Page 64 of And Still Her Voice
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As I turban-toweled my hair, I heard River from the other room. “This TV isn’t working. There’s one over at the diner. And it’s in color.”
Tony had already taken a seat at the counter, slugging down an Old Milwaukee. The patrons didn’t seem to notice the mixed couple, who weren’t from around these parts, walk in, but I could feel the hair-raising static electricity in the air. Quiet as the sound in space where there are no molecules to vibrate noise, all eyes were glued to the astronomical episode on TV.
Tony slid over, making room for us at the counter just in time to watch the landing on the heavenly giant golf ball. A rush of anticipation surged through me. “The connection keeps getting dropped,” Tony said out of the side of his mouth. “They’re almost out of fuel.”
What?My heart stopped.But they’ve come this far!I’ve come thisfar.Since take off a few days ago, I’d made up a sort of heads or tails little game where I’d compared the Apollo space journey to my life and so if something were to happen, I’d be jinxed, too. And then within a few seconds, I heard, “Houston, TranquilityBase here. The Eagle has landed.” The whole earthly diner erupted into cheers and loud applause.
In one giant stride, the no-nonsense waitress in a starched pink uniform and a tightly corkscrewed cinnamon-colored bun, stood in front of me blocking my view of one of the most historical occurrences of a lifetime, but suddenly I felt famished, as if I’d raced to the moon and back.
“I’ll take a cheeseburger, some fries, and a Coke,” I said, remembering how Dad used to joke with us that the moon was nothing but a big ball of moldy cheese—Dad, never serious except when he hung out on the dark side of the moon. And today on a brighter side, in a flash, the world seemed to have transformed. Could this be the change needed to bring the country together, the light needed to enlighten, to wash away the sins of the world? The waitress finished jotting down my order and without looking up asked, “What about your boyfriend?” her phony smile, a severe slash above her chin.
“He’s not my—I don’t know.” I was St. Peter denying Jesus. “Why don’t you ask him?”
Hand on hips as wide as the galaxy, she stared down at me and I knew it would take more than a moon landing to shift her attitude. River’s look told me not to make any trouble.
“He’ll take a 7Up and a burger without onions.” A burger, the way he told me his white grandpa Elroy had grilled for him back in Iowa before he’d blasted off and changed his name to River; before we ever met, to float together like Huckleberry Finn and Jim through this odyssey in time in a tin can of a bus where through the windows, I’d seen the stars shine brighter from the deserts, the plains and the mountains, brighter than they ever did beyond the lamp lights of home.
On the television mounted up on the wall, the scene had broken away to the newsroom. I couldn’t believe that in just a few more hours, Neil Armstrong would step out onto the moon.Unreal. The stiff-starched waitress brought our drinks and set them down just as someone behind us shouted, “Anthony Hatchet!” I turned to see the tall silhouette of a cop, gun drawn, striding toward us. “You’re under arrest.”
Tony, seated to my left sprang up and in one giant leap, took off for the exit where another cop stood ready to intercept him. One of the cops handcuffed River and suddenly, I felt someone grab my wrists.
“You have the right to remain silent—” the tall cop said.
“But, what’s this about?” River asked as we were escorted outside.
I could understand that the law had probably caught up to Tony for going AWOL, but it terrified me to wonder why we were also being hauled in.
“We’d like to ask you some questions, about a murder,” the tall cop said, and I lost feeling in my legs. Dilbert Moss?
“It was an accident,” Grandma said.
Holding me up by my elbow, the tall cop asked. “What was an accident? What do you know?”
Shit. I turned my head away from the policeman. “Grandma, I’ve got this.”
We were led to the police car. “Get in.”
When we arrived at the police station, River and I were taken into separate rooms to be interviewed. By then I was eighteen and not a minor. Except for my name, I had no proper identification.
“Would you like to call someone?” the tall cop asked me.
“Why? Am I under arrest?”
He wouldn’t answer. “Where’s your home?”
“California.” Off his cold look, I added. “Glendale.”
“Where were you last November?”
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. Last November?
“You’ve got a family, don’t you? Weren’t you home for Thanksgiving?”
“No.” That I knew for sure. I’d told Maggie I hoped to come home then or maybe for Christmas, but that never happened. I racked my brain. We’d been all over the place. Was this a trick question? What did it have to do with Dilbert Moss?
“When’s the last time you saw your mother or father?”
