Gideon
by Michael F. Flynn
Illustration by Vincent Di Fate
Flaco had known that it would be I bad, but he had no idea how bad it would be until Serafina called him by every name he had.
“José Eduardo Gonsalves y Mercado! You cannot be serious!”
Flaco leaned against the frame of the open window and stared at the snarling traffic on Fort Washington Avenue, four stories below. At the grimy sidewalks, at the tight-packed throng of people passing one another in rigid isolation. At the dealers and the hookers and the hustlers hanging on the street corner—the corner of “Powder and Pussy”—waiting for the cars from the burbs to come and deal. He would give anything to leave this place; to find Serafina a home somewhere bright and green, where flowers grew The Sun was still high and the breeze that rippled the dingy white curtains of the apartment brought no relief from the July heat.
Flaco shrugged and stepped into the kitchenette of their two-room flat. He pulled a six pack of El Presidente from the refrigerator, snapped one can out of its ring and tossed it to Serafina. He took another one for himself and rubbed it across his forehead and the side of his face. The icy condensation on the can let him forget for the moment how hot it was in the city. Even the sleeveless undershirt he wore did not help. “It is a wonderful opportunity,” he said.
“An opportunity to kill yourself!” Serafina shook her fist at Flaco. The fist holding the can. It would be a bad thing, Flaco thought, to be near that can when it finally opened. He popped his tab one-handed with his thumb, and poured half the contents down his throat. Then he put the can to his forehead again and rolled it back and forth. Serafina could not understand how important this opportunity was for them…
“The company will take good care of us,” he told her.
“The company cares only about the money!” she said.
“Righteous beans,” he said, switching to English. It was not so grand a language as Spanish, but it did have its own peculiar charms. “They spend all that money training us,” he continued in the same tongue, “they gonna take real good care of us when we’re upstairs.” He ought to speak English more often. It would be important when they made the final selections. They wouldn’t take along anyone who couldn’t talk to his crewmates.
“You’re crazy, Flaco. My mother always told me never marry a Dominican. They’re all crazy.”
Flaco reached out and grabbed Serafina by the waist and held her tight against him. “That’s why we come after you Boriqua girls. You drive us crazy.”
“Flaco…” She pushed against his embrace, but not too hard. He was a skinny man, but wiry, with arms as strong as cable. You work as a rigger, you had to be strong. And there were worse places for Serafina to be than in her husband’s arms.
“I told you all about the hazard pay and the bonus. No place to spend money in orbit, so you and me, we have a good pile when I come back. Enough maybe to buy us a nice house.” Telling her about the hazard pay, that had been his mistake. Hazard pay meant hazard. Well, rigging was always dangerous, if you didn’t know what you were doing. Be some special dangers up in space, Tucker had told him. Yeah. So, they wouldn’t need people like Flaco, otherwise. “Be plenty money,” he told her as he insinuated his free hand between them, rubbing it over the hard, flat surface of her belly—not yet swelling with his son. “Set little ‘Memo’ up in style!”
“Mmm,” she said, pressing against him. “You’re still crazy.” But she said that while she kissed him.
His fingertips found the waist of her jeans and he pushed them inside. Serafina squeaked… and pulled the tab on her beer can.
The spray spattered them both with the ice-cold liquid. It drenched the white undershirt he wore. Serafina laughed and danced away and Flaco chased after her. She ran behind the sofa and they faked left and faked right, and then Flaco leaped over the back of the sofa. She whooped and dodged him.
He cornered her finally in the bedroom; but they had both known when they started that he would.
Ossa and Pelion Heavy Construction held its qualifying trials at Pegasus Field, several miles south of Phoenix, Arizona. The company shuttle bus from Sky Harbor rolled through a different country than the one Flaco knew. He had never seen so much empty space, or so few people. It gave him the shivers. A dull-colored bird burst from the roadside brush and darted across the highway in front of the bus. The driver said it was a roadrunner and one of the other men on board said, “Beep-beep!” The way the driver laughed, Flaco figured he’d heard that one already.
The Pegasus complex was a half dozen low-profile adobe-tech buildings set in an arch around a broad landing field. The airport shuttle dropped Flaco and two other men at the administration building in the center. They stood with their duffel bags in the hot, desert wind, wondering where to go next. A large bronze of a winged horse reared above the main doors directly in front of them. Through the gap between the admin building and the next one to the left, Flaco could see spaceships squatting on the field. Three of them were the small ballistic ships that flew Earth-to-Earth; but the big one with the scorch marks was an Orbiter.
Flaco stopped a man in brown coveralls who seemed to know where he was going, and asked him where the riggers who wanted to work on the space station were supposed to meet. The man gave them directions and Flaco thanked him. As they set off, one of Flaco’s companions spoke.
“Do you know who that was, ’mano?” Tonio Portales was a thickset Miami Cuban who had joined Flaco s flight in St. Louis.
“Who?”
“That dude you stopped for directions. His name tag… that was Ned DuBois.”
Flaco shifted his duffel bag to his shoulder for an easier grip. “DuBois? Wasn’t he the man who—”
“Yeah,” said Tonio. “He was ‘The Man Who.’ First dude ever took one of those Plank ships into space.”
Flaco grunted. “He still flying? I was just a kid back then.”
“You chust ein kid now.” Sepp Bauer, Flaco’s other companion, had joined them at the Pegasus shuttle stop in Phoenix Sky Harbor. He had come from some place called Karlsruhe by way of JFK, and spoke an English so badly accented that Flaco could barely understand him.
“I mean that was, what, nine years ago, right? I was only thirteen. In middle school. They showed it on a big screen in assembly. Remember how they thought his co-pilot was lost in space, but DuBois found him anyway?”
They found the check-in table just inside the entrance to the second building. Flaco showed the first woman his driver’s license and she gave him a name badge with his O&P company photograph already on it. The others had to look into a vidcam and have their images scanned onto cards. The “pix-pics” looked as bad as anything ever captured on film. The second woman checked his plane ticket against a computer screen and gave him a chit that he could use for reimbursement later. The third woman gave him a folder stuffed with all sorts of documents.
“There are forms in here for you to fill out,” the third woman explained. “O&P employment form. Government tax forms. This…” she pulled one out and showed it to him, “…is an application for a green card. Because this phase of the construction is being managed out of Phoenix, an American work permit will be required.”
Flaco grunted. “No necesito una tarjeta verde.” His parents had brought him to the States from the Republic when he was eight, but he didn’t see why he had to explain himself to anyone, least of all to a down-your-nose Chicana. Boriquas and Cubans were enough to put up with.
The woman looked doubtful, but shrugged. “Your packet also includes today’s agenda, ’mano,” she continued, “plus a map of that part of the facility you are allowed into.”