bad as St. Louis's. Baedecker looked at the big man next to him. Bill Ackroyd was in his late forties or early fifties. He was sagging to fat and had already perspired through the back of his JC Penney shirt. His hair was combed forward to hide an encroaching baldness. He looks like me, thought Baedecker and felt a blossom of anger unfold in his chest. Ackroyd grinned and Baedecker smiled back.
Baedecker followed him through the tiny terminal to the curved drive where Ackroyd had parked his car in a space reserved for the handicapped. The man kept up an amiable stream of small talk that mixed with the heat to produce a not-unpleasant nausea in Baedecker. Ackroyd drove a Bonneville. The engine had been left running, air-conditioning blasting to cool the interior to an unhealthy chill. Baedecker sank into the velvet cushions with a sigh while the other man set his luggage in the trunk.
"I can't tell you what this means to all of us," said Ackroyd as he settled himself. "The whole town's excited. It's the biggest thing that's happened to Glen Oak since Jesse James's gang came through and camped at Hartley's Pond." Ackroyd laughed and shifted the car into gear. His hands were so large that they made the steering wheel and gearshift look like toys. Baedecker imagined that Ackroyd came from the kind of Midwestern stock that had used such huge, blunt hands to string up outlaws.
"I didn't know that the James gang ever went through Glen Oak," said Baedecker.
"Probably didn't," said Ackroyd and laughed his big, unself-conscious laugh. "That makes you the most exciting thing ever to happen to us."
Peoria looked like it had been abandoned or bombed. Or both. Storefronts held dust and dead flies. Grass grew up in cracks in the highway and weeds flourished in the untended medians. Old buildings sagged against one another and the few new structures sat like overscaled druid altars amid razed blocks of rubble.
"My God," muttered Baedecker, "I don't remember the city looking like this." Actually Baedecker hardly remembered Peoria at all. Once a year his mother had taken them to town to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade so they could wave at Santa Claus. Baedecker had been too
old for Santa Claus, but he would sit with his younger sisters on the stone lions near the courthouse and dutifully wave. One year Santa had arrived in a jeep with the four elves dressed in the uniforms of the different services. Baedecker remembered that the lawn of the city square had risen in a gentle arc to the elaborate stone gingerbread of the courthouse. He would play at being shot and roll down the grassy incline until his mother yelled at him to stop. He noticed now that the squareâhe thought that it was the same blockâhad been turned into a fussily landscaped sunken park near a glass box of a city-county building.
"Reagan's recession," said Ackroyd. "Carter's recession before him. Goddamn Russians."
"Russians?" Baedecker half expected to hear a torrent of John Birch propaganda. He thought he remembered reading that George Wallace had carried Peoria County in the 1968 primary. In 1968 Baedecker had been spending sixty hours a week in a simulator as part of the support team for Apollo 8. The year had held no meaning for him except in terms of the project deadlines. He had emerged from his cocoon in January of 1969 to find Bobby Kennedy dead, Martin Luther King dead, LBJ a memory, and Richard M. Nixon president. In Baedecker's office in St. Louis, on the wall above the liquor cabinet, between two honorary degrees from colleges he had never visited, there was a photograph of Nixon shaking his hand in a Rose Garden ceremony. Baedecker and the other two astronauts looked tense and ill at ease in the picture. Nixon was grinning, his upper teeth white and exposed, his left hand on Baedecker's elbow in the same salesman's grip Ackroyd had used at the airport.
"Not really their fault," grunted Ackroyd. "Caterpillar's fault for dependin' so much on
Baedecker followed him through the tiny terminal to the curved drive where Ackroyd had parked his car in a space reserved for the handicapped. The man kept up an amiable stream of small talk that mixed with the heat to produce a not-unpleasant nausea in Baedecker. Ackroyd drove a Bonneville. The engine had been left running, air-conditioning blasting to cool the interior to an unhealthy chill. Baedecker sank into the velvet cushions with a sigh while the other man set his luggage in the trunk.
"I can't tell you what this means to all of us," said Ackroyd as he settled himself. "The whole town's excited. It's the biggest