Jumping Off the Planet Read online

  Dad ignored it. Instead, he pointed south. "Look, you can almost see the beanstalk from here."

  We squinted into the darkness. I couldn't see anything. Not at first.

  "Look for a very, very thin line," Dad said. "Find the line. It'll be high. Up out of the shadow cone. About ten o'clock high. Maybe eleven o'clock."

  Weird was the first. "I think I see it," he said. "Is that it?"

  "Where?"

  "There."

  "Oh—oh yeah!"

  It was like looking at a razor blade edge on. It shimmered in and out of existence. First it was there, then it wasn't. We could only see a little bit of it, but even so, it seemed to stretch impossibly upward against the darkness. The orbital elevator, a braided strand of mono-filament nearly 72,000 kilometers long.

  "We should be able to see it better tomorrow night," Dad said. As if that meant something. "It's the stepping-stone to the stars."

  His voice sounded so wistful I turned to look at him. I hadn't heard him sound that way about anything for years—the last time was when he guided me through the fourth movement of Copland's Third Symphony, showing me why it was such a masterpiece. It was when I was nine and got to sit in on the rehearsal for one of his concerts. He was very proud that day. He introduced me to everybody. I sat behind him on the podium, and every so often he would stop to explain something to me—and to the musicians as well. But we'd never done it again after that, and I always wondered what I'd done wrong. Not too long after that, the arguments between him and Mom started getting worse, and he'd started staying away more and more, and then Mom moved us to El Paso to be closer to Gramma and Grampa, only they died—

  "Would you like to go there someday?" Dad asked.

  "Huh?—Where?"

  Dad pointed to the sky. "Anywhere. Out there."

  "You mean, the star colonies?"

  "Sure."

  "You'd have to win the lottery. Two lotteries."

  "Mm, maybe. Maybe not," Dad said. "Some of the colonies will pay your way if you'll promise to stay for seven years. And if you have a needed skill. And children."

  "Indentured servitude," said Weird. "That means you'd be a slave."

  "It's not so bad, Douglas. The jobs all fall under the guidelines of the Corporate Treaty of Singapore."

  "Yeah, Dad—and who enforces the rules eight point three light-years from Singapore?"

  "The Treaty Authority has offices wherever there are indentures. And the locals are very strict about self-enforcement. Most of them were slaves once too, before they worked off their debts."

  "I can't believe we're even having this conversation," Weird said, suddenly angry. "Mom would drop her load. Are you seriously considering it?" I could see him thinking about Grampa and all the stories he used to tell about great-great-umpty-great-Grampa and what it was like to actually be a slave.

  "It's a way out, that's all I'm saying," Dad said.

  "A way out of what?"

  "Here. This." Dad gestured vaguely around. "I'm just trying to say something, that there are still plenty of opportunities for a good life. If not here, then out there. You pay the price however you can."

  "It's too high," said Weird.

  "I just want you to have a good life, son—I want you to know that there might be more possibilities than you've considered."

  "Not for me." Weird said, and the way he said it was like a door slamming.

  Dad looked at him sharply, as if trying to figure out who he really was. Finally he said, "You grew up too fast. I hardly know you."

  Weird didn't answer that. He just shook his head in disgust and turned and walked away from us. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. What was he angry about? Nobody was going anywhere. So why were we arguing again? Probably because that's who we were. The Crankys—not even in the same neighborhood as the Happys.

  Dad looked at me glumly. "And what do you think?"

  I shrugged.

  "You think I'm a pretty lousy dad too, don't you?"

  The question caught me by surprise. "Huh, no—I don't think that." But even as I said it, I knew that I was lying.

  "Charles, I can see it in your face. You're almost always angry. I can hear it in your voice."

  I shrugged again. What else could I do?

  You see what I mean about adults and the way they talk to kids? When they finally make up their mind to really talk to you honestly, they want you to be just as honest with them in return, even when you both know that if you tell the truth, it's only going to make things worse. Really worse.

  The hell with it.

