I Love You, Michael Collins Read online

  “Go on,” I said.

  “The Saturn V rocket fires in three stages, and you light the fuel on fire here,” he said, pointing toward the base of his drawing, “and then—”

  “You light the fuel on fire?” I echoed, stopping him. “That doesn’t seem very bright to me.” I’d seen signs at gas stations—everybody has—telling people not to throw lit matches out the window because of the gas in the tanks. If the flame met the gas, you could end up with a fire or even an explosion. And here, these people down in Cape Kennedy were going to deliberately set fuel on fire? Were they out of their minds? Are you, Michael Collins?

  “It’s the only way,” Buster said. “With a rocket, the burning fuel creates gas. That’s just how it works.”

  Buster stopped talking, looked at me, and waited for me to accept what he’d said. But that was hard to do, because of what I was thinking about.

  “Buster, do you know about Grissom, White, and Chaffee?”

  “Of course. They’re the astronauts who died. Everyone knows about them.”

  I hadn’t, not until recently.

  “Could what happened to them happen to Armstrong, Aldrin, and Michael Collins?” I was still thinking of the foolishness of deliberately setting fuel on fire.

  “That was just an accident,” Buster said, “an awful, horrible accident. But I’m sure that right after that happened, NASA took protective measures to make sure that same exact thing will never, ever happen again.”

  “Phew!” I actually made that noise out loud, releasing a breath I had no idea I’d been holding and yet probably had in a way ever since my dad first mentioned the names Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, and about the tragic thing that had happened to them.

  “I know.” Buster smiled. “It’s a relief, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said, feeling the “Phew!” all over again, only this time on the inside. “The astronauts won’t die.”

  “Oh, they could still die.”

  “What?”

  “A million ways. Probably even a million and one. There are all kinds of things that could still go wrong, just not the same exact things that have gone wrong in the past.”

  I suppose I could’ve asked Buster for examples, and perhaps I should’ve, but frankly, right then I simply did not want to know. And so I kept mostly quiet as Buster’s attention went back to his drawing.

  “So after they set fire to the fuel,” he said, “the Saturn V rocket lifts Apollo 11 straight up in the air and what they call Stage 1 of the rocket burns for a few minutes before falling back to Earth.”

  “Wait. What? They build it all, but it doesn’t all go to the moon?” It made me think about what my dad said, about all the stuff not even being reusable. It also sounded dangerous.

  Buster nodded and went on. “Stage 2 then ignites and it also burns, and then it’s Stage 3’s turn, sending Apollo 11 into orbit and propelling it toward the moon before falling away.”

  I spoke my fear out loud. “But isn’t that dangerous? All that debris just falling down?”

  “Maybe it disintegrates when it hits the atmosphere or something—I don’t know.” Buster shrugged. “I’m not a rocket scientist, Mamie. All I can tell you is, they’ve done this several times before and never had any problems. Well, except for when they’ve had problems.”

  That was hardly reassuring.

  “If the three stages fall away, what’s left?”

  “Only everything else that’s important! Like the Columbia and the Eagle. Oh, but first. See that?” Buster pointed at the top of his drawing, tapping the page. “That there is the escape tower.”

  “Escape tower?”

  “Sure. It’s on top of the Columbia. It has its own rocket and will separate if something goes wrong during the launch.”

  “That’s fantastic! But wait. Only during the launch?”

  “That’s right. But if nothing goes wrong during the launch, the escape tower, like those other things I mentioned, will also jettison—that basically means it falls away—once it’s no longer needed.”

  For a moment there, I had been relieved by the idea of an escape tower. But if you ask me, it’s not much of an option if it goes away so quickly.

  I tried to picture it in my mind, what it would look like: so many pieces falling away, eventually leaving a smaller part of the original to head on up to the moon.

  “When they get close enough,” Buster said, “Armstrong and Aldrin will get in the Eagle and land on the surface of the moon while Michael Collins remains with the Columbia, orbiting.”

  Now there was something I really wanted to know.

  “Why does Michael Collins have to stay with the Columbia?” I asked. “Why can’t he go down to the moon in the Eagle with the other two?”

  Here is one of the things I love about Buster. When I asked that question, he didn’t laugh at me like I was Charlie Brown in Peanuts. He didn’t even smile at me as if to say, But it should be obvious to any idiot! or What a silly question.

  Instead, he just answered, “Because someone has to stay with the ship, keeping it on course, so that there’s a ship to come back to.”

  I nodded. That made sense.

  “Remember how I said a million, maybe even a million and one, things could go wrong?”

  I nodded again.

  “Well, if anything goes wrong with the moon landing, it’s Michael Collins’s job to still return to Earth, even if he has to do so alone.”

  That was too big for my brain: the other astronauts could die and it would be your job, your duty, to come home alone?

  It must have been too big for Buster’s brain, too, because almost immediately, he said, “But that won’t happen. Of course it won’t.”

  “You sure have learned a lot about this quickly,” I said to Buster, because it was true and also because I wanted to steer the subject away from people maybe dying or maybe having to return home alone, at least for a little while.

  “You know me.” Buster shrugged.

