The Last Pilot: A Novel
Benjamin Johncock
FOR JUDE
The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPéRY
PROLOGUE
It was a stretch of wretched land bleached and beaten by the relentless salt winds that howled in off the Atlantic, forsaken by God to man for the testing of dangerous new endeavors. WELCOME TO CAPE CANAVERAL! the sign said. SPEED LIMIT: 17,400 MPH. Three miles south sat Cocoa Beach, the Cape’s resort town, so low-rent that even the giant chiggers wanted to escape it. In daylight, Cocoa Beach was cobaltic blue, coconut palms and low-rise motels called The Starlite and Satellite and The Polaris, a replica rocket clasped above each name. The beach was like a strip of asphalt, long and wide and barren and hard. You could bend a spade on it. At sundown, mosquitoes the size of a clenched fist clustered at the water’s edge. At night, it was infested with sand flies that stripped skin from muscle. The only visitors were young men racing cars and the occasional couple, lured out of their motel room by the slink of the murky sea and the promise of God knows what on the bare, hardback sand. Cocoa Beach was the kind of place where people ended up.
It was late, past nine, the diner was empty. George’s had low lights, a high bar and a couple of Chesley Bonestell originals hanging on the wall. It wasn’t a bad place. He came here because no one else did.
His heart hurt like hell. He pulled a half-pack of Lucky Strikes from his top pocket. He stuck one in his mouth and struck a match and lit it and waved the match until it went out. He looked at his hands, the thick hair on his fingers, his knuckles. He drank the rest of his beer.
Steely eyes gleamed down from a billboard across the street. Was it Shepard or Glenn? He didn’t know, or much care; he just wanted the goddamn thing to stop staring at him. He stared at his food. He wasn’t hungry.
A couple entered. The man held a gray hat between two fingers and the woman adjusted her dress as they waited to be seated. The waitress gathered plastic menus, ushered them to a table, presented the specials. The couple smiled at each other and he wondered if they were honeymooning. Smoke clung to the pine-paneled walls, lilting slowly toward the linoleum floor. The man approached his table.
Excuse me, he said, sir? Sorry to bother you an all but my wife—he glanced back—we was just wondrin, well, you’re one of them, ain’t you? What we been hearin about? The New Nine?
He stayed seated, pulled hard on the cigarette, his throat tightened.
I knew it! Honey, I was right.
The woman joined her husband. Her skin looked pale like a lake in late fall.
My wife, Betty, he said.
Pleasure to meet you, she said.
Now, which one are you? You’re Borman, right?
Honey—
Lovell? No, wait, I know this.
You’ll have to excuse my husband; we’ve heard so much about you all.
Harrison. Jim Harrison. I knew I knew it. Jim Harrison!
The man looked at the woman and the woman stared at the table.
Sure hope you don’t mind us intrudin, the man said.
We’ve been staying down in Miami; at the Plaza, the woman said. It’s been a wonderful three weeks, but the other night I said to Bill, Bill, let’s get in the car, let’s explore a little— It’s a Caddy, powder blue—a coupe.
—so we drove up the coast, the two of us.
I said, we should go visit the world’s first space-port.
I didn’t know what he meant.
But I never thought we’d meet one of you fellas.
A real astronaut, my goodness!
A thing like that!
Harrison put out his smoke and stood to leave.
It sure was good to meet you, Bill said, extending his hand. And thank you, for everything; really, thank you.
Harrison nodded and shook his hand. The couple returned to their table. In the restroom he pissed and thought and stood there for a long time.
At the door, the waitress rang up his check.
Everything all right for you, hon? she said.
He stared at the register. Hard cracks crossed the linoleum under his feet. His heart beat hard in his head.