Shape

Last week, Goddard Space Center. Seventy-foot blast doors open onto a windowless white room big enough to fit King Kong. Buried in the far wall: enormous speakers capable of pulverizing a man to dust with their vibration. “Their frequency mimics that of the launch vehicle on takeoff,” says my guide. “We use this chamber to see if anything will break apart because of the sound waves.” We head out again, weaving past a plastic-draped clean room where workers in static-free bunny suits inject fuel into a satellite, eventually coming to a suspiciously normal-sized door. Beyond: a centrifuge with a hundred-foot diameter, the central node a nest of steel girders capable of spinning a five-ton object at 33 rpm; your tax dollars at jaw-dropping work.

The Line Begins to Blur

June, and here comes The Hard Part, the potential crucible of my annihilation (“Oh God,” Dad said in response that particular phrase, when I briefly swung by the family abode after Goddard. “Child, do not drop your nihilistic bullshit on me.”). Three countries, five different stories whose details need to move at least somewhat in sync if I’m to come out the other end of the month in one piece. I love it, and the fact that I love it depresses me. In some alternate reality I’ve already taken a portion of my ill-gotten gains and moved to Vancouver or some small town in the Carolinas, where I help run a coffee shop while writing novels and short stories on the side. I practice guitar on a porch until my fingers bleed and the dogs howl; spend weeks learning how to craft a perfect latte, or make flapjacks that have the regulars applauding; grow scruff and drive an old jeep and grow my own herbs and tea; watch the night lightning roll over the dark and ancient hills. Freud says such dreams are death wishes; but I have no wish to die. Eventually your bloody race comes to an end, though, one way or the other. Eventually the time comes to speed away from the wonderful chaos, even if your eyes tear up as you glance in the rearview mirror.

Gee, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little!

Shut up. I have a knife.

Tell ‘em what brought on this latest bout of mawkishness, N., aside from stress.

Captain Angry was in town over the weekend. We stopped by this bar at the north end of Chinatown that I frequent when the mood strikes, a dark wooden cube where the beers are cheap and nobody puts on the excessive airs you find in some of those stark-white and ultra-priced establishments downtown. Maybe it was because we were both exhausted (him from driving; me from tending the night previous to an under-the-weather A.), but our dialogue lacked that wiseguy-on-speed energy it had back when we were 22 and doing dirty literary deeds for God and Country. Maybe we just didn’t need to impress one another, or maybe we’ve (gasp) matured. In any case, glancing at my reflection in the ornate mirror behind the bar, I had a moment where my adult life coalesced into definite shape, complete with terminus.