By Chris Rogers
Part One: Johnny Rocket’s Mother was a Saturn Five
Bill was at the bar–like most nights, you’ll like him–and Hector and I was playing cards just to kill the time. Not much else to do on the far side of the moon, you know? Ain’t got no internet, no satellite, no TV.
“Got any Jacks?” I said.
“Go fish,” Hector grumbled. He shot a rocket, and so did I. We slapped our cups down just about simultaneous.
“Catcher!” I shouted.
“Bull!” cried Hector.
“You heard it!” I insisted, looking then to Bill for a ruling. “That was three rattles to the ring and it’s my drink.”
Bill rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Doesn’t that mean you lose?” he wearily replied.
I furrowed my brows in a vain attempt to recall the rules as we’d made them up for the night. Helpless, I looked to Hector for mercy.
Hector put his head down on the table. “I think we all lose for being here…” he groaned.
I nodded, and I sighed. “Another round, on me.” There was the zip and hiss of the fountain, and I set my head down too, and joined Hector defeat.
“Don’t feel so bad, li’l lady,” I heard a strange voice say. And before you get to thinking that’s my honest imitation of an American accent, let me assure you it is not. This guy was like something out of a cowboy western. I shot upright so fast I had to grab onto the table to keep from bounding off into the ceiling. I looked to the doorway, and he was just standing there.
Hector craned around. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Just came in off the transport,” the stranger said. “And if y’don’t mind, I’ll have uh shot’uh rocket sauce.”
“Who’s paying?” Bill asked.
The stranger swaggered up to the bar like nothing–and I mean swaggered. Not so much as a scrap of tin to weigh him down, and yet it was like he was going for a stroll up on Earth in regular gee. “You didn’t make the las’un pay,” the stranger said–quite affably, I’ll admit.
“That’s ‘cuz I know’er,” Bill said. “Lady’s got a line of credit from here on to Neptune by my likes.”
I raised my cup to Bill, and so in my drunken exuberance the momentum carried me to the floor.
The stranger, seeing my predicament, waltzed on over–again, like nothing–and took me by the wrist with one hand, steadying the drink, and slid the other beneath my back to help me. “Whoa, dogie!” he said as he eased me upright.
I looked to Bill. “He can have one on me,” I said with a grateful nod back to the stranger.
“Oh, I ‘preciate that, ma’am,” the stranger said, adding to his kind words a deep bow and an elaborate flourish of the hand, “but I can pay my way if that’s how it’s done’round here.” He walked up to the bar and reached into the right-hip pocket of his coveralls. “How far’s’uh fistful o’diamonds get me?” he asked, looking Bill dead in the eyes as he did.
Hector threw his cards down in a huff. “Ain’t no diamonds on the moon!” he sneered.
“Is now,” the stranger said. He drew his hand out of his pocket and clapped it down on the bar half-cupped. Sure enough, like from a clap of thunder, there was a fist-sized mound of fine-cut diamonds to mark his word.
Bill took up the nearest bottle of ethanol. “That’ll get you far enough,” he said, eagerly scooping the diamonds into his apron with one hand as he poured out as much of the bottle as the stranger might care for with the other. “Here, have a triple,” he said, magnanimous.
“Much obliged, friend,” grinned the stranger, reaching for his glass.
“Careful, Bill,” Hector scoffed, “you’ll want to check those ‘diamonds’ don’t melt before you pour out much more.”
The stranger chuckled. “You sure do have an uncommon temperament, friend!” he said affably. He made to take up his glass from the counter.
“Say,” Bill said with uncommon urgency, gripping the stranger’s wrist to stay the glass before his lips, “don’t you want a dose of powder to take the edge off?”
“Nah,” said the stranger, “I like it straight.” He knocked back and took the whole thing down in one gulp. “Ahh!” he rasped, “like sweet fire! Just like mama used to make it…”
“Where’d you come from, anyway?” Hector asked, more out of curiosity than derision. “There hasn’t been a transport around these parts since… when was that, Annie?”
“Coming up on three weeks now,” I said–at least I think that’s what I said. Anyway, it’d been a while.
“Me?” said the stranger. “I been here f’rever. Name uh’Johnny–Johnny Rocket. Pleased’uh make yer’quaintance.”
“Bull!” called Hector. “I’ve been here longer than anyone, and by Saturn’s rings I’ll swear there never was a man who lived by the name of Johnny Rocket, much less at Farside Station.”
