The boy who wanted to be an astronaut

Despite Natalie’s habits of drinking, smoking, and popping pills when they were available, Natalie had brains. She also had a passion for astrology, and had taught herself how to  chart people’s destinies from data she would get from magazines. “Your moon is in Scorpio, and your ascendant is in Virgo,” she would say, and go on to make a prediction that occasionally came true. People would say it’s bull, or get excited, or be afraid. She liked them to react, which in turn got her obsessed. Sometimes she would stay up half the night to finish someone’s horoscope.  “It’s retrograde Mercury, be careful, nothing’s going to go right for a couple of weeks” she would say. Then something bad would happen. They would get evicted, or they would run out of food and stay hungry for a while, or someone they knew would get busted by the cops. She would announce proudly, “See? It’s that damn retrograde Mercury!” Horrorscope, Bradley thought,  but would never dare say it out loud.

He thought her talk about stars and planets was cool. It went along with the UFO sightings that were going on in the news. His favorite was a Look magazine cover that showed a big red-orange flying saucer speeding over some treetops. He heard about Project Bluebook and decided the UFOs must be real or why would the government spend money investigating them?

His 3rd grade class had Career Day coming up. Bradley chose to give a speech about the U.S. space program and his career choice to become an astronaut. He studied all about the manned flights that had gone into space, the new Apollo program, and President Kennedy’s promise to go to the moon. He hoped he could be an Apollo astronaut when he grew up. By that time, Bradley was predicting, they would have colonies on the moon and people would be travelling back and forth to Earth.

In his studies he learned that to be an Astronaut you had to be in excellent physical condition. No problem, he knew he could train and do things like running and push-ups. But a magazine article reported you also had to be a straight A student, and he was making Cs. Preparing for Career Day turned that right around. He started getting mad when other kids would get an A and he didn’t, and complained to his 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Finchbaugh. She was struck that he wanted to make As, and took him aside after school to explain about homework and studying. She encouraged him to go to the library, because she knew about the problems in the Rosedale family.  He started going there after school and on Saturdays, and soon was making As and Bs. But the pressure he put on himself made him nervous. He couldn’t sleep much the night before a test, and would feel sick to the stomach while taking it. He would punish himself or break something if he made a C, which happened rarely.  Natalie got mad that he was spending so much time in the library, so he would sit in a closet at night studying with a flashlight so his little brothers could sleep.

By the time he gave his speech about becoming an Astronaut he had to pretend the part about wanting to explore the Moon, or even Mars. What he really wanted but was afraid to share because the teacher might think it was crazy, was to discover new planets. Then, the more he thought about it, the more he just wanted to go as far away from Earth as possible.