  I said, "I don't think you're a lousy dad. How should I know what kind of a dad you are? You're never there."

  My words hurt him. I could see that.

  "I'm sorry you feel that way, Charles."

  "Me too. I wanted a real dad."

  I started to follow Weird, but Dad grabbed my arm.

  "Hey," he said. "Give me a chance. Please? We don't have a lot of time together, Charles. Can't we make the best of it?"

  I shrugged. "Whatever." But I still tried to wiggle out of his grasp.

  "What's it going to take to reach you, kiddo?"

  "I dunno." And I really didn't. This time, Dad let me go. I knew he was hurt, but I didn't know what he wanted and I didn't know how to give it to him, and even if I did, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

  THE GULF

  We drove south, down the coast of Mexico, and by the end of the second day it was obvious where Dad was headed: Beanstalk City in Ecuador. He didn't have to say anything. After all of his talk about space and the moon and the stars as a way out, where else could we be going?

  Weird had been real silent all day, but Stinky had gotten the way he gets and he kept demanding to sit in the front seat so he could watch for the beanstalk, so Weird and I let him. I was kind of interested in the beanstalk myself, but I didn't want Dad to know it.

  But finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I asked, "We are going up, aren't we? At least as far as One-Hour, huh? Huh, Dad? Please?" Weird and I did a couple of rounds of this, until Stinky joined in for the chorus.

  Dad smiled, satisfied. "I was sort of planning on it. Actually ... " His voice trailed off.

  "What?" I demanded.

  "It's a shame to come all this way and not go to the top. I was thinking of taking you boys all the way up to Geostationary. That is, if you want to go that high ... ?"

  "Geostationary? Really!"

  "I assume that's a yes. How about you, Douglas?"

  Weird just grunted. "Does Mom know?"

  Dad hesitated. "I didn't tell her we were going this far. We can call her from the top, okay? We'll surprise her."

  "Let's call collect," I said. "And really surprise her."

  Dad laughed at that. "Your Mom is taking a vacation of her own. At least, that's what she told me. But we can try to call her, if you want."

  "Yeah!" Stinky said. "I wanna call Mom from the top."

  "Then it's settled."

  Weird said, "Dad, we gotta talk. You and me."

  "Right now?"

  "No. Just you and me."

  "All right," Dad said. "There's a beach up ahead. Why don't we let your brothers play in the surf for a while."

  "There's no surf here. This is the Gulf of Baja." Weird was like that. If you told him it was 6:30, he'd check his watch and announce, "six twenty-eight and thirty seconds." Like it made a difference.

  "Check the map," Dad said dryly. "We're already to the mouth of the gulf, just north of Mazatlan." I guess Weird inherited it from Dad.

  Dad pulled the car off the road onto a wide patch of packed dirt that served as a parking lot. There was no one else around, so Stinky and I stripped down naked and went running into the water, screaming. The sand was so hot we danced across it, keeping our feet in the air more than on the ground.

  The water was warm and salty and didn't smell bad at all. Stinky and I splashed around and screamed at each other. The sand under the water was as soft as mud, but t
here were rocks in the sand too, so mostly I floated on my back and paddled gently, just lazing in the sensation of not having to go anywhere or do anything. After that got old, I just stood and watched Stinky. He wasn't doing anything, so I looked up onto the beach. Dad and Weird were talking about something; I couldn't tell what, but it looked serious.

  "I gotta pee," Stinky said.

  "Go ahead," I said.

  "Right here?"

  "Right here."

  "Shouldn't I get out of the water?"

  "I hardly think it matters."

  "But I hafta get out of the pool when I hafta pee, why don't I hafta get out of the ocean?"

  "Because it's the ocean. Everybody pees in the ocean."

  "Teacher says that's why the oceans are so stinky. Because everybody pees in them. And poops too."

  "Go ahead. I won't tell."

  "I already did," Stinky said. "I made the water warmer. Didn't you feel it?"

  "No, I didn't." And I was just as glad I hadn't. I moved a little bit away from him anyway and watched the water lapping around us, wondering how long it would take to dilute his little contribution.

