SKIES OF AMERICA by Mike Barthel
Lydia was in the Sam's Club reaching for a box containing three boxes of cereal when the lanky man pushed his flatbed cart uncomfortably close to her flatbed cart."As you can see, I have a compendium of canning jars," he said. "Are you also interested in canning?"She squinted at his selection, six jars with glass handles that said “Wine-O-Clock” instead of “Ball.” Feeling charitable and a little intrigued, she said, "Did a whole shelf of asparagus this weekend. You need the tall jars for those."The man nodded stiffly. "And do you enjoy dining at Cook Out? My favorite order is the chicken quesadilla with another chicken quesadilla and a third chicken quesadilla as well."Lydia laughed, leaning on her cart. He sounded like he'd watched a video called How to make casual conversation with new acquaintances. "I'm partial to the spicy chicken, the corn dog, and chili. With an Oreo shake.""Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh," the man said. "And do you also work at the spaceport?'"Well…I'd call it the flight center," Lydia said. "Or just Marshall. Are you new here?""No!" the main barked. "I am a longtime employee. And let me tell you. Those clowns!""Yeah, they got some problems, don't they?" Lydia said. "I tell you, if they do one more reorg and fuck with my reporting structure I'm about likely to drive a golf cart over a retaining wall. For all the good that'd do."The man looked at her intently. "Why do you think we've never gone to Mars?"Lydia gave the man a once-over. It seemed like a line, like he wanted to debate her. She straightened up, maybe trying to intimidate him a little. Lydia was tall and bulky, with short hair and wide pants. A woman of substance, an old coworker had called her, which pissed Lydia off until she realized he kinda liked women of substance. You're gonna get slapped if you try that line on some other lady, she told him, drinking coffee in her backyard a few weeks later, robe open to the autumn breeze."You know what?" she said. "You remind me of my ex-husband. Ed. Well, dead husband. He went to Afghanistan and came back different. More fun. Kind of a hoot, actually. But you know how it is. That brain stuff catches up with you eventually.”"Does it?" the man asked.Lydia retrieved a box containing two bottles of ranch dressing from a shelf. "Hey, you want to go out tonight? The Duke's Bonnet downtown, maybe 8ish.""I'd love to," the man said, a slight look of panic in his eyes.Lydia began pushing her flatbed away. "What's your name, anyway?""Tyvee," he said."Tyvee?" Lydia said, stopping short. "Like teevee but Tyvee?""Tyvee," he repeated, the panic seeming to mount.“Isn’t that funny,” she said. “A funny name for a funny guy. I’ll see you tonight.”
***
At the bar, Lydia introduced Tyvee to her friends, all widows or divorcees. She finished at Delia, wearing, as she usually did, a rock tee tucked into high-waisted jeans. "This is Tyvee," Lydia said, "I think he might be a spy. And this is Delia. She works at the base, too."Tyvee said, "Why do you think we've never been to Mars?""Mars?" Delia said. "You kidding me? We haven't even been to the moon in who knows how long.” The jeans allowed Delia to make strategic use of her butt, and she used it here to box out Tyvee, in favor of Lydia. “Always seemed like a suicide mission to me anyways. You’d just be trading bodies for data.""Do you work with Lydia?" Tyvee said. "Doing repairs?"Delia laughed. "Has she been feeding you a line? We do clerical work. They mostly only let men in the build spaces.""We started the same week," Lydia said. "My Ed and her Jesse got a job here together after their service was up. Deployed together, too."Tyvee nodded aggressively. "Did Jesse come back fun, too?""No," Delia said, "he did not."There was a silence, and then Lydia pointed out the front window, which had been painted with lizard green letters advertising 99-cent wing Wednesdays and three dollar Miller Mondays. "Holy shit. It's the guy with the hearse. You are in for a treat."They all piled into a long black car with bottles of liquor clanking in a plastic rack, and the driver took off, fast enough for Tyvee to look a little queasy. The air conditioner wasn't working, so they rolled the windows down, all sweating in the summer heat. Lydia and her friends began reminiscing about their husbands' funerals."Twenty-one gun salute?" one cried."Twenty-one gun salute!" the rest replied, cackling."Goddamn, that thing was noisy as hell," Lydia said. "I just about cussed aloud when that first volley pierced the clear blue sky.""Remember when I pretended I was so gosh-darned bereft that I was gonna throw myself on the fuckin' coffin?" Delia said.Lydia slammed her glass down on an armrest, splashing the brown liquid on fuzzed, blue fabric. "Oh my God, you were being such an asshole.""Everyone staring at me all sad-eyed. Thank God you were holding me back, like, Honey, cut it the fuck out, hissing in my ear. Otherwise I would’ve had to fake a Charlie horse to keep my own godforsaken body out of that hole.”"It was not the time for irony," Lydia said.Delia toasted her, ice cubes clinking wetly. "Then when is?"A few more turns and the hearse stopped, and the widows and divorcees all stumbled out. Tyvee grabbed Lydia's arm for support, his lanky body heavier than it appeared. He's drunk as hell, Lydia thought, but said, "You OK, hon?""I saw your house from orbit," Tyvee said, “knew it was a spaceport, a launchpad for probes or a maintenance shop. A place of expertise. It glowed from the air, a massive, brilliant display, blaring and blinking like the sign of some distant planetary system. A darkness evincing rotation. The unmistakable signal of an eclipse." "You saying you wanna get out of here?" Lydia asked. "I can show you the bright lights."***
