Cradle (33 page)

At sunrise Troy had crawled out of the car and walked the few yards to the beach.
It was very quiet. Troy’s company was limited to a few walkers and joggers plus a
couple of bizarre sand crabs, whose eyes wavered back and forth at the end of peculiar
stalks as they raced sideways into their holes in the sand. To the north Troy could
see some of the launch pads for the unmanned rockets at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base,
but in his mind’s eye he saw them as the launching apparatus for the shuttle. He wondered
what astronaut Burford was doing at that very moment. What was he eating for breakfast?
Was he with his family or with the astronaut crew?

Jamie had awakened around noon and the brothers had spent the early afternoon on the
beach together, laughing and playing in the surf. Then they bought some hamburgers
and made the final half-hour drive to the Kennedy Space Centre. Jamie had strongarmed
an avid Gator fan, an aerospace executive who lived in Melbourne, for tickets to the
VIP viewing area. They arrived there just before nightfall. Four miles away, the impressive
shuttle launch configuration, consisting of the orbiter mounted on top of an orange
external tank with two solid rocket boosters on the side, stood erect against its
launching tower as the final countdown began.

No observing experience in Troy’s life would ever come close to rivalling watching
the space shuttle blast off that night. As he listened to the countdown being announced
over the loudspeakers in the VIP area, he was eager with anticipation, but not yet
in awe. The moment the engines ignited, however, filling the Florida night with reddish-orange
flame and thick white clouds of billowing smoke, Troy’s eyes nearly popped out of
his head. But it was the combination of seeing the giant spaceship, slowly and majestically
lifting itself into the heavens riding a long slender flame, and hearing the astonishing
sound, a constant roar punctuated with unexplained pops (which at only four miles
away still arrived twenty or so seconds behind the sight of the engine ignition),
that really caused the goose-pimples to break out on his skin, the tears to come to
his eyes, and the tingle to spread through his body. Troy’s intense emotional excitement
lasted well over a minute. He stood beside his brother Jamie, tightly holding his
hand, his back arched as he strained to follow the flame rising higher and higher
and then finally disappearing in the night sky above him.

After the launch they slept again in the car. Jamie then dropped Troy at the bus station
in Orlando and headed back to Gainesville for football practice. Young Troy felt that
he was a new person, that he had been transformed by his experience. Throughout the
next week he obsessively followed the flight. Burford became his hero, his new idol.
During the first two quarters of the following year, he applied himself avidly to
his school work. He had a goal. He was going to be an astronaut.

Little did Troy know that on a March night only seven months later he would have another
experience, this one devastating and deeply disturbing, that would completely overshadow
the thrill he had felt at the shuttle launch. On that later March evening, his brother
Jamie would stop by his room before leaving the house around eight o’clock. ‘I’m going
over to Maria’s, bro,’ Jamie would say. ‘We’ll probably take in a movie.’

Maria Alvarez was eighteen and still a senior in high school. She had been Jamie’s
steady girlfriend for a couple of years. She lived in Little Havana together with
her Cuban family and eight siblings.

Troy had given his brother a hug. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Jamie. There are so many
things that I want to show you. I made you a set of headphones in school—’

‘I want to see everything,’ his brother had interrupted him. ‘But tomorrow, first
thing in the morning. Now don’t stay up too late. Astronauts need plenty of sleep
so they can be alert.’ Jamie had smiled and walked out of Troy’s room. It was the
last thing Troy would ever hear him say.

Troy never could remember what he had heard first when he had awakened in the middle
of that night. His mother’s wild wail had mixed with the screech of the nearby sirens
to create an imbroglio of sound that was unforgettable and terrifying. Troy had raced
to the door and into the front yard wearing only his pyjama bottoms. The sound of
the ambulance siren was drawing closer. His mother was at the end of the short walkway
in front of the house, bending down over a dark body spread partly in the street in
front of Jamie’s Chevrolet and partly in their yard. Three policemen and half a dozen
curious bystanders were huddled around his distraught mother.