  Dad and Weird were apparently through talking. Dad was leaning against the van with his hand over his eyes as if he had a headache, or maybe he was crying. Weird was walking down the beach, kicking at the sand. Every so often, he'd stop and look back at Dad, and then he'd turn around and walk a ways farther. But it was clear he wasn't going to walk too far. He was just angry. That was weird—even for Weird, because he never got angry. And now, this trip, he'd been angry almost since we'd left. What was going on between them anyway?

  Stinky started coughing then—he'd gotten a mouthful of water, so I had to duck under and grab him and pull him up. It wasn't really anything, but he started crying anyway, so I picked him up and carried him as far as I could across the hot sand. Dad met us halfway and took Stinky from me. "What did you do to him?" he asked accusingly.

  "I didn't do anything!" I protested. "Don't yell at me. He did it himself. He was fooling around and got water up his nose. I pulled him out."

  "I'll deal with you later," Dad said, turning his attention instead to Stinky's tears.

  "Yeah, right. Tell me again how you're trying to reach out to me too." I grabbed a towel and my shorts and stalked up the beach after Weird. "Hey, Douglas—wait up!"

  It was my use of his real name that made him stop. He glowered, but he waited for me. "What do you want, Chigger?"

  "Nothing."

  We walked in silence for a bit, while I tried to figure out what to say. Occasionally, Douglas stopped to pick up seashells. He'd look at them for a bit, then hand them to me. They were little gray things that looked like cornucopias. "Periwinkles," he said. "They always spiral out the same way. Clockwise. How do you think the periwinkle knows which way to turn?"

  I shrugged. "Who cares?"

  "I dunno. It's just—how come periwinkles are so stupid but they always know which way to turn, and human beings are so smart and we hardly ever know?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Douglas." I tossed the shells away.

  "It doesn't matter."

  "Yes, it does. I'm part of this family too."

  "It's not your business—"

  "Now you're acting like Dad," I said. Doug gave me the sidewise glower, so I blurted, "Well, just because Dad's acting like an asshole doesn't mean you have to."

  Douglas shook his head.

  "Well what's going on?"

  "Never mind."

  "Tell me—"

  "It's kinda personal, okay?"

  "So?"

  He gave me the look. The one when somebody says something too stupid to reply to.

  "So?" I repeated, pretending I hadn't seen it. "Who else do you have to talk to?"

  "It's not anything I want to talk about."

  "It's about UCLA, isn't it?"

  "Partly," he admitted. And then after another moment, he said, "I got approved for a conditional scholarship. Dad won't sign, but he doesn't have to. I'm almost eighteen, but—" He stopped himself. "You don't know what's going on, do you? Between Mom and Dad, I mean."

  "They hate each other. What's to understand?"

  "Mom thinks Dad is crazy. She went to court last month to have his visitation rights terminated. Dad counter-sued. He had some big New York lawyer on his side, so he won. Now he gets us four weeks a year instead of two. But Mom still thinks he's going to try something."

  "Like what?"

  "Like not bringing us back. Or something stupid like that."

  "Dad isn't that crazy. Where would he take us?"

  "Well ... think about it, Chig. What's he been talking about?"

  I thought about it. It didn't take much thinking. "Oh," I said, a sinking feeling in my gut.

  "Uh-huh," said Weird.

  We walked for a while, neither of us speaking, just pushing forward through the sand, while I sorted stuff out in my head.

  Finally, I said, "So if Dad isn't trying to kidnap us, then Mom is schizo-paranoid. And if he is, then she's right and he's crazy. But either way, we lose—because either way we've inherited the genes of a crazy parent."

  Douglas half-smiled, that funny expression he gets when somebody says something scientifically.

  "So, how do you know all this?" I asked.

  "Mom told me. She told me not to tell you. She said you'd side with Dad."

  "Mom obviously doesn't know me as well as she thinks. I'm not on either of their sides." And then I realized what else Douglas had said. "You didn't keep your promise."

