The monkey handler met Holly in the Meditation Sphere. Holly was used to the weight of a man. Pushing and leaning, letting down on top of her, her breasts usually rolled and flopped how all do. Her butt was a weight that kept her thoughts from lofting. In space, sex was astounding. They laughed it was so great, maneuvering in one position then spinning spontaneously into others. The monkey handler held the ceiling handles and Holly floated freely. Her breasts were buoyant as floats. Sex made sense in outer space. His penis was a thing that kept them together.
* * *
One day, Dale suited up in full gear and to much fanfare ventured in the airlock and out the explore hatch. Hovering in real-deal space as Holly called it, he tethered a satellite to the Spec 5’s exterior. They watched Dale from a porthole and Holly whispered to the monkey handler, “This is like Star Trek!” He smiled and she said, “I mean, more than usual.” With a grin, Rory started the craft back in motion with Dale still outside. His startled scream sent Holly hysterical and he admonished them from his headset. Justine couldn’t help laughing as she regained control of the spacecraft. When Dale climbed in the airlock, he tried to laugh. Slowly, he unsuited. To Rory’s apology he gave a forced smile then disappeared into his lab.
Exiting the Meditation Sphere, Holly tried to smooth her hair, but it had been messy the whole trip. Inside, the monkey handler was still struggling to get dressed. With their clothes flying around, it sometimes reminded him of a washing machine. Holly tried to lean against the wall while fixing her bra. When she looked up, Dale was glaring at her from mid-deck. Her hands went to fix her hair. Her hair was unfixable and she stared back. A bit of fuzz flew through the air, and she instinctually leapt for it, as if it were evidence.
Dale screamed at Holly, but it was hard to hear what. He drifted into the wall and then punched the wall. He propelled himself away from her. He spotted Costello on the ceiling and threw a water bag at him, but it drifted downwards instead. He floated angrily into the kitchen area and squeezed a banana from its peel. Costello tried to catch it. The banana wobbled through the air, peel-less, naked. Dale gave a snort, then squeezed all the bananas from their peels. He threw open the food drawers and tossed out the vitamin pellets, trail mix, the M & Ms, freeze-dried steak, powdered soup, all into the air where they formed a swarm of junk. Rory heard the commotion and walked into the mess. She put her hands in and tried to clear a space. She tried to find a bag, a bin, anything, but Dale was in her way. If she could just herd the mess. Holly pushed her way through and Dale pushed her back. Justine couldn’t see past the mess. Dale advanced towards Holly, flailing and wild, he shoved her back into Costello’s room. Rory tried to hang onto her, but he shoved her too. Justine tried to calm Costello, who was rushing towards the group, and it happened so quickly, in the thick of hundreds of hovering M&Ms, the trail mix and water bags, vitamins floating in a mass like a convenience store destroyed, the sliding dislodge door shut and locked, and Justine, Holly, Rory and Costello were launched in the faulty capsule while Dale fumed in the Spec 5, the monkey handler in the Sphere, still fumbling after his socks.
* * *
The four space stragglers drifted through relatively empty regions of the universe. There was dark matter and dark energy. There was cosmic microwave background radiation, but Holly had since stopped asking for definitions. She knew there was no friction in space and she felt this now, in a faulty dislodge capsule with two astronauts and an adolescent male chimp. In their possession, the dislodge capsule (a 15’ x 10’ x 10’ interior space complete with the same ropes and handles they’d grown so used to), a space toilet, two sleeping bags (with ties to hold them down), a CD player, a CD, Costello’s collection of rubber balls, a plant that died in one of Dale’s experiments, pictures of Thelonious Monk, Jane Goodall, and Manny Ramirez that the monkey handler and Costello had taped to the walls days earlier, Costello’s hairbrush, an early draft of Costello’s I Don’t Know Outer Space, a deck of space cards (made with Velcro and played on a special board), a stash of nicotine patches and an extensive medical kit. There were water bags and snacks, but only enough for a few days. Justine calculated their daily allotment.
Their initial hours in the capsule were wrought with dread. Holly would cry and the others didn’t reassure her, they shared the same cold fate. Costello signed that the monkey handler was his best friend. He signed that he hoped he would see him soon and Holly quickly signed soon! Rory and Justine spoke of Dale with pent-up hatred, recalling every prickish thing he’d ever done, said, thought, insinuated. Then they couldn’t stand his name and no one would utter it.
The confusion, anger, and panic melted to something jokes could cut through and they tried to enjoy their last hours. “We’ve already died. To float in space is already death,” said Rory. Holly agreed. It was unnatural to be alive so far from their habitat. Holly took Rory’s hair out of its bun. She braided it and then undid the braid. “When I was 13 and was just starting to use deodorant, I used to put it behind my knees and on the insides of my elbows. I thought any angle like that you were supposed to put deodorant on.” Holly combed the hair with her fingers, she divided it in half. “I used to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night. I was like five years old. I would eat butter like it was a bar of chocolate.” Holly had Rory hold one section of hair. She had invented three new kinds of French braid since they’d begun their final mission, as Rory called it.
Exile on Main Street was played frequently, and though back on ground Holly would have claimed to know all the words, having listened to that album so much in college, she now saw her prior knowledge was only the meager beginnings of the in-depth relationship that she and Exile were fated to share. They were all experts on it and close listenings led them to wonder if The sunshine bores the daylights out of me/ Chasing shadows moonlight mystery was a reference to space travel. Were they chasing shadows moonlight mystery? Justine said they were barely moving. They were reaching.
Holly taught Rory and Justine all the sign language she knew, and through performance, Costello taught them more. He taught them cigarette. He taught them car, chair, dirt, tree. They had a jumping jack contest. They got tired. They got antsy. They cried and felt bad for themselves.
Rory did a breathing exercise while Holly closed her eyes and recited her memories. “There was a farm scene painted on my wallpaper, repeated again and again in a pattern. I climbed out of my crib and got two black eyes. I was not hurt, but every time I saw myself in the mirror, I would scream.” Rory buckled herself to the wall and did leg stretches. “He was the cutest boy in school and we were the first kids to ‘go out,’ so all our friends were really excited. Our parents would drop us at the movies and we’d be in this huge group of kids. He kissed my hand on the bus and it was a big deal.”
Costello told them about learning sign language, how he always knew how, because his mother was a ‘signer,’ and so signed to him when he was a baby. Costello had been to many jungles and met many monkeys. He had signed with children all over the world. He did not like working on his book. Holly urged him to finish it, but he refused to talk about space. Holly taught him how to give a massage. They played “Rock Paper Scissor,” which always made Costello laugh, and with vigor he bashed the scissor and cut the paper, emphatically he covered the rock. But Costello grew bored and homesick, and the others felt the same. They slept and dreamt. Holly had a dream where Dale rescued them and they laughed at him. She had one where she was making out with Justine. She didn’t share these dreams. Rory had a dream where Costello had a baby and this dream they all liked. Costello thought it was a good idea. When Rory brushed him, he wanted to keep the wad of hair, his baby.