“That hurts,” Keith said.
“This is fucking shit.”
Keith laughed.
“Funny maybe,” Peter said.
“Fucking shit,” Keith said.
“Yes,” Peter said. A pause. Then: “Luda has brother with idea to come to America. Then her mother. Then finally Luda. And it seemed like maybe it would be better idea than whatever was in Ukraine. America is dream place for us. Like this. In my dream, things could happen like in Golosiiv. The scientists there wrote me letter of introduction to astronomers at American university so I thought there would be job waiting for me here. They told me that there was.”
“Who told you?”
“University here. Better pay than at Golosiiv and same kind of work. Laboratory assistant position and I can take classes for free. So I tell Luda that we will move to United States and she and her mother and her brother all are very happy to hear this. I am happy too because this looks like I have job at university.” His voice trailed off. Stopped. Silence now. Keith in his drunken, painkiller haze, head drifting against the sofa. Peter silent somewhere. The stars in their places. The stars everywhere.
“No job?” Keith said at last.
“What?”
“No job at the university?”
Peter quiet for a moment. Then: “No job.” A pause. “It is not so good here as we thought maybe. The economy like Ukraine. Lots of people losing jobs. Some of it good for us. We got here and we think it is very good because houses are cheap and they are everywhere for sale. Very good. But it is not good. It is same as Ukraine maybe. So many people with no jobs. The university does not hire me. University does not hire anyone.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, shit. That is right. Shit for me. So Luda’s brother gets job and so we do not even live by university anyway. We live here because Luda’s brother is dishwasher in restaurant and he has work here but he cannot even get me job washing dishes because there are no jobs now for anyone. Miracle maybe he has any job.”
“You wouldn’t want a job washing dishes anyway.”
“Maybe not but more money than Target.”
“I guess.”
“This is true. And he cleans up tables too and gets money for this.”
“Tips.”
“Yes, tips. That is money right into your pocket.”
Keith sipping at his beer. How many? He had lost count. “What about the college?”
“What about it?”
“You take classes there?”
“I take English there and I take all astronomy classes, but they do not have much.”
“No, I imagine it’s not like the telescope in Kiev.”
“They do not have telescope. Just this.” He pointed to the telescope: a collection of sharp angles against the deep blue sky. “They let me take this home because I take so many classes. But it is like toy really. Not real telescope. But I should not complain. At least I have this.”
“I guess so.”
“How do they say it? Beggars can’t be choosers? You have heard this?”
“Yes.”
“That is my life story. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Maybe that’s not true,” Keith said, his eyes closed now, so drunk that his voice came as a slurring, blurred mess of syllables, the consonants with their long flattened-out shapes, the vowels like the moaning of ghosts.
“Oh, this is true,” Peter said. The telescope somewhere behind them. Then: “Your girlfriend is watching us, I think,” he said.
“Who?”
“Your pretty neighbor.”
Keith looked at the house. Again he could see her figure in the window: the cut of her shape in a nightgown against the lit interior of the house. “Her daughter thinks it’s weird that we’re out here,” he said.
“It is weird,” Peter said.
“You’re probably right.”
“I am right. Before it was just me with telescope. Now we have Astronaut Keith Corcoran. And sofa. That is weird part.”
“Me or the furniture?”
“Both I think, but mostly sofa.”
“Well, it’s a comfortable sofa.”
“It is,” Peter said, falling then into a long silence. Then, loud enough to make Keith’s eyes jerk open with a start: “Fucking shit!”
And Keith actually chuckling and then laughing and Peter: “What? Laughing at me? What?” and then starting to chuckle himself, both of them in their various states: stoned and drunk and laughing in that bleak darkness under a million wheeling stars.
Fourteen
Days and nights, not of eclipse but akin to a perpetual twilight that seemed to bathe everything in a thin and insubstantial dimness as if his eyesight had shifted so subtly that he did not even know he was squinting, not only the far distance blurred but the whole of his experience covered in a wispy film of half-light so that clarity itself became a kind of abstraction. He knew that some of the medications he had been taking were meant to treat depression and he had continued to take them not because he thought they had any real effect on his body or his mind but rather because he did what the doctor told him to do as if it were a military order, which indeed it somewhat resembled, but his mind continued to cast itself against the rocks over and over again despite the constant flow of pills. If he was being treated for depression it had become clear that such treatment was no longer working if it had ever worked at all.
And so the same sense of quiet that had settled over him upon first returning to the cul-de-sac had now been met with a kind of gloaming. He had updated his phone number at JSC and with Sally Erler and the latter’s call represented the only time his phone actually rang, the realtor calling with a further confirmation of the young couple buying the house. There was paperwork to be signed and he suggested they meet at Starbucks rather than at the house and she breathed a long sigh of relief and agreed. When they met, she ran through the offer in detail and he signed and signed and signed the various lengthy and incomprehensible pages. He was surprised to see that Barb’s signatures were already in place, a feat accomplished via overnight mail, and so with his last signature all required parties had signed. Two months. Slightly less than that now. Then he would need to be gone.
She had arranged a variety of inspections and he had a duplicate key made and then purchased a welcome mat so that he could leave the key beneath it at the front door, thereby ensuring that he need not be home for the inspections to continue. A business card on the kitchen island from Buddy’s Termite Service was the only evidence he saw that any inspections had occurred. If there were other inspections besides this one, he was unaware.
He still had not spoken to Barb since changing his mobile number but her e-mails were frequent, waffling between angry diatribes and calm pleas for some access to Keith’s paycheck. He did not respond. The only reason to be in any contact whatsoever was related to the impending house sale and he had decided that Sally Erler could handle that herself and obviously she already had.
Peter was not always in the field after dark but he had taken to stopping by Keith’s door and knocking gently when he was passing and Keith would be inside waiting for the knock, listening for it, had even begun to be disappointed when it did not come. Of course there were nights when Peter was busy inside his own furnished home with his two children and his wife but most evenings Peter would knock and Keith would step outside with him, a six-pack of beer under his arm. Together they would trudge out into the field, Keith collapsing into the sofa as Peter set up the telescope. They would look at a few stars. Nebulae. Clusters. Planets. Sometimes they would talk about their lives. Other times they would sit in silence, each to his own quiet thoughts.