Rocket

Just before they left to take their son to the Cub Scout Space Fair, Jennings learned that his wife was having an affair.  She told him so herself.  The news numbed Jennings: he could barely think straight.  He sat on the couch while Betsy went and made sure their son was ready, and then the three of them got in the car and Jennings drove – silently, slowly, cautiously, aware that his life had just changed for the worse – down to the United Methodist Church, where the monthly meeting and Space Fair was being held.  Jennings parked the car at the first spot he came to, at the top of a small hill some two blocks from the church.  They got out and Jennings looked across the roof of the car at his wife.

    “Why did you tell me that?” he asked.

    “Because I always tell you everything,” Betsy said.  “I always do.”

    “Why did we park so far away?” Richard, their son, asked.

    “Be quiet,” Jennings said.  He turned and walked quickly down the hill to the church.

    At the meeting, Jennings stood in the back of the room and watched everyone – all the other men, that is, the dads, wondering who Betsy was sleeping with.  There were sixty or so energetic little boys with blue shirts and different kinds of space helmets running around and making noise but he could not focus on them.  They weren't even a distraction.  All he could think about was Betsy.  She hadn't told him – refused to tell him—who she was sleeping with.  And she always tells me everything, he thought.  Sure!  It could be anybody.  Betsy was sitting right in front of him on a metal folding chair, talking with some of the other moms, and every time he glanced down at the back of Betsy's head he pictured her on her back with her legs wrapped around a faceless man, with a thin strange smile on her face.  He felt sick.

    “Are you okay?”

    “Huh?”  Jennings looked around.  It was Joan Jordan, Richard's Den Mother.  Den 3 –  the Place to Be.  She had dark eyes and looked worried.

    “I asked if you're okay.  You don't look so good.”

    “I guess I'm fine.”

    Joan frowned, as if she didn't believe him, and he looked away, suddenly embarrassed.  He could see his son, Richard, standing behind a table holding the rocket they had built.  He was chattering away to some other scouts.  Showing off again.

    “Well, if you say so,” Joan said after a moment.

    Jennings shrugged, sniffed, glanced at the back of Betsy's head in front of him, and his heart skipped a beat.  The pregnancy test!  Fuck!  He hadn't even thought of that until just now.  A few weeks earlier Betsy had been a bit late and had gotten frantic -- almost hysterical – forcing Jennings to make a midnight trip to the all-night grocery store to buy a pregnancy testing kit.  And when the color did not change – when she finally came to believe the test – Betsy had been so happy, almost giddy.  They drank a bottle of wine and watched a movie, and made love.  And all the time Betsy had been thinking about – him.  The other guy.  She'd been afraid she was pregnant with his kid.  The numbness and shock Jennings had felt vanished, and he was suddenly furious. 

    “What do you think of the space helmets?” Joan asked.

    “What?”  Jennings looked back at Joan.  In his anger he found he was glaring at her, and he looked away.  “Oh,” he said, “the space helmets.  They're wonderful.”

    Betsy, sitting in front of Jennings, turned around and glanced at him, then whispered something to the Mom sitting next to her, who laughed.  Jennings' heart pounded.  He took a breath.

    “Really,” he said, forcing himself to smile stiffly at Joan, “they're great helmets.  You must've put a lot of work into them, huh?” 

    Joan had a job and was raising a son by herself but always seemed to find time to do artsy-craftsy stuff.  She'd made the helmets for the scouts of Den 3 out of empty ice cream buckets, cutting out a panel and replacing it with clear plastic for a vision port, and installing little lights on the top.

    “It wasn't that big a deal,” Joan said.  She looked over at Richard.  “Richard's got the best rocket.  I bet you sort of helped him with it a little, huh?”

    “Well, no,” Jennings lied.  “I just sort of had the concept.”

    Joan laughed.  “Sure you did.”

    Across the room, some scout from Den 5 said something to Richard and Richard handed the rocket across the table to him.  The scout from Den 5 was obviously impressed with it.  Jennings shook his head.

    “Listen” Joan said.  “I've got to go.  I'll call you this week about the field trip.”

    “Okay,” Jennings said.  “I'll talk to you later.”

    Joan squeezed his arm.  “Take care of yourself, Jinx -- really.”

    “Okay.”

    Jennings watched her cross the room and say something to her little boy -- another scout, Richard's best friend – when he became aware that Betsy had turned around and was looking at  him.  She was smiling.  He felt like striking her.

    “What do you want?” he asked.

    “Nothing,” Betsy said.

They were putting on their jackets in the church hallway, and Betsy leaned over to Jennings.

    “You could be a little less obvious with Joan Jordan,” she said.

    “What?”  Jennings took a step closer to his wife and lowered his voice; there were other people in the hallway, of course, and he didn't want anyone else to hear.  “What?”