  I do.

  “When I become interested in a thing,” he said, “I just have to learn all I can about it.”

  “I know,” I said. “Otherwise you get headaches. But this.” I indicated the table with the Play-Doh model, the Erector set model, the ad for the rocket, and all of Buster’s drawings. “I know that after you first found out about me writing to Michael Collins, you said you were always interested in it but even more so once you knew I was, too. But this.” I waved at the table again. “This is a bit much, even for you.”

  “Is it?” Buster looked around, surprised. “I don’t think so. I mean, of course I’m more interested in anything once you are, too, but as soon as I got started…” He paused. “It’s more than just that now.”

  “Like what? What more?”

  “Holy moly, Mamie! These men are going to the moon! Do you know how incredible that is? Sometimes when I think about it, I have to make myself stop after a bit because the thoughts in my head are so amazing, I worry my mind will maybe explode!”

  “But why?” I said. “Why is it so amazing to you?”

  “Why?” He ran his hands back and forth through his messy hair, making it even worse if possible, like that might help him think more clearly. “Okay, it’s like this. You know how I feel about Batman and Superman, right?”

  I shrugged. “You love them.”

  “Right. But they’re not real.”

  “But you still love them.”

  “And I’ll never not love them! But they’re made-up superheroes. They’re fiction. And fiction is great, don’t get me wrong. The astronauts, though? They’re real live superheroes, attempting to do the most extraordinary thing that any human being has ever attempted. And if they can pull this off? Who knows what people will be able to do next?”

  I had to admit, when he put it like that, his excitement made perfect sense.

  We sat in silence for a bit, thinking on the enormity of it all, until a thought crept back into my brain.

/>   “But Michael Collins will get to go another time, right?” I said. “If Apollo 11 is successful, they’ll let him go to the moon again and even walk on it, won’t they?”

  “Of course not,” Buster said.

  “How come?”

  “There are too many other astronauts in the space program. NASA will never use him again, not for something like this. They’ll send other people.”

  Like with the stuff I read about you in the library, I’m sure you know all of this already. But it was absolutely news to me, Michael Collins. I never realized before what it meant, how much danger you are in and how you will come so close and yet never, ever get to walk on the moon.

  It is a lot to think about.

  Sincerely yours,

  Mamie

  Tuesday, July 15, 1969

  Dear Michael Collins,

  Perhaps you will notice something different about this letter to you. For the first time, I have put the date at the top of it. That is because, with you set to leave Earth tomorrow, it seems important to record the days and sometimes even the hours and the minutes.

  You may have noticed something else, too. This is the first time I have written to you in several days. I have been keeping silent because, with your important mission ahead, I did not want to be a distraction. But since I know that any letter I write to you today, or any letters I may write to you in the week or so to follow, won’t reach you until after you’ve survived the journey, which I hope does happen, I feel free to write once more.

  I have also been busy the past several days. What I have been doing is playing “astronauts” with Buster and drinking Tang. Astronauts is a game we made up in which we are the Apollo 11 crew, heading off to the moon. In the game, Buster is Neil Armstrong and I am you. Since we don’t have another neighborhood friend, what to do about Buzz Aldrin presented a bit of a problem. At first we were going to use one of my old stuffed animals—I thought the giraffe would make a good choice—but then Buster got the idea to have my cat do it. So Campbell is our Buzz. I carry her over to Buster’s house. Or, if we get kicked outside, we provide close supervision of the cat. I must say, Campbell is not the most exciting flight companion. She keeps falling asleep. But still, with her we are three and that is enough. And whenever we play astronauts, Michael Collins? We always, always survive the journey.

  Along with the day I found out Buster wasn’t mad at me after all for writing you and the day that I discovered how spectacular the library is, this is the best day so far this summer. Tomorrow is just drawing closer and closer, like a rocket zooming toward us, and it is all I can think about or Buster can talk about. When the clock said a few minutes after nine-thirty this morning, I thought he was going to die. “Holy moly! Less than twenty-four hours away now!” I think I was just as excited, but I was definitely quieter about it.

  Then dinnertime came around, as it tends to do every day, and excitement about tomorrow was put into a holding pattern.

  My mom had made spaghetti and meatballs, which is normally one of my favorite things to eat. But not when it’s so hot out. Buster says that for you astronauts, you’ll still get to eat on your journey, but that the food is dried powder in a plastic bag that you mix with water from a water gun and then drink straight from the plastic bag. He says you can’t have food in regular form because of the gravity situation on the ship, plus it’s dangerous to your mission. The food could just float anywhere, and what would happen if you got green peas in your controls? So you have to survive on liquefied food from tomorrow until your return. I don’t think I’d mind it so much with soup, but I’m not sure about drinking liquefied spaghetti and meatballs.

  Buster also says that I don’t want to know about what you three are going to have to do about going to the bathroom while in space, and I’ll tell you something: Buster is right. I most definitely do not want to know that.