As Lydia drove through her neighborhood with Tyvee in the passenger seat—it was unclear where his car was—there was no mistaking which house was hers. Its glow rose above the roofs of her neighbors' brick colonials and vinyl-sided ranches, bursts of reds and greens interrupting brilliant white. She turned onto her street and the full scope of her Christmas decorations became clear. They engulfed the whole house. "There it is!" Tyvee said, pointing. "I want to see everything. The repair bay on the side. The research and development lab at the center. Your deck, where you lay out your plans for interstellar travel.""Oh yeah," Lydia said, "They're right in there with my Heisman trophy and Academy award."In the garage, an inflatable Jesus held an inflatable Santa by the neck. An inflatable banner said "JESUS FIRST." Lydia punched Jesus causally in the face, in a way that suggested she did it every time she came home. Inside, the rooms were piled with shipping boxes and parts. As Lydia made Tyvee another drink, he plucked a metal doodad from atop a table. "And what is this for?" he asked."Servo motor," Lydia said, putting her hand on his back and rubbing in little circles. "Moves Santa's hand so it looks like he's scratching his balls. Just like Ed used to. God rest his soul." She perched on the table and took a long drink. "But now it's just me here. We've got the place to ourselves."Tyvee seemed to steel himself. "Lydia, you're right. I am a spy," he said. "Oh, okay," Lydia said, freshly intrigued. "And I'm a high-ranking Soviet apparatchik.""I'm from another planet,” Tyvee went on, ignoring her, “far, far away from here. My project—the one I’ve spent forty of your years on—is to determine what's to be done about civilizations, thousands of them across the galaxy, that have the technical resources to travel between planets but never make it into the stars. How to get them there. And I think I've almost got it.""Mmm-hmm," she said, kissing his hand. "And what's your theory, Herr Doktor?""It's spaceports like these. Skunkworks, staffed by a hardscrabble crew of tinkerers and mercenaries. I've found them on every planet. Glowing dimly, but insistently, from space. If we just give them a little boost, all of you, well. You can all join us in the stars." He grabbed her hand. "And you're the perfect spokesperson for my project. Articulate, charismatic. I've already informed my organization about you. Preparations are being made. You're going to be famous."She grabbed her hand back, hopped down from the table. "Are you fucking with me? You gotta be fucking with me. Is this a prank? Did Delia put you up to this?"Tyvee ignored her, pawing through a green plastic bin full of parts."OK. I'll play along. These are decorations, Mr. Alien," she said, pulling up a cord from a winder on the floor. "Christmas lights. I don't build spaceships. I buy inflatables at the Home Depot and mount 'em on my roof. With some custom mods."This finally got to Tyvee. "I don't understand.""Come outside."She led him out her front door, which caught on its frame, as if it were rarely used. From the house next door, someone yelled "Lydia! It's July!" She stuck a finger their way.When they reached the middle of the street, Lydia said, "Now, turn around."Tyvee saw the glow of her house then, up close for the first time. Dots of tiny lights covered every inch of the walls and roof, criss-crossing lines of colored blobs snaking their way up her tree trunks. "It's not a beacon?" Tyvee said, "It serves no purpose?""Well, I dunno about that," Lydia said, "It has its uses."Tyvee looked closer, at the figures on the roof and the lawn. One Santa was helping a baby elf with long, straight blonde hair kick a ball. Another was holding the hand of Mrs. Claus, who was laid up in bed. Another Santa, behind a puffy craps table, had his hands in the air, cheering, clapped on the back by ecstatic-looking elves throwing red and green chips in the air, their arcs indicated by curved tubes of LED lights."Are they all your Ed?" he asked."Yep, that’s him helping our daughter learn soccer, that there's him taking care of me at the hospital, and that there's the time he went on a forty-eight roll run," Lydia said, lighting a cigarette. "And of course, being strangled by Jesus in the garage, like he was by all of his goddamn bosses. Same type of folks who decide things at the base. Who decide not to go to Mars, like you keep asking about. Who, in the guise of our local government, send me these fines and threatening fuckin’ letters." She took a drag, blew it toward the moon—a waning crescent. Almost extinguished, but soon to return. "Ed passed just before Christmas a few years back," she continued. "After the funeral and all finished up, and our daughter went back to Atlanta, I just didn't have the heart to take the decorations down. Came to like 'em up there, welcoming me home, so I figured I'd add some more. If I made it bright enough, maybe he could see me." She shook her head. "But I guess you saw me instead, huh?"Lydia looked down. Tyvee had collapsed to the street, arms around his knees. Lydia stuck the cigarette between her lips and tried to drag him up by his armpits. "Hey now," she said, "none of that.""You just leave these lights on all the time," he said. "There's no reason. It serves no purpose. This isn't a spaceport at all. You're nothing like the people I found everywhere else. Your neighbors hate you. I hate you, too. You're ruining my career."The man wasn't budging and Lyrida gave up on dragging him to safety. Some people just can't be helped, she thought."Well," she said, brushing her hands off, "you'll be happy to hear that the city is making me take 'em down. Delia's coming over this weekend to help. Thousands in fines I can't pay. Finally they said they'd shut off my power.""Why would they do that?" Tyvee said, coming out of his ball."Just jealous, I suppose,” Lydia said. "You don't know what it's like to be us, to be one of the little lights. God forbid you want to do something special. Or even just work a steady job and raise your family. They've got a purpose for you. Maybe that purpose is to be small and keep the books. Maybe that purpose is to die. And if you have the temerity to make yourself bigger, or to come back alive, they just chew you up and bury you in the ground.""That's so sad," Tyvee said, struggling to his feet, "You're all so sad."She clapped him on the back, like the elves did Ed. "Cheer up, baby," she said. "After all, it's Christmas." And her laugh, sharp and cackling, rose up through the night air like a lost rocket in search of somewhere to land.