‘Somehow,’ he heard one of the policemen say as Troy, in a panic, tried to figure
out what was happening, ‘he managed to drive home. It’s incredible after all the blood
he lost. He must have been hit four times in the stomach….’

His mother’s cry intensified again and, at that moment, Troy put all the pieces together
and recognized the body lying on its back. A chill went through him, he gasped, and
then Troy fell on his knees beside his brother’s head. Jamie was struggling for breath.
His eyes were open but they did not seem to be focusing on anything.

Troy cradled Jamie’s head in his hands. He looked down at his brother’s stomach. His
red shirt was awash in blood that seemed to be flowing in a continuous stream from
an area just above the genitals. Blood was on Jamie’s jeans, on the ground, everywhere.
Troy felt himself gag, then retch involuntarily. Nothing came up. Hot tears filled
his eyes.

‘We think it was a gang shooting, Mrs. Jefferson,’ the policeman droned on. ‘Probably
some kind of a mistake. Everybody knows Jamie wasn’t mixed up with that kind of crowd.’
Reporters had arrived. Lights were flashing from cameras. More sirens approached.

Jamie’s eyes went blank. There was no sign of breathing. Troy pulled his brother’s
head to his chest. He instinctively knew that Jamie was dead. He began to sob uncontrollably.
‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘No. Not my brother. Not Jamie. He never hurt anybody.’

Someone tried to comfort him, to pat him on the shoulder. Troy shrugged them off violently.
‘Leave me alone,’ he shouted between sobs. ‘He was my brother. He was my only brother.’
After a couple of moments, Troy tenderly placed Jamie’s head back down on the ground.
He then collapsed in total despair beside him.

At almost three-thirty in the morning some ten years later in March 1994, Troy Jefferson
would be at home, alone in his duplex, awake with the memory of that terrible moment
when Jamie had died. He would feel anew the heartbreak of that loss. And he would
realize again, very clearly, that most of his adolescent dreams had died with his
brother, that he had forsaken his dreams of college and being an astronaut because
they were inextricably coupled with his memory of Jamie.

Somehow he had stumbled through high school in the three years that had followed Jamie’s
death. But it had taken the combined efforts of his mother and the school and the
city authorities to keep Troy from abandoning school altogether. Then, as soon as
he had graduated, he had left Miami. Or rather, had run away. Away from what had happened
and what might have been. For over two years he wandered in a desultory manner throughout
North America, a young, solitary black man, bereft of love and friendship, looking
for something to overcome the feeling of emptiness that was his constant companion.

So I finally came to Key West
, Troy would think, years later, as he settled back in his bed in the middle of the
morning for a couple more hours of sleep.
And for some reason made myself a home. Maybe it was just time. Or maybe I had learned
enough to know that life goes on. But somehow, although the wound has never healed,
I got past Jamie. And found the lost Troy. Or so I hope
.

The dream that had been interrupted by the siren suddenly came back into his mind.
Angie was beautiful in the moonlight in her white bathing suit.
And now for some unfinished business
. Troy laughed to himself, concentrating on the image of Angie as he returned to sleep.

‘Good morning, angel,’ Troy said with a grand smile as Carol approached the
Florida Queen
. ‘Ready to do some fishing?’ He hopped out of the boat and shouted at Nick, who was
around at the back on the other side of the canopy. ‘She’s here, Professor,’ he called.
‘I’m going out to the parking lot to get her stuff.’ Carol gave Troy the keys to her
car and he took off in the direction of the marina office.

Carol paced for a few moments on the jetty before Nick emerged from behind the canopy.
‘Come on down on the boat,’ he said, scowling a little as he wiped some heavy dredging
chain with a dark cloth. Nick felt terrible. He had a bad hangover. And he was still
bothered by the events of the night before. Carol didn’t say anything at first. Nick
stopped cleaning the chain and waited for her to speak.

‘I don’t know exactly how to say this,’ she began in a firm but pleasant voice, ‘but
it’s important to me that I say it before I get on the boat.’ Carol cleared her throat.
‘Nick,’ she said deliberately, ‘I don’t want to dive with you today. I want to dive
with Troy.’