The stranger stiffened. “Well now seein’ as I am, have been, and will be here f’rever, and those rings of Saturn won’t last half as long, I’m willin’ t’let slide that you’d swear by them against me–a ring of no good tricksters if you ask me. And point’uh fact, and in the in’erest of makin’ an amicable separation, I’m even willin’ t’grant that I’ve got no predispositions against bein’ taken fer a male of the bovine persuasion. But–” and here he brought his pointer finger down and leveled it at Hector, like accusingly–“seein’ as yer sayin’ you’ve been here longer’n anyone, and it’s here I say I’ve been f’rever, I do believe yer callin’ me uh, uh…”–Johnny struggled to get the last word out–“uh liar!” he finally blurted. “And that,” he went on deliberately, “will require more’n one man’s hand t’end amicably.”
With that, Johnny to a step towards hector and offered up his hand.
But Hector would not so, and he swatted Johnny’s hand away. “Damn prescient,” Hector gritted as his chair scraped across the floor and he rose, menacingly, to face Johnny square: like a bull himself he was.
“That’s what the powder’ll do fer’ya,” Johnny said with a playful wink to Bill.
For my part, I took up my drink and carried it off to safety on the other side of the room. I’d already nearly lost it once that night, and it looked like Johnny was about to be too tied up to save me again.
“Oh yeah?” growled Hector. “Powder hell! I’ll drink you under straight.”
“That so?” Johnny mused. “Well, not t’call you a liar, but I do believe we can settle at least one dispute here amicably.” He turned to Bill. “Mister Barman, would you say my fistful o’diamonds is enough t’keep this place open a mite longer, or will you be needin’ another fistful?”
“Uh, it’ll do for the night,” Bill said, even as Johnny dug a free hand into his pocket for more.
“Suit yourself,” Johnny shrugged, and he took my spot at the table and motioned for Hector to rejoin. Then Bill came around with a bottle and poured while each man pounded back shot after shot of straight ethanol against the other.
Well now as you’ve known me for many years, you’ll know I value brevity, and so I’ll spare you the details of just how many shots Bill served up that night or what was said betwixt contestants thereafter, but the weight of the encounter surely went to Johnny as he stood six feet to Hector’s two in the end, and I do reckon he’d have beaten Hector more handily had it not been for the fact that Hector was and is a largish man–wide of girth–and needed quite a bit of space in the vertical even as he laid out on his back.
And when the competition was fairly won, Johnny came up with a white cowboy hat, like conjured up out of nowhere, swept it out before him in a grand gesture, and came up after another deep bow. “It sure has been nice knowin’ y’all,” he said, placing the hat lightly on his head. “And since you’ve been right noble people by me for the night, here’s just a few words to the wise before I go.”—And he counted these out, one and two–“First, whatever the circumstances, take care not to call uh feller uh liar less’n you’ve got the cards t’show it. Second, and perhaps most apropos to our night’s encounter, never go up against a man shot-for-shot with ethanol less’n you know he ain’t got rocket in his blood.”
And at that, Johnny did a quick about face, and skipped on out into the passageway, never to be seen again. As to proof he ever was, which I’m sure you’re liable to call for as I reach the end of this here story, I’ll just say Bill was so stupefied by the whole affair that he plumb forgot about those diamonds, and he closed up shop without a second thought for them. And Hector? Well, Hector spent so much of that night on his back and in a stupor it’s liable he’s not to remember, and even if he could I doubt he’d admit to Johnny–beaten so soundly that he was by him. And as to my estimation, though at times I’ve had Johnny pegged for a space angel–with maybe a bit of space devil on the side–I think I’d wager now he was at least half-human, seeing as he took the time to play around with us. But his mother? His mother was most definitely a Saturn Five.
***
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“How do you figure?”
“You think his mother was a Saturn Five rocket?”
“The way he took down that rocket sauce? Sure. Anyway, some kind of rocket, and the kind that could get to the moon. How else do you suppose he got all the way to Farside without a transport?”
“But his mother?”
“Hmm… I suppose you’re right. It’d have to be his father that was the Saturn Five, seeing as the family name was Rocket.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well, all the same, probably best you don’t take it up with Hector, or he might knock you off your socks just for mentioning old Johnny.”
“Sure. Well, good luck.”
“It’s you my heart goes out to. Anyway, sounds like my transport is about to lift. Keep those rocket shots off to your lips as best you can and you’ll do fine.”