  Anyway, there I was, sweating over my spaghetti and meatballs. And there my mom was, looking cool in her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless top, and pearls—no matter how hot the weather, she always manages to look cool, which is one of life’s mysteries. And there my dad was, still in his work clothes, which consist of navy-blue pants and a navy-blue button-down shirt with a white T-shirt underneath and boots and a belt, but with clean hands, since he always washes his hands first thing when he comes in the door. And there was Bess, though in body only, not in spirit. If Bess had her way, she’d be with Vinny every second of the day and evening, but Dad draws the line at dinnertime on weeknights. He says a family that doesn’t eat together is like no kind of family at all. I think that’s what he took the hardest about Eleanor moving out: not being able to see her face at the dinner table every night. Even though my mom stood up to my dad when Eleanor wanted to move out, I know my mom misses having Eleanor at the table, too, since Eleanor is the one most like my mom.

  Perhaps the reason my mom looked so cool was because, unlike me, she didn’t have the heat from the spaghetti and meatballs steaming up into her face. And that is because she’d pushed her plate away, her food uneaten. In its stead, she had a notepad and pencil, and she was making a list.

  My dad ate in silence, using a big spoon to twirl his spaghetti against with the fork like he does, but he kept looking over at her with curiosity. Who could blame him? I wanted to know what was on that list, too. But he wasn’t going to ask her, and if he wasn’t, then I couldn’t either. I’d just have to hope she’d tell us in good time. And that whatever was on the list, it would be something happy and not something that would become grounds for another “discussion.”

  “Okay,” she finally said, as though she’d been in the midst of a conversation with someone. “I’ve got red with the Jell-O and white with the deviled eggs.” She tapped her pencil against her lower lip. “But what am I going to do for blue?” She turned to me. “Mamie, can you think of any blue foods?”

  “You could dye frosting blue like you did for the Fourth of July,” I said, starting to feel excited, hoping this was going where I thought it might be going. “Or even a whole cake. Come to think of it, I’ll bet you could dye almost anything blue.”

  “True. But I was hoping for something different, more natural. I was hoping not to have to dye anything.”

  “Jell-O’s not naturally red,” my dad spoke up.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “Read the box. It’s got dye in it.”

  “I suppose you must be right. Of course it does. Oh, well.” She shrugged. “Dyed frosting it is. Okay, I was also thinking cocktail franks for hors d’oeuvres and maybe, for the punch, I’d start with a base of Tang?”

  “Tang?” my dad said.

  “Have you ever tried Tang?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said, looking more interested in me than she had the past few days. “Why, have you?”

  “Uh-huh. At Buster’s request, Buster’s mom’s been buying it for us instead of Hi-C.”

  “And?”

  “I’m getting used to it. But let’s just say it’s very tangy.” I considered for a bit. “I suppose, if you added other things to it, though—perhaps some vanilla ice cream, in which case it might taste like a cough-medicine Creamsicle—and didn’t rely on it for the whole of the punch, you might end up with something okay.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Mamie.”

  I felt proud I could help her out like that, but the good feeling didn’t last for long because, apparently, my dad had had enough.

  “Marlene,” he said to her, “do you want to tell me just what the blazes is going on here?”

  She didn’t bother to answer. Instead, she tapped her pencil against her lip some more. “Whom to invite? Of course, Eleanor will come home for this. But who else?”

  I hoped that, whatever she was planning, she’d include Buster’s family. But I knew she wouldn’t. We’re just not those kinds of neighbors. Or at least Buster’s parents and my parents aren’t.

  “The Carlsons?” she suggested, more to herself than
anyone else. “The McGuires? Maybe the—”

  “I thought I said no Launch Party,” my dad said, cutting her off.

  “You did, Frank,” she said calmly, meeting his eyes for the first time, “and I heard you, loud and clear. There will be no Launch Party in this house.”

  “Good,” he said with a grim nod.

  “I realized you were right,” she said.

  “I was?” he said.

  “Of course. Aren’t you always? And how silly of me. Why, the astronauts are lifting off tomorrow morning and it’s a weekday. I don’t suppose you’re going to take the day off to watch with us? Or at least the morning?”

  “Of course not. I have to work. I can’t be taking time off for this nonsense the whole country’s gone crazy over.”

  “Right. You never take time off for any nonsense, do you, Frank?”

  “No point in being lazy or crazy.”

  “Exactly. As soon as I realized you wouldn’t be here to watch with us tomorrow, I saw how silly I was being. We can’t throw a party if you’re not even here.”

  “Then what’s all this?” He waved a hand at her notepad and her pencil and her in general. “You’re obviously planning a party, one I’ve been told nothing about, a party that somehow requires red and white and blue food items. Now, what I would like to know is: What sort of party might that be?”

  It’s not so hard keeping something to yourself when no one’s asking you questions, but when someone does? And it’s the right question?

  Now that he’d asked it, it was like a light going on and a dam opening, all at once. Unable to contain her excitement, my mom reached across the table and covered my dad’s hand with hers.

  “A Moonwalk Party, Frank! Think about it! In just a few days, men will be walking on the moon. And what better way to enjoy it than with our family, with our friends. We could all gather around the TV and have great food and drinks and—”

  “No.” He removed his hand from hers.

  Yet she just kept going when even I could have told her it was no use.