“I think we’re stuck here,” Robin said, after we’d been knocking on doors for ninety minutes with no luck.
“That’s not the attitude that got you theater jobs,” Michael said.
“I’ll be honest. At this point, I’m thinking that what I’d like to do with my maybe-last-day-on-earth is not knock on doors all afternoon. Let’s see the local sights, if there are any.”
Belle Fourche’s big thing, if you can call it that, is the Geographic Center of the United States, which was recalculated by the National Geodetic Survey after the addition of Alaska and Hawaii. (The center of the lower 48 is in Kansas, which is probably about where you’d expect it.) The actual technical true Geographic Center is about twenty miles out of town, but there was a Monument with a nice sculpture a mile walk from Patty’s Place, so we walked over to the Center of the Nation Monument and I took a picture of Robin and Michael together, and then they took a picture of me.
One of the parks had a playground and there were some families there with kids and dogs. I wondered if the kids knew anything about what was going on. Even if their parents didn’t tell them about it, they were probably overhearing stuff from the TV and the radio. Still, they were running around and looking like they weren’t worrying about it.
Robin and Michael decided to book a room at the Super 8 and encouraged me to book one, too. “When we don’t all die, everyone’s going to think, ‘oops, didn’t die, better find a room,’ and you’ll be glad you have one. And if we do all die, you won’t have to pay your Visa bill.” There was an older man working the front desk; I wondered if he was the owner, like Patty. He gave us our keys. I tucked mine in my pocket and then, for lack of anywhere else to go, we walked back across the street to Patty’s.
Patty’s had gotten more crowded; people were getting tables and just camping out there. But there was an awkward little table for three in a corner she squeezed us into and we ordered more drinks and more food and settled in. “Probably for the duration,” Robin admitted.
“A lot of people are doing that,” Patty said, looking around. “I’d say it’s about half people like you who got stranded here today when they ran out of gas, and half locals who don’t want to sit at home. People were coming and going for a while but now they’re just coming. No one wants to be alone tonight, I guess.”
The asteroid was going to hit, or miss, at 9:34 p.m. Belle Fourche time. It took a little over 3 hours to drive from Belle Fourche to Pierre, so as the clock ticked toward 6 p.m., I knew my decision had more or less been made for me.
But then Patty came bustling over, an older couple in tow. “Are you the girl who was trying to get to Pierre? Because these folks are going to Pierre to see their daughter and they have enough gas they’ll probably make it, they think.”
“As long as you don’t mind dogs,” the woman said. “Because you’ll have to share the back seat with our two beagles.”
“What’s the address in Pierre?” the man asked, and punched my parents’ address into his phone. “Yeah, that’s almost right on our way.”
I imagined knocking on my parents’ door. Waiting for the answer, like we’d done with all the people we’d tried to buy gas from. My parents’ house had a peephole, and you could hear their footsteps inside so you knew they’d come to the door and were peering out at you, deciding whether to open up. I’d know Mom was looking at me, measuring me with her eyes, looking at my short-cropped hair, the frayed collar of my shirt, assessing whether I was penitent. Penitent enough.
I could see myself standing on that front step, in the dark, these nice people waiting to see me safe inside, until I had to turn around and admit it wasn’t going to open.
Or if it did…
What I wanted was to see my parents smile. What I wanted was for them to welcome me.
Did I really think that news of an impending asteroid would have changed who my parents were? Who they needed me to be?
I turned and looked at Robin and Michael. They gave me hesitant smiles, like they didn’t want to discourage me from leaving, but like they were biting their tongues. I could see Robin furrow her brow, like she was imagining the same things I was and they worried her.
I turned back to the people with the beagles. “No, thank you,” I said. “That’s a very kind offer, but I thought about it and I’ve decided to stay here for the night. Thanks, though.”
They headed out. I settled back into my seat. Robin said, “I’m glad you’re staying.”
“I’m glad I have someone to stay with,” I said.
At 9 p.m. everyone went outside to the parking lot.
It was dark out. Someone from the town had dragged out a box of fireworks left over from last year’s 4th of July and everyone took turns lighting them off, including me. (Mom had never let us have fireworks when I was a kid, because we might blow ourselves up, but if there was ever a time for YOLO, it’s when there’s a 4.3 kilometer asteroid on a collision course for earth.) Some of the stale fireworks fizzled and went out. Others shot up into the sky and gave us a shower of sparkles. Despite how nervous everyone was, things took on a weird, almost festive air. Maybe we were all going to die in a few minutes: might as well enjoy the show until then.
“Do you think we’ll be able to see anything before it hits us?” I asked. “What’s it going to look like?”
“One of the scientists on the TV said it would look like a tiny star and get bigger, if it was coming towards us. We’ll definitely see it coming. But it could hit the other side of the planet, and we’ll have no clue.”
At 9:34, someone shouted, “There it is.”
We could see something moving in the sky. It wasn’t very big, but it was definitely moving. Was it getting bigger? I realized I was holding my breath. For a second I thought it was getting bigger; a moment later I was sure it wasn’t. The slightly-bigger-than-average, slightly-blurry star moved across the sky and disappeared.
There was a long pause, and then we ran back inside the restaurant to see what they were saying on CNN.
The optimistic scientist Shjefte was either back on, or still on. He was jumping up and down—literally jumping up and down, clapping his hands—screaming “it missed, it missed, it missed, it missed, it missed!” So apparently all his optimistic talk about throwing pennies onto a football field was bravado. “I’m going to call all my friends, I’m going to write a book, I’m going to go see Petra,” he shouted, just before the TV got turned off.
We could hear cheering from the town beyond the restaurant, and more people were setting off fireworks. Robin and Michael kissed like it was New Year’s Eve. Someone at the diner had chilled a bunch of bottles of champagne and Patty popped it open, and everyone drank it out of coffee mugs, and we were all a weepy mess for a while.
And then there was a run on hotel rooms, and I was awfully glad that Robin and Michael had suggested I get one early.
“Are you going back to Spokane?”
The gas truck had come and gone: we’d waited until the line had dissipated, then filled up both our gas tanks. I must have been down to about the last quarter-cup, given how much gas I put in.