Part Two: Johnny Posted a Letter Home from Honolulu
Johnny patted down his crackerjacks. “Shit,” he said, “I must’ve left the cards in my rack.”
One of Johnny’s companions craned around to the bartender. “Hey, you got a deck?”
“You kidding?” said the bartender, “I’d be buying cards for the whole damn fleet if I had cards for you.”
“We ain’t gonna steal ‘um…”
“I said I don’t got cards.”
“Oh, fuck this,” another of Johnny’s companions said. “If this guy ‘don’t got cards’ for us, we can take our business elsewhere.”
With that, Johnny and his companions rose as one and double-timed it for the door. It was only as Johnny stepped outside that he realized, in what seemed to be becoming a pattern for the evening, that he’d left is cover at the table. He stopped short and pivoted, but then at his back there was a most commanding voice.
“Hey, you there!” came the voice, bellowing.
Johnny detected a white blur out of the corner of one eye. “I’m just going in for my cover,” he said.
“Your cover?” the voice said.
Johnny stiffened to attention. “I mean, just going in for my cover… chief? sir?”
“Oh… Oh!” the voice said. “I’m not one of you Navy types. Just some guy who likes to enjoy a cool drink in the moonlight, if you catch my drift.”
Johnny’s posture slackened and he allowed his head to turn just enough to get a good look an old man in a suit sitting alone at one of the tables on the veranda. He had a 10-gallon hat–white, to match the suit–sitting on the table in front of him.
“Go on and get your cover,” the old man said with a backhanded wave. “I’ll be waiting here–might could help you out with something.”
Johnny leered at this curious old man for a moment before ducking back inside. At the bar, he crouched down and scooped his cover up off the floor.
“Have a seat,” the old man said, kicking a chair out from under the table toward Johnny.
Johnny peered down the darkened street. “Sorry, I’ve gotta be catching up with some people.”
“Oh, they’re just in the next bar,” the old man said, digging a hand into one of his coat pockets.
“I don’t mean to be rude…” Johnny said, trailing off as the old man came up with a deck of cards.
The old man smacked the deck down on the table, cut it in two, and commenced to shuffling. “One hand before you go. Winner takes.”
Johnny seemed to think for a moment. “I don’t know you,” he said uneasily.
“I’m not trying to hustle you. I’m just looking for an in-kind bet.”
“In-kind?”
The old man nodded. “A service.”
Once more, Johnny leered at the man. “What kind of service.”
“Easy,” the old man said as he gave the deck another shuffle. “Or at least, I hope so. Can you write?”
Johnny scoffed. “Yeah, I can write.”
“Well that’s all I want. Just a short letter if you lose.”
“How short?”
“Oh, it can be as long as you like, but I suppose three words should do if you’re really pressed.”
“Only three?”
The old man nodded.
“Which three?” Johnny asked.
“Well, like I said, it can be longer if you like, but I suppose just these would do: ‘Love you, Johnny.'”
“Look, mister, if you’re into that I’ve got no problem, but–“
“Not for me! For your people.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your folks,” the old man said. “Back home. You got ’em, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah…” Johnny said.
“Well, I recon you haven’t written them too much lately, what with being in and out–just back from gunner exercises this morning, even–but I think they’d like to hear from you. Think of it as a kind of Christmas present for them.”
“So if I win, I get the cards–“
“Right.”
“–and if I lose, I just have to write a letter home?”
“That’s all.”
“Mmm…” Johnny began. “I’ll sit for one hand.”
The old man smiled. “One hand’s all these card ever need.”
“What are we playing?” Johnny asked as he took his seat.
“Five card draw.”
“Wild card?”
‘Pfft!” went the old man. “I said five card draw, not go fish.” He leaned across the table and set the cards down in front of Johnny. “You cut, I’ll deal.”
And so that was their game. Johnny cut the deck as he was bid, and the old man dealt the cards out. When it was done, Johnny asked for two, and the old man, well, the old man just sort of grinned. “If you think that’ll help you,” the old man said, scooping up the two Johnny set down on the table and giving over two in turn.
Johnny took up his two new cards and nodded. “I think it did.”
The old man chuckled. “Not much of a poker face, huh?”
“The bet’s already laid,” Johnny said, nonchalant.
“Ain’t that the truth,” the old man said with a thoughtful nod. “Well, I’ll stand pat just the same.”
Johnny laid his cards out on the table. “Three jacks!” he said.