    “I wouldn't blame you,” Betsy said.

    “You know there’s – nothing.”

    “I know she likes you.  I know she's divorced.”  Betsy looked at him.  Her eyes were a very dark, almost bitter blue and to Jennings they were unfathomable.  It was like looking into the eye of a cat, or a crow.

    “Betsy, you're fucking crazy.”

    Richard came bobbing up then, wearing his helmet, carrying the big white rocket in his arms.  There was a red ribbon stuck to the rocket booster: a second place winner.

    “I mean, what the hell – are you trying to make some excuse for what you did?”  Jennings was glaring at his wife.  “Huh?  By making up some shit about me and Joan?”

    “Everybody thought the rocket was great,” Richard said.

    Jennings looked down at Richard.  “Yeah, I saw everybody thinking it was great.  I saw you showin' off, too.”

    Betsy bent over and helped Richard put his jacket on – difficult, because he would not take the rocket out of his arms.  She looked up at Jennings.

    “I just want you to know that you have options.”

    Jennings stared at her.  “No, I don't,” he said.  “I don't have anything.”

    Betsy stood up and shook her head.  She patted Richard on the back of his space helmet.

    “C'mon, Richie, let's go home.”

    Outside it was cool and clear, and Jennings and Betsy walked silently up the hill to where they were parked.  But Richard was excited and babbling about the meeting.

    “Everybody liked the rocket,” he said.  “Everybody wanted to see it.”

    “Yeah, I saw,” Jennings said.  “I saw you behind that table going, 'This is mine, I built it! I built it!'  Just showing off like everything.”

    “I wasn't showing off.  I never said I built it.”

    “Don't lie to me, Richard.”

    “I’m not – “

    Jennings meant to give Richard a rap – sharp, but friendly – on the side of his hard plastic space helmet, but Richard turned just then to look at him -- to say he wasn’t a liar – and the back of Jennings’ hand burst through the clear plastic and struck Richard on the mouth. 

    “Ow!”  Richard dropped the rocket and put his hands over his face.  Jennings watched him, appalled at what he had done.

    Betsy knelt down and pulled Richard's hands away from his face.

    “Are you okay?”

    Richard bobbed his head -- it was hard to tell if he bobbed it side-to-side no or up-and-down yes -- and took off running up the street to the car.

    Betsy picked the rocket off the sidewalk and stood, holding it under her arm.

    “Way to go, Jinx,” she said.

Jennings came by Richard's room to check on him before bed.  Richard was in his pajamas, sitting under the covers, holding an unopened book in his hand.  He was staring at the wall and frowning, and his eyes were brimming with tears.  Richard's cat, Mouse, was laying across his lap, and watched Jennings enter the room.

    “You okay?”

    Richard didn't say anything.  Jennings looked around the room.  The space helmet with the busted visor sat on his dresser next to the rocket.  Jennings felt like crying, too.

    He touched the top of Richard's head and looked at him closely.   The swelling was already going down, but there was still that damned chipped tooth, right where his heavy gold wedding ring had rapped the incisor.  He bent to kiss Richard on the forehead but Richard pulled away.  His movement disturbed the cat, who jumped to the floor and stretched.

    “Better go to bed now,” Jennings said.  “We’ll get you to the dentist tomorrow to see about that tooth.”  He walked to the door and turned off the light.  “I love you, Richard.”

    Jennings shut the door behind him, feeling an utter failure.

Betsy was sitting on the couch, waiting for him, when he entered the living room.

    “Do you want talk?” she asked.

    “I don't see what there is to talk about,” Jennings said.  The cold fury returned.  “You've lied to me, you've cheated on me, you've destroyed our family – what else is there to say?”

    “That's only one aspect of what's going on between us,” Betsy said.  “I was wondering if you wanted to talk about what you've done to me.”

    “What?” Jennings was dumbfounded.

    “You don't get it, do you?  You always go around thinking you're so damn perfect.”

    “Don't you tell me what I think.”

    “You always blame other people for your faults -- it's like you can't even see what's going on around you.  And you're not even here half the time.”

    Jennings thought for a moment.  “Yeah,” he said, “I know, I had to go to Cincinnati for that damn TEPPS project, but -- well, I had to go.”

    “For six weeks?  No, you didn't.  You could have said you weren't going.  You wanted to go.”

    That was true enough, but Jennings didn't feel that he had to apologize for liking his job.  It had nothing to do with what was going on now, between him and Betsy.

    “And then they sent you to Ogden, and then they sent you to Andover, and next week you're going to Atlanta.”

