Robert Tine - The Astronaut's Wife

The three drunken astronauts burst into song, singing every bit as badly as the dead punk rocker they were trying to emulate. The crowd screamed and laughed at the singing, and everyone was enjoying the parody—even Spencer was enjoying the antics of the singers on the stage—everyone, that is, except Alex and Natalie. The entire audience pointed at Spencer for the last line about doing it “his” way.

There were hoots and hollers from the crowd as Spencer took a bow. As he did the guitar began to crank and almost simultaneously the crowd began to dance. The music was harsh and driving now, assaulting the dancers and listeners, as if somehow the lyrics had drained a portion of the goodwill from the party. Everyone seemed lit up with the rock and roll and the flowing booze. The under-twenty-five crowd started slam dancing, throwing themselves against each other in bone-crunching smashes, as if they didn’t care who got hurt. The older types were at the bar throwing down beers and hard liquoras if it were their last night on earth. The music pulsed so loud it seemed to split the darkness and wash away any rational thought or action.

Jillian caught sight of Spencer, his hair awry, laughing as he was drawn into the frenzy, caught up in the mass of gyrating bodies packed together on what passed for a dance floor. It was strange to see one of the NASA geeks stage diving from the bar into the throng, his black tie flapping, the pens from his breast pocket scattering. He hit the solid mass of bodies, then disappeared from view.

Jillian was crouched in a corner, as if protecting herself from her own farewell party, but she could see what was going on, as if through an old kinescope. As legs jerked and arms waved she could make out the action in shaky sequence. Then, through the wild antics of the dancers she saw Alex Streck again. He was taking the glass from his lips and staring as a red bloom appeared in the middle of his vodka, a large gout of his own blood. His nose was bleeding, the gore dripping straight into the glass of colorless liquid.

Jillian jumped to her feet and tried to move through the crowd toward him. Sweaty bodies, damp and clammy and as immovable as sandbags, stood in her way.

The singers screamed till ears hurt.

Jillian never lost sight of Alex. He was just standing there, dumbly, as if attempting to figure out how his own blood could be flowing from his body. His face was stained red with blood from his brow to his chin but he did not seem to be in any pain. No one else had seen this except Natalie and Jillian. Natalie was yelling something in her husband’s ear—not words of anger this time, but urgent words of interrogation. Jillian could not hear the questions but she could imagine what she was saying, the kind of thing a doctor or a nurse might ask: How much have you had to drink, do you feel dizzy, nauseous, do you remember a blow to the head…?

Alex staggered a bit and Natalie threw her arms around his waist to hold him up, but he was too heavy for her. Suddenly he spasmed as if shot and pitched straight forward, headfirst, landing on a table covered with glasses and beer bottles. His weight brought the whole thing down, glass and plastic shattering under him.

Natalie screamed and Jillian ran for her. But still the music and the frenzy of the crowd overpowered the sickening sound of a man falling, a woman screaming.

Natalie sucked in another lungful of air and screamed again and this time her plaintive wail cut through the noise. It cut through the music and the laughter and the drunkenness. That unholy scream cut the cacophony, slicing It off, as if decapitating it. The music stopped. The dancing stopped.

There was nothing but stillness in that party except a screaming woman and the red blood pumping from the nose of a bleeding man.

All eyes were on Alex. He lay on the concrete floor, the broken glass and plastic spread under him like a painful carpet. Alex twisted and writhed on the beer-soaked stone, his body going thorough a horrible sequence of paroxysms, muscle-wrenching contortions that looked from second to second as if his own body would tear itself apart. Not one sober person in that crowd—and there weren’t many— gave him too much longer to live.

The singing and dancing stopped. Karaoke continued to blast out of the speaker until the bartender got the brainstorm to stop it. Suddenly all was silence there in that tent behind a Florida honky tonk—silent save for the wailing of Natalie and the ghastly beating of Alex’s fists against the concrete floor. His clenched hands smashed into the hard floor, into the shattered glass. His hands were flayed, his fingers split, and his blood gushed.

No one tried to save him until Spencer acted. He broke through the crowd and dropped like a wrestler down on to Streck’s body. slamming him against the cement floor, grabbing his bloody hands and pinning them as if scoring a point. Blood spurted from a dozen wounds, from Streck’s nose, from his hands, from his torn cheek, the hot fresh blood spraying Spencer as if from a hose, soaking him.

It was as if Alex Streck was determined to bleed to death. He fought the help that had come to his aid. He battled against Alex, and Tom Sullivan (who had stopped singing and dropped down on Streck’s chest), and he fought against his wife who tried to hold his thrashing legs. Alex threw Natalie off him like a bronco bucking a green cowboy.

His real adversary was Spencer. He had Streck’s blood-slick hands clasped in his own and he was shouting something to the older man, looking into his eyes as if telegraphing a message that only the two of them could understand.

Then, without warning, Spencer lowered his mouth to Alex’s and began administering CPR, breathing for his mission commander, pinching off the nose of the older man and trying to push his own breath into his lungs. Spencer looked into Alex’s eyes as they were locked mouth-to-mouth and Spencer shook his head from side to side.

“No,” he was saying. “No, no, no, no…”

But Alex had ceased to understand. He summoned up the strength for one more deep, gut-wrenching muscular spasm and he convulsed, throwing Alex and the others from his body. His blood-filled mouth pulled away from Alex’s lips and he screamed, yelling his lungs out in pain and anguish—a sound louder than the howls of his tormented wife, a scream that screamed all the life out his body.

When the shriek finally died away, Alex Streck fell back on the beer-covered concrete behind that shitty bar in Florida… and he was dead. It was as if he had chosen to screech the very life out of his soul.

Before anyone else could react, Natalie dropped to her knees next to her husband, the fabric of her blue jeans soaking up the thick black blood that had flowed out of his body. She knew he was dead and she picked up his heavy head and cradled it in her own strong arms, as if it was a sacred relic. She laid her tear-streaked face on his blood-encrusted face and whimpered, “No, no, no, no… oh, Alex, please, no…” The tears ran from her eyes and cut pale courses through the blood on his cheeks like rivers.

Everything was so quiet, and so suddenly. The merrymakers, the party-goers, the hangers-on suddenly felt as if they had intruded at something sacred.

The night had become as quiet as the grave.

Quiet but for the grieving of a woman lost. “Oh,” she said, “Alex… oh… Oh, my Alex, what did they do to you?”

Natalie Streck, the lifeless body of her beloved husband clutched in her arms, looked up at the assembled crowd. The astronauts, the NASA geeks, the Mission Control guys, the crew of the Victory… she looked at Spencer and Jillian Armacost. Sherman Reese was still there but the Director was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” she asked quietly. “What happened to my husband?”