  "It's our family too. I'm tired of all this back-and-forth stuff and nobody ever listening. Aren't you?"

  I stared at my older brother as if I'd never seen him before. I couldn't remember him ever being so ... so adult. Finally, I said,

  "Thanks, Doug." And I meant it. After another minute, I asked, "But what were you and Dad arguing about?"

  "My scholarship. Dad doesn't want me to take it. He doesn't like the conditions."

  "What conditions?"

  Doug shook his head with a sad smile. "It's kinda personal."

  "It's one of those rechanneling scholarships, isn't it?"

  "You know something, Charles? You're too smart for your own good."

  "I knew it."

  "You don't know the half of it."

  "Well, you can't do that. You won't be you anymore."

  "Yes, I will—" He looked like he wanted to say more, but suddenly, Dad was honking the car horn at us. He'd finally calmed down Stinky and put him in the front seat, and the two of them had motored half a kilometer up the road to catch up to us. Douglas nudged me and we headed across the hot sand to meet them.

  It was all too much. I didn't know what to think anymore.

  GOING SOUTH

  After that, we got back on the Intercontinental Expressway. It was Doug's turn to drive, and he immediately pushed the speed up to 160 klicks, until Dad told him to back off a bit. Doug eased back to 150 and Dad began muttering again about estimated time of arrival and beanstalk schedules and stuff like that.

  We skipped staying in a motel that night, while the two of them took turns driving and sleeping all the way down to Puerto Vallarta, where Dad turned in the car and we got on board the SuperTrain Express, which would take us south through Central America and straight to Beanstalk City at speeds up to 360 klicks—225 mph. Dad said we'd be in Beanstalk City in less than thirty hours.

  Stinky and I slept through Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Dad woke us up at 7A.M. so we could see the Panama Canal as we raced over it, but it was no big deal. The Colorado River is wider. The canal was just a straight-walled cut through flat green fields, filled with a motionless line of dirty freighters and smaller private boats, all waiting their turn at the next lock.

  We spent most of the day gliding south through Colombia. The highway and the train tracks raced each other, swirling back and forth across the mountain slopes in great sweeping loops, hardly ever losing sight of
each other. I was glad we hadn't driven the whole way. It would have taken a week or longer. We'd have killed each other.

  Late in the day, the train began rising up the western slopes of the Andes and there were some places where the view was spectacular. By now, the beanstalk was a visible presence day and night. We could see it sometimes out our windows when the train went around a curve, but the best view was from the seats in the upstairs observation domes. The beanstalk sliced straight up into the bright blue sky almost from the very edge of the horizon. You'd think it would keep going until it was directly overhead, but it didn't. It disappeared about 11:00 high. Dad said it had something to do with angles and perspective and atmospheric haze. When we got closer, it would reach more toward zenith.

  The SuperTrain was a lot wider than the old-fashioned kind—as wide as an airplane, but roomier, and the cars were all two-level. There was even a restaurant car with real waiters. We spent most of our time in the lounge car where there were terminals and even a theater at one end. Stinky wanted to play World Stomper, so Weird had to help him at the terminal. Dad and I went to the other end of the car and plopped down in the only available seats. I stared out the window and he ordered a drink from the table.

  There was a fat man in a shiny suit sitting next to Dad; he was arguing across the table with a dark-haired woman. They both looked like Mexicans, but they could just as well have been Texans too. Sometimes it's hard to tell. They were both wearing fancy clothes and expensive-looking jewelry, so I figured they were Internationals, people with world-passports and no countries of their own.

  The woman was angrily telling the man what was wrong with his politics, and he was telling her what was wrong with hers.

  The fat man was explaining to the woman that money was a liquid, and that the health of an economy could be measured by how fast the liquid flowed through all the different parts. He said that if you gave a hundred plastic dollars to a rich man and a hundred plastic dollars to a poor man, the rich man's plastic dollars would be like drops in a reservoir, and they would move a lot slower than the poor man's plastic dollars. The poor man's money would be like drops in a river. They would flow a lot faster and farther than the rich man's money.