    “Well, hell, you seem to get along just –  “ Jennings had a sudden deadly flashing image of Betsy on her back again, with her legs in the air, and her toes curled.  In the vision she was smiling.  He swallowed hard.  “You get along just fucking fine without me.”

    “Yeah, I do,” Betsy said.  “I do.”

    “Fucking whore.”

    “I am not a whore,” Betsy said calmly.  She lit a cigarette and blew smoke at him.  “If you knew anything at all about me you'd know that.”

    “Oh, go to hell.”  Jennings was pacing back and forth across the room.  It didn't seem at all possible that this was happening.

    “It's not too late for you to change, Jinx,” Betsy said.  “But you have to make up your mind that you want to change.”

    “Oh, piss,” Jennings said.  “I didn't do anything wrong.”

    “Jinx, you're never here to do anything!  Don't you get it?”

    Jennings stopped pacing and stood across the coffee table from Betsy.

    “Listen,” he said.  “Did you fuck him in this house?”

    Betsy looked surprised.  “That's not important,” she said.

    “It's important to me.”

     Betsy shrugged.  “Well, sure.”

     “You fucked him in this house?”  Jennings couldn't believe the pain he felt.  It was unbearable.  He looked for something to smash – he grabbed a lamp and threw it across the room, where it banged into the bookcase, knocking the bookcase over, scattering books and family pictures and Richard's bronzed baby shoes.

    “Jinx, stop it!”

Richard sat on his bed in the dark, furious, listening to his parents fight.  He could still see in his mind his father's hand come whipping out of the darkness, still feel the impact of it on his lips, and the dull taste of the plastic.  His eyes were teary and burning – not over the blow itself or the pain of the tooth but from anger – fury – over the sheer injustice of it all.

    He slapped me!

    In the light seeping in under the door from the hallway, Richard could see the pointed shape of the rocket sitting ready on his dresser.  The rocket was the problem.  All Mrs. Jordan had said for the project was to build a rocket out of scrap material, and Richard had gone down into the basement and screwed together a few lengths of spare pipe for the fuselage, and he was trying to fit a nose cone of some sort on when his Dad came down and laughed at his rocket and said, Richard, you know that's not good enough.  So they went to the Home Depot and bought three feet of eight inch aluminum vent pipe and came home, and his Dad had spread all the tools and everything out on the workroom floor and got to work building a rocket.  His big, club-like hands (he slapped me!) were very skillful and he quickly attached a big red funnel on top for a nose cone, and then sniped out some triangular pieces of tin for the fins, and riveted them on, and then they painted it white (Richard was allowed to paint a little, though his Dad did the detail work) and  then there was the finished rocket -- his Dad's rocket.

    Richard thought: Dad's just jealous.  Everybody was saying I built it – he didn't like that.  He wanted all the credit for himself.  I didn't even want him to build it – never asked him to.

    Something hit the wall of the living room with a thud and then there was a crash, and his mother yelled something.

    Richard got out of bed, biting his lip, tears in his eyes.  He crossed the room and took the rocket from the top of the dresser.

Betsy knelt over the broken lamp, trying somehow to make the lamp shade round again.

    “Damn it, Jinx, all our lives you've left me to pick up after you.”  Her voice was thick.

    “Oh, sure,” Jennings said, “I suppose you'd rather be picking up after your goddamn boyfriend then, huh?”

    “You don't know what you're talking about, Jinx,” Betsy said.  “You never do.  You just – “ She stopped, looking past him.

   Jennings turned around. 

    Richard was standing in his pajamas, frowning, eyes full of tears, cradling the big rocket across his chest.

    “Richard, go back to bed,” Jennings said.

    Richard threw the rocket on the floor.  “I don't want it,” he said.  “I didn't ask for it.”

    Then he turned and ran back down the hall, stocking feet softly padding on the carpet.  The bedroom door slammed.

    “You little son of a bitch,” Jennings said, quietly.  He looked at the rocket laying on the carpet, and remembered all the fun they'd had building it.  Now Richard didn't want it.  First Betsy didn't want him, and now Richard.  “You little son of a bitch!”

    “Jinx, don't,” Betsy said.

    Jennings crossed the room and scooped up the rocket.

    “Don't do anything stupid, Jinx!  Let him alone.”

    “Go to hell,” Jennings said.  He stomped down the hallway and kicked open the door of Richard's bedroom and hurled the rocket into the darkened room as hard as he could. “Goddamn you, boy,” he said.  “You're gonna take it!”

    “I didn't do anything!” Richard yelled from the darkness.

    “Where are you?”  Jennings hit the light.  Richard was sitting on his bed, squinting, frowning at his father.  “Come here.”

    “I didn't do anything!”

    “Jennings, don't!”  Betsy was standing behind Jennings in the doorway.

