocked the back gate and walked Alexander to the top of the first hill, home of a jutting slab of rock that the boy was allowed to climb only when his parents were watching. It was a big rock for a kid Alexander’s age, almost as tall as his Dad. Mark didn’t give him a chance to climb it–just picked him up and put him there, before climbing the rock himself and taking his place by Alexander’s side.

They sat without speaking for the several minutes it took the last light of day to surrender to the blackness of night. Mark said nothing because he was a smoker, and a sedentary man, who did not climb hills easily; his ragged breaths burst from him like little explosions. Alexander said nothing because his father was holding his hand, which was in and of itself such an unusual thing that he was scared to disturb it with the sound of his own voice.

Time passed. Mark’s breathing slowed to normal.

The stars came out.

It was a clear night over a very small town, and the lights burning down below were not enough to force many stars into hiding. Some of them shone like pinprick flames. And as the night grew darker above Sweethaven , and Alexander searched his father’s face for the reason they’d hiked all the way up here, Mark seemed less and less a recognizable presence and more and more a man-shaped shadow eclipsing the lights in the sky above him.

Forever came and went before Mark spoke.”You cold?”

“No,” Alexander said.

“Tired?”

How could Alexander be tired, when all this was going on? “No.”

“Good,” Mark said, still without looking at him.

More time passed. So much time that Alexander thought they were supposed to sit here, holding hands, all the way to morning.

Then Mark’s profile shifted slightly, and he spoke in a strange, faraway voice that didn’t sound like he knew who he was talking to. “You know … I used to love the stars. Not astronomy; I was never any good at that. But once upon a time, when I was a kid, I used to pitch a tent on a hilltop not far from here.

I didn’t sleep in the tent unless it was raining, though. When it was a nice, clear night, like tonight, I laid out my sleeping bag and slept in the open … just looking up at the constellations.

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