Phases of Gravity

After a while Baedecker rose, crossed silently to his own room, and slept.

Richard M. Baedecker Day dawned warm and clear. The street outside Ackroyd's home hissed to the sound of Saturday traffic. The sky was so blue that cornstalks in the fields visible beyond the new houses seemed brittle with light.

Baedecker had two breakfasts. The first was with Ackroyd and his wife in their spacious kitchen. The second was with the mayor and city council at a long table in the Parkside Café. Marjorie Seaton struck Baedecker as a small-town version of Chicago's ex-mayor, Jane Byrne. He wasn't sure where the resemblance lay — Seaton's face was as broad and reddened by weather as Byrne's was narrow and pale. Marge Seaton had an open, hearty laugh that bore no similarity to what he remembered of Byrne's tight-lipped chuckles. But there was something about the eyes of both women that made Baedecker think of Apache squaws waiting for the male prisoners to be pegged out for their pleasure.

'The whole town's excited about you being here, Dick,' Seaton said and beamed at him. 'I should say the entire county. We're going to get folks from as far away as Galesburg today.'

'I'm looking forward to meeting them,' said Baedecker. He toyed with his hash browns. Next to him, Ackroyd was mopping up ru

'Do you have an agenda . . . a schedule?' asked Baedecker. 'Some sort of outline for the day?'

'Oh, yeah,' said a thin man in a green polyester suit. He had been introduced as Kyle Gibbons or Gibson. 'Here you go.' He pulled out a folded sheet of mimeograph paper and smoothed it down in front of Baedecker.

'Thanks.'

9:00 — COUNCIL MTG. — Pksd. (Astronaut?)

10:00 — HDBL. TNMT. — (AM. LEG. BALL)

11:30 — PARADE FORMS UP (W. 5)

12:00 — OLD SETTLERS PARADE

1:00 — J.G.C. WEENIE ROAST AND SHOOTOFF (Sh. Meehan)

1:30 — SFTBL. TNMT.

2:30 — VLT. FIRE DPT. WATERFIGHTS

5:00 — OPTIMISTS' BARBECUE

6:00 — UP WITH PEOPLE HOUR (Camp. Cr. Singers)

7:00 — RAFFLE DRAWING (M. Seaton — H. Sch. Gym)

7:30 — STARS OF TOMORROW (H. Sch. Gym)

8:00 — ASTRONAUT'S SPEECH (H. Sch. Gym)

10:00 — J.G.C. FIREWORKS

Baedecker looked up. 'Speech?'

Marge Seaton sipped coffee and smiled at him. 'Anything you say'd be just fine, Dick. Don't go to any trouble about it. We'd all like to hear you talk about space or what it was like to walk on the moon or something. Just keep it to twenty minutes or so, okay?' Baedecker nodded and listened through the open windows as a listless morning breeze moved a few leaves against each other. Some children entered and loudly demanded soft drinks at the counter. Mi

The discussion at the table turned to city council matters and Baedecker excused himself. Outside, the midmorning heat was already reflecting up from the sidewalks and begi

The city park was much smaller than he remembered. In Baedecker's mind the bandstand had been an elaborate Victorian gazebo, but all that stood there now was a flat-topped slab of concrete raised on cinder blocks. He doubted if the gazebo had ever existed.

On Saturday evenings during Baedecker's two summers there, some rich resident of Glen Oak — he had no idea who it had been — had shown free movies in this park, projecting them onto three sheets nailed high on the side of the Parkside Café. Baedecker remembered watching the Movietone Newsreels, cartoons where no lesser personages than Bugs Bu

Baedecker cleared his throat, spit, and walked over to a small boulder on a stone pedestal. Three bronze plaques listed the names of men from Glen Oak who had fought in conflicts ranging from the War with Mexico through Vietnam. Stars designated those who had died during their service. Eight had died during the Civil War, three in World War II, and none in Vietnam. Baedecker glanced at fourteen names listed under Korea, but his name was not among them. He recognized none of the others even though he must have gone to school with some of them. The Vietnam plaque was hardly weathered and only a third filled in. There was room for more wars.

Across the street a farm family had poured out of a pickup truck and were staring into the window of Helma

Baedecker sat down on a park bench. His shoulders ached with the weight of things. He closed his eyes again and tried to summon the often-retrieved sensation of bouncing across a glaring, pockmarked plain, the light throwing a corona around Dave's white suit and PLS pack, gravity a lessened foe, each movement as fluid and effortless as moving tiptoe across the bottom of a sunlit lagoon.

The lightness did not come. Baedecker opened his eyes and squinted at the polarized clarity of things.

The Old Settlers Parade moved out fifteen minutes behind schedule. The consolidated high school's marching band led the way, followed by several rows of unidentified horsemen, then came five homemade floats representing chapters of the FFA, 4-H, Boy Scouts (Creve Coeur Council), the county historical society, and the Jubilee Gun Club. Following the floats came the junior high school band consisting of nine youngsters, then an American Legion contingent on foot, and then Baedecker. He rode in a twenty-year-old white Mustang convertible. Mayor Seaton sat to his right, Mr. Gibbons or Gibson to his left, and Bill Ackroyd rode up front next to the teenaged driver. Ackroyd insisted that the three in back sit up on the trunk with their feet on the red vinyl upholstery. Ba

RICHARD M. BAEDECKER — GLEN OAK'S ENVOY TO THE MOON. Beneath the lettering there were Magic-Markered representations of his crew's mission patch. The sun behind the symbolic command-module-with-sails looked like one of the egg yolks Ackroyd had mopped up with such vigor that morning.