    Jennings kicked the rocket across the room -- it banged against Richard's desk and the nose cone came off and rolled under the bed.

    “You don't want it, huh?  Well, by god, then, you don't have to have it.”

   Jennings crossed the room and grabbed Richard by the arm and dragged him out of bed.  Richard yelled.

    “Jennings, don't be an asshole,” Betsy said.

    “He doesn't want the goddamn rocket.”  Still holding Richard by the arm, Jennings bent over and picked up the rocket and hurled it at the window.  The window shattered but the blind kept the rocket from going through and it fell back onto the top of the desk.  Jennings took it and forced it through the blind, shoving at it until it fell out the window into the bushes.

    “Stop it!”

    “Boy, you're gonna get a spanking,” Jennings told Richard.  He tried to pull Richard around in front of him but Richard lunged away and they staggered circling around the room.

    “I didn't do anything!” Richard kept yelling.

    “Hold still!”  Jennings kept slapping at Richard's behind, trying to get him to stand in one place and take his spanking.  Richard kept skipping away.  “Hold still, damn it!”

    “No!” Richard yelled.

    “Goddamn you.”

    Jennings got one good clap on Richard's bottom, then Betsy jumped over and pulled his arm away.

    “Jennings, stop it!” she yelled.

    Jennings shoved her back and she sat down hard on Richard's bed.  The bed frame broke and the mattress dropped to the floor and Betsy fell backwards with a yell.  The cat shot out the door, a dark furry blur.

    Jennings stopped circling with Richard and let go of his arm.  He stood looking at Betsy, breathing heavily.  Richard darted out of the room and ran down the hallway crying.

    “I'm gonna call my lawyer,” Betsy said thickly.

    Jennings thought that sounded utterly absurd.  He smiled in what seemed to be the first time in years.

    “You don't even have a lawyer,” he laughed.

    “Well by god I'm gonna get one!”

    Jennings felt something break inside him -- a sinking feeling, an emptiness bordering almost on nausea.  It was no use.  Everything was fucked.  He took a deep breath.

    “This is crazy,” he said.  “I'm getting out of here.”

    “Good!”  Betsy scrabbled around, trying to pull herself out of the remains of Richard's bed.  “Get the hell out of here!  It's just like you to run off and leave us.”

    Jennings turned and went out of the room.  “If you say so,” he said.

    “I do say so,” Betsy said.  She finally got off the bed and followed Jennings down the hall.

    Jennings looked around the kitchen counter until he found his car keys.  Then he took his jacket off the back of the chair and put it on.

    “And don't come back,” Betsy said.

    Jennings looked at her flatly.  “I've got to come back,” he said.  “This is my home.”

    “Not any more it isn't.”

    Jennings sighed, exasperated.  “Oh, why don't you just run down the street to your boyfriend's house?”

    “Maybe I will!”

    Jennings went out the door and slammed it behind him.  He went down the steps and stood in the darkened carport for a minute, breathing, resting his hand on Betsy's car.  What to do?

    He looked up.  Betsy was looking out the window at him, glaring.

    “Go to hell,” Jennings said, quietly.

    Jennings walked around Betsy's car and out into the driveway.  He looked back at the house.  Richard's rocket was dangling just below the broken window in the withered winter branches of an azalea.

    “That was a good little project,” Jennings said.  He thought of all the other Cub Scouts gathered around Richard at the exhibition table.  It really had been the best rocket; the judges probably only gave it the red ribbon because they knew Richard hadn't built it on his own.

    Jennings crossed the yard and pulled the dented and twisted rocket out of the bush.  Richard didn't want it.  Jennings felt suddenly lost – nobody wanted him.

    “God damn it,” he said.

    Jennings walked around to the front of the house and stood in front of the picture window.  There was movement in there – a flash of light, and movement.  Betsy was probably peering out at him from behind the shades.

    “Fuck you!” Jennings yelled.  “You hear me, Betsy?  Go to hell!”

    A light came on across the street at Mrs. Garcia's, and the old lady's form appeared at a window.

    Jennings walked across the lawn to his car.  He opened the door and tossed the rocket in and then sat down beside it.  It was amazing, really, he thought, how quickly his life had been destroyed – utterly ruined, melted down, smashed beyond repair.  Four hours – five?  Jesus.  He started his car and turned on the lights and sat for a moment, looking at the shiny reflection of the license plate on Betsy's car, wondering what to do next.  The rocket lay on the seat next to him.

Lowell Mick White has had fiction been published in over two dozen journals, most recently in Callaloo , Iron Horse Literary Review, and Short Story.  In 1998 I was awarded the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters.   I am currently a PhD student at Texas A&M University, where I specialize in creative writing, teach prose fiction and freshman composition, and co-edit the journal Big Tex [t].