Nick gave her a quizzical look. He was standing in the sun and his head was aching.
‘But Troy—’ he began.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she interrupted him. ‘He doesn’t have much experience
and it could be a dangerous dive.’ She stared directly at Nick. ‘That doesn’t matter
to me. I have enough diving experience for both of us. I prefer to dive with Troy.’
She waited a few seconds. ‘Now if you’re not willing—’

This time it was Nick who interrupted Carol. ‘All right, all right,’ he said, turning
away. He was surprised to find that he was both hurt and angry.
This woman is still pissed off
, he said to himself.
And I thought maybe
… Nick walked away from Carol and went back on the other side of the canopy to finish
preparing the small rented salvage crane he and Troy had installed the night before.
Since they had used this old equipment several times on other excursions, the installation
had been straightforward and without major problems.

Carol climbed on to the boat and put her copy of the photos on top of the counter
next to the steering wheel. ‘Where’s the trident?’ she called to Nick. ‘I thought
I’d take another look at it this morning.’

‘Bottom left drawer, under the nav equipment,’ was his swift and sharp reply. She
took the grey bag out of the drawer, opened it, and pulled out the golden trident.
She held it by the long middle rod. It felt funny for some reason. Carol put the object
back in the bag and pulled it out a second time. Again she held the heavy trident
in her hands. It still didn’t feel right. Carol remembered grasping the rod underneath
the overhang in the water and wrapping her hand slowly around the central rod.
That’s it
, she said to herself.
It’s thicker
.

She turned the object over in her hands.
What’s the matter with me?
she thought.
Have I lost my mind? How could it be thicker?
She examined it one more time with great care. This time she thought that the individual
tines of the fork had lengthened and that she could detect a perceptible increase
in the overall weight.
Good grief. Can this be possible?
she wondered.

Carol pulled out the photos she had brought along. All the images of the trident that
she had with her had been taken underwater. But she was certain that she could discern
two subtle changes since it was first photographed. The axis rod did appear to be
thicker and the tines of the fork did indeed look longer.

‘Nick,’ she said in a loud voice. ‘Nick, can you come here?’

‘I’m right in the middle of something,’ an unfriendly voice responded from the other
side of the canopy. ‘Is it important?’

‘No. I mean yes,’ Carol answered. ‘But it can wait until your first available moment.’

Carol’s mind was racing.
There are only two possibilities
, she said to herself with logical precision,
either it has changed or it hasn’t. If it hasn’t changed, then I must be spooked.
For it definitely seems thicker. But how could it change? Either on its own or someone
changed it. But who? Nick? But how could he…?

Nick came up to her. ‘Yes?’ he said in a distant, almost hostile tone. He was obviously
annoyed.

Carol handed him the trident. ‘Well?’ she said, smiling and looking at him expectantly.

‘Well, what?’ he answered, totally confused by what was happening and still angry
about the earlier interaction.

‘Can you tell the difference?’ Carol continued, nodding at the trident in his hand.

Nick turned it upside down as she had done. The sunlight glinted off the golden surface
and hurt his eyes. He squinted. Then he switched the object from hand to hand and
looked at it from many different angles. ‘I think I’m lost,’ Nick said at length.
‘Are you trying to tell me that there’s some change in this thing?’

He held it out between them. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Can’t you feel it? The central rod’s
thicker than it was on Thursday and the tines or individual elements of that fork
on one end are a little longer. And don’t you think the whole thing is heavier?’

Nick’s headache continued to throb. He looked back and forth between the trident and
Carol. As far as he could tell, the object had not changed. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said.
‘It seems the same to me.’

‘You’re just being difficult,’ Carol persisted, grabbing the trident back. ‘Here,
look at the pictures. Check out the length of the fork there compared to the overall
rod and then look at it now. It’s different.’

There was something in Carol’s general attitude that really irritated Nick. She always
seemed to assume that she was right and everyone else was wrong. ‘This is absurd,’
Nick nearly shouted in reply, ‘and I have a lot of work to do.’ He paused for a moment
and then continued. ‘How the hell could it change? It’s a metal object, for Christ’s
sake. What do you think? That somehow it
grew?
Shit.’