“Not bad…” the old man said, laying his out in turn.
“Geez…” Johnny said, staring down a flush of diamonds.
“Tough luck,” the old man said. “So you’ll right that letter?”
Johnny nodded. “I keep my word.”
“Of course you do.” Then, after a moment’s thought, he smirked and added, “You’ve got an honest look about you.”
“Well, have a nice night,” Johnny said, rising from his seat. But as Johnny took one step towards the edge of the veranda, the old man grasped him by the wrist. Johnny looked down and saw, for the first time, the flesh on the old man’s forearm: dried up and shriveled so it looked like something between long, overlapping scales and the feathers of a bird.
“Say…” the old man said. “Tomorrow’s a Sunday, ain’t it?”
“S-sure…” Johnny said uneasily. He cut his eyes to the old man’s and saw them then: milky-white, glazed over, and lit up like two moons.
“Well I was just thinking, maybe we could rethink our little bet.”
“I don’t want to play another hand with you,” Johnny said, shaking his head.
“No,” the old man mused, “the cards have said what they’re gonna say for tonight. But seeing as you’ve got friends and we don’t want them to be disappointed, how about I just give you the cards in exchange for one thing more?
“Please just let me go…” Johnny said, seemingly incapable of freeing himself from the old man’s grip.
“I will,” the old man said, “but how about this: you write that letter here and now–just three words–and I’ll not only give you the cards, I’ll take that letter and I’ll postmark it for you first thing Monday morning.”
Johnny looked up and down the street for someone to save him from this lunatic’s grasp, but the street was empty. “Just three words?” he said at last in desperation.
“That’s right,” the old man said. “Same as before–oh, and the address.”
“Okay,” Johnny said with a firm nod. “I’ll do it.”
“Here,” said the old man. He reached once more into his jacket and came up with pen and paper. He set it down beside the cards, and Johnny set to writing.
“Very good,” the old man said, looking the note over when Johnny was done. “I’ll see to it your people get it.”
Finally, the old man let go of Johnny’s wrist.
Johnny scooped up the cards, and stood there for a moment, staring down at the old man. But the old man looked past him. Past him and over his shoulder.
Then the old man pointed. “See that?” the old man said.
Johnny turned around to see the moon rising over Diamond Head, still almost full.
“People will walk on that moon some day,” the old man said. “I know, because I’ve been there with ’em.” He paused for a moment, and then with a nod added, “And by god, it made me feel young again.”
“That’s a nice thought,” Johnny said. “But just the same, I think I’ll be moving on.”
“Of course you will.”
Johnny stepped off the veranda and started down the street. Then he stopped and turned back to the old man. “You’re a strange bird,” Johnny said.
“That’s so,” said the old man, rising from his chair. “Anyway, best of luck to you. As for me…” the old man bowed his head and held his cowboy hat to his chest “…well, there’s a few more boys named Johnny, should be writing home tonight. But you go on and catch up with your friends.”
Part Three: Johnny Rocket Wore a Six Iron with Diamond Grips
“How’s it going back there?” Mike said.
“Not bad,” George said, his shaking hands clutched to a photograph of his son.
Alarms sounded. Sirens pierced the air.
“How are we doing?” Selene said from the pilot’s seat, a calmness in her voice that defied the urgency of the situation.
Mike tapped away at the panel of flickering red and yellow lights in front of him. “We might just make it,” he said, new alarms coming in faster than he could silence them. “Possible landing site: zero-three-zero, seven hundred.”
And then there was Selene on the radio. “Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Lunar Exploratory Vessel Eight, in the vicinity of…”
“I can’t get a lock!” Pat said, clawing at his helmet across the aisle from me.
Annie started out of her harness and edged toward Pat.
“Keep fast!” Mike yelled from the cockpit.
The craft lurched hard right and shuddered. The sound of sirens faded. The veins in my throat bulged against the lining of my suit and my heat pounded. The next thing I knew, Pat was slumped forward in his harness, head bowed and arms flaying all about as the craft continued to lurch.
I looked up a a growing seam in the overhead. My breathing hastened. My body tingled. Every breath I drew seemed to come and go like nothing. In a panic, I reached for the clasp at the base of my helmet, ready to cycle the lock. “I’m breached! I’m breached!” I cried.
“Calm down, you’re fine,” Annie said over the radio, her arms outstretched towards me. “You just need to breathe. Breathe with me.”
Annie left her mic keyed so that I could hear her breathe: in and out, each breath calm and measured. I tried to match her, but as we fell, unendingly it seemed, to the surface of the moon, each new gasp I drew seemed to pass shorter than the one that came before. The darkness closed in around me, and I lost all sense of time.
***
It was pitch black when I came to. I drew a long breath; the air was hot and sticky. I thought for a moment I was in my coffin, dead and buried. But then I detected the faint glint of starlight through the breach in the hull. As my eyes adjusted, I began to make out the forms of my fellow travelers, each caked in a thin layer of dust. I looked to the hatch in the rear of the craft: latched shut.
Not a coffin, but a tomb. A house of the dead.
I moved to undo my harness, but seethed as I tried to raise my arms. I couldn’t even make a fist to key the mic on my radio. I started to stomp and kick at the deck. It was the only thing I could do. It was the last thing I could do.
Then there was a crackling from my headset. “Can anyone hear me?” Annie said.
I stomped once more at the deck. Annie flipped her headlamp on and looked down at me, dangling over with the craft on its side.
Once more, I tried to make a fist to key the mic. Once more, I seethed.
“Just keep still,” Annie said, wincing. “It’s good to know I’m not alone. I think–” she winced again–“my legs are broken, and–” She took some time to breathe–short, labored breaths. “Don’t worry… they’ll come for us…”
Annie switched her headlamp off to conserve power, and once more we were trapped together in a starlit tomb. Yet still she spoke to me, keeping me focused on survival. “Stay alive, breathe with me,” she said. “They’re coming…”
Even as Annie’s words grew increasingly strained and it seemed too painful for her to speak at all, she kept her mic keyed so that I could hear each breath she took, in and out. At times, I felt like I breathed only because she did. That truly was the last thing I could do.
Hours passed in the darkness.
***
“See that!” Annie said excitedly.
I was in half-daze. I think by then my air was running out–or my carbon was running up. I looked around the cabin and just caught a glimpse of something like a ball of glass, sparkling as it protruded briefly in through the breach in the hull and then withdrew.
There was a light tremor at the rear of the craft: the hatch was suddenly open. Then a lone figure appeared in a strange getup. Its spacesuit was big, bulky, and white with a bubble helmet, like one of those old Apollo outfits.
I looked to Annie. As the white figure came and stood between us, its back towards me, I realized the craft was upright again.
“Johnny?” Annie said over the radio.
There was no reply–not that I could hear.
But then Annie spoke again. “The cards?” she said.
The white figure seemed to nod.
“Can you… help me?” Annie said. “I can’t… I can’t…”
The white figure moved in closer to Annie. It seemed to unbuckle her harness.
“That’s better,” Annie said, breathing easy. “Thank you.”
There was a long silence.
“Can you help him?” Annie said.
The white figure turned slightly towards me. I caught just a glimpse of the side of his face, looking like a fresh-faced youth. Far too young to be on the moon, let alone wearing an antique like that. He turned back to Annie.
“What?” Annie said, bewildered. “You can’t just leave him!”
Annie seemed to stir, but the white figure put one hand on her shoulder to stay her, and another on his hip. That’s when I saw it: there was the glint of something in a pouch at his side.
Johnny point to the breach in the hull. I looked just in time to see a pair of flashing red lights.
“They’re coming!” I said, forgetting for a moment that she could not hear me.
“It’s going to be alright, Peter,” Annie said. “They’re coming for you.”
But then Johnny unfastened that pouch at his side, and I saw it: a silvery pistol with diamond grips that shone out like starlight in the darkness.
“No! No!” I cried, kicking and thrashing with my legs who paid me no mind.
Annie saw my desperation. “It’s okay,” she said, a faint quiver in her voice. “Johnny says you’re gonna be okay. It was only ever supposed to be one survivor, and it’s you. It was in the cards like that. But he saw you needed someone to make it through.”
Johnny stepped to one side, and I could see Annie clearly as he drew his revolver and put the end of the barrel to Annie’s helmet. There was a pleading in her eyes then–not to Jonny, but to me.
“It’s alright,” Annie said, her eyes fixed on mine, “just look away. Look away, and it’ll be alright. Breathe, just breathe…”
I closed my eyes, and I felt like I was falling again. Weightless. No bottom. If you fall fast enough, you can fall forever.
I heard what sounded like an explosion, and the next thing I knew I was here. I just wish Annie could have made it. I wish they all could have.
Songs of Babylon 