Rockets Versus Gravity (2 page)

C
lementine was fond of that red light, blinking gently atop the radio tower in the distance. She found it reassuring, like the tolling of the church bells, which she had heard for her entire life; or maybe it was more like the heartbeat of a sleeping lover, which she hoped she might someday feel throbbing against her skin.

Light on, light off. Light on, light off.

From the musty-smelling cot in her tiny bedroom, she could see the red light pulsing, amplified by the warped glass of the small single window, which was not masked with curtains or with blinds.

“Can't we even get some cheap venetian blinds, Mother?” she had pleaded. “People can see me undressing through the window!”

“
What
people?” her mother had scolded. “There isn't another farm for five miles. Vanity is a sin, young lady.”

Leave it to her mother to interpret her modesty as vanity.

So she had become accustomed to the red light winking at her from atop the radio tower through the uncovered window. Its repetitive glow lulled her to sleep every night

Light on, light off. Light on, light off.

Everything in the farmhouse was over a hundred years old, passed down from one generation to the next; even her own name: Clementine. The other girls at school, the ones with their matching boutique-store jeans and purses with brand names displayed on huge brass tags, the ones who constantly chirped “OMG!” and “Like, totally!” all had postmodern names like TV sitcom characters: Shaniqua and Kaylee, Makayla and Amberlindzy. Clementine was stuck with her great-grandmother's recycled name and the feeling that she belonged in another time.

When she concentrated on that blinking red light, Clementine could ignore the sounds of loose shingles flapping in the breeze overhead and the scratching of mice inside the walls; she could ignore the faint smell of fertilizer and insecticide wafting in from the fields outside; she could ignore the bearlike snarl of her father snoring in the adjacent room.

But sometimes the red light wasn't calming. It didn't always lull her. Sometimes it was stimulating. Sometimes it throbbed.

Light on, light off. Light on, light off.

On summer nights like this one, when the air was heavy and humid and smelled like a sweat-glazed farmhand, she would kick off the abrasive wool blanket, and she would allow her fingers to snake down between her legs, into the slippery wet space beneath her thick tangle of pubic hair, and she would stroke herself to the rhythm of that pulsing red light.

Light on, light off. Light on, light off.

As the only girl in the family, at least she had her own bedroom; her four older brothers shared a single room not much bigger than hers. She imagined that such nocturnal releases were nearly impossible for her brothers to enjoy undetected.

She found it difficult to believe the popular implication that boys needed it more than girls; she needed it almost every night, and the need built up inside her during every minute of every day that slowly ticked past.

Light on, light off. Light on, light off.

Then her father allowed them to put up that billboard on the edge of their property beside the concession road, right between Clementine's window and the radio tower. In exchange for ten percent of the advertising revenue, Clementine's father sold away her view of the pulsing red light.

Now all she has to look at in her room at night is the peeling wallpaper, which was pasted up by her great-grandmother, the original Clementine, back in the days when the house was new, and working the land was noble and profitable — God's own work.

The current, living Clementine looks at the wallpaper now, with its repeating diagonal pattern of unintentionally vaginal-looking pink orchids and phallic purple irises.

Or maybe it wasn't so unintentional
, she thinks.
Maybe, behind closed doors, those Victorians were a lot sexier than they would have us believe. Maybe they were just more subtle about it.

Maybe my
great-grandmother
did exactly what I'm going to do now. Maybe these miniature erections and moist vulva petals helped get her going.

Clementine has to bite her lip, flip over, and press her face into her earth-scented pillow to prevent herself from crying out loud, from screaming the name of a lover whom she doesn't yet know.

She can no longer see it, but she knows that the light is still there, shining, pulsing, radiating.

Light on, light off. Light on, light off.

A
leksander almost enjoys it when they pick fights with him. It is always so predictable. In a way, it is reassuring. It reminds him that the universe follows a certain set of rules: rules of geometry, rules of physics, rules of mathematics.

It is more or less the same fight every time, which is why he always wins.

One of them will inevitably saunter across the parking lot, wearing the standard uniform: the unlaced boots, the faded blue jeans, the untucked plaid lumberjack shirt, the varsity team jacket with the purple felt body and the white leather sleeves.

“Hey, faggot!” the tough guy will bray. “You like sucking cocks? Wanna suck mine?” Or some other variation on this theme.

Most of the other guys in
purple-and
-white team jackets will laugh along. One or two will
pretend
to laugh. And at least one, usually the guy standing farthest from the potential altercation, will not laugh at all, will not even pretend to laugh. Standard and predictable pack dynamics.

Today's declaration of war is, “So, weirdo. You like black leather, eh? You a perv or something?”

Aleksander doesn't stand up. Not yet. It's best not to seem too eager at first. Between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, Aleksander casually twists the simple silver ring that encircles his left-hand ring finger.

Clockwise,
counter-clockwise
. Clockwise,
counter-clockwise
.

“Yep,” he finally says, “I
do
like black leather. And it appears that you like
white
leather. Which I suppose begs the question: Are
you
a pervert? Are you a white-leather pervert?”

“I guess you haven't been going to this school for very long,” Mr. Team Jacket says, striding toward Aleksander, opening and closing his fingers like Venus flytraps. “Do you know who I am?”

“Well, I don't go to this school — or to any other school, actually — but I've observed that the sleeves of your jacket are embroidered with the words
captain
and
football
, so I'm going to deduce that your name is Captain Football. That's some very pretty embroidery, by the way.”

Captain Football is standing right in front of Aleksander now, his belt buckle level with Aleksander's nose. The scent of cologne wafts downward.

“So, answer my question, assboy,” Captain Football demands. “Me and the boys wanna know: Is your black leather some kinda
feetish
? Are you some kind of sicko?”

“I believe that you mean to say ‘The boys and I,' not ‘Me and the boys,' ” Aleksander says, rising from the concrete parking divider. “And it's pronounced
fett
-ish, not
feet
-ish.”

“Oh. Sorry.
Fett-
ish,” Mr. Team Jacket says, taking a step forward. “You got a
pain
fetish, gimp? I hope so, 'cause I'm gonna …”

One of two things will happen at this point. If the guy is a hockey or basketball player, he will lunge forward and throw a punch at Aleksander's face; but if his jacket has
Football
embroidered on its white leather sleeve, he will run at Aleksander and try to tackle him, to force him onto the ground.

In the Punching Scenario, Aleksander will step out of the radius of the assailant's punch, and as soon as the fist has sailed past his face, he will step back into the radius, just close enough to smash the attacker's nose with an immediate counterpunch.

Step out, lean in.

Then, as his opponent staggers backward from the blow, sometimes swinging wildly on his way down, Aleksander will deliver a quick, hard kick between his aggressor's legs, which usually sends the guy tumbling backward onto the pavement. About seven times out of ten, a tailbone fracture results from the fall.

Step out, lean in.

In the Tackling Scenario (which is about to take place here), the manoeuvres are even simpler. As the guy barrels toward him, Aleksander merely steps out of the path of the attacker's charge at the very last minute. His opponent will sometimes be bent forward far enough that Aleksander can deliver a spin-kick to the guy's balls from behind as he passes; but if the guy isn't leaning into it enough (or has very small balls), Aleksander cracks the guy's tailbone with the steel toe of his black boot instead.

Step out, lean in.

In this scenario, the broken nose will be delivered from above,
after
the other guy hits the ground. And then, if Aleksander missed them on the first pass, he will retroactively kick his opponent in the testicles.

Step out, lean in.

It's not about being tough. It's not about being brave.

It's about geometry. It's about physics. It's about mathematics.

Trajectory. Circumference. Deflection. Timing.

Step out, lean in.

The equation has always added up to this: Aleksander will remain standing; his assailant will not. Aleksander will remain uninjured, except maybe for some bruised knuckles, while his attacker will possess at least one (but usually all three) of the following modifications to his physiology: a broken nose, a broken tailbone, and traumatically injured testicles.

Now Captain Football is curled up in a quivering fetal ball on the cold, cracked pavement, coughing up vomit and blood. His upper lip is split, and his nose is certainly broken; Aleksander felt the cartilage snap against his knuckles. Aleksander landed his single punch and two kicks with the accuracy of sniper's bullets; this one won't be able to sit comfortably or blow his nose without pain for some time.

Predictably, a few of the buddies run over to aid their fallen comrade. A few others, the ones who were laughing the loudest less than a minute ago, advance on Aleksander.

“You're dead, asshole!”

“So fucking dead!”

This is the point at which Aleksander reaches into his black leather jacket and then snaps open the switchblade.

The advance halts.

Aleksander stands with his feet wide apart, his knees bent, his arms stretched wide, as if he's about to leap up into the misty air and fly away. The blade in his right hand glints amber from the sodium-vapour parking lot lights overhead.

Captain Football limps away with his brothers in arms. One of them calls out, “You're gonna die, buddy.”

Aleksander says, “No, I will not.”

As they retreat toward a shining Dodge pickup truck, another teammate says, “We'll find you, gimp.”

Aleksander says, “No, you will not.”

Another, who is helping to lift Captain Football over the tailgate, adds, “We know where you live, fucker.”

Aleksander says, “No, you do not.”

He doesn't lower his arms or move his feet until the pickup truck has roared away, its red tail lights vanishing into the foggy air. Then Aleksander plunges headlong into the mist, the last figure to vanish from the scene, as always.

Step out, lean in.

N
o matter how close she stands to her tiny bedroom window, from whatever angle she looks, Clementine's view of the outside world is now filled with the billboard.

The first advertisement to go up was for a local insurance agency. Beneath the company's logo was a huge photograph of the office's “Number One Sales Agent,” with her pimples and lady-moustache expertly airbrushed away. Beside her portrait, the words:

Brooklynn Tripp

Broker

One night, while Clementine was sleeping, someone with a can of black spray paint climbed the billboard's tall iron frame and added the following:

Brooklynn Tripp
ed and

Broker
NECK!

Clementine gasped when she saw it through her bedroom window in the morning, and she giggled when she told her mother about it at breakfast.

Her mother reached across the table and slapped her face. “Vandalism is not funny,” she said. “Defacing the property of others is a sin.”

Well, technically, it was a sin to
covet
the property of others, not to
deface
it. Clementine was about to correct her mother on this point but then decided against it. She wasn't in the mood to offer the other cheek.

“Besides,” her mother added, “they pay us a few dollars a month for the land that billboard's on, and Lord knows, we need all the help we can get.”

From his seat at the kitchen table, Clementine's father rasped, “I'm doin' the best I can, woman.”

“Lord knows,” her mother said, to nobody in particular. “Lord knows.”

Her father wasn't sure about what to do next. Should he call the police? The municipality? The billboard company? So he went to seek the counsel of Pastor Okonjo.

After praying, consulting the scriptures, and meditating on the issue, the pastor decided that it would be best to have the commercial advertising removed from the billboard altogether and to have church-approved messages pasted up there instead.

The pastor reasoned that, because the billboard was strategically located along the concession road that led to the church, many lost and wayward souls might be saved by the billboard's divine placement; and, although Clementine's father would lose his small cut of the advertising revenue, he would surely be compensated a hundredfold in Heaven for helping to communicate the Word of the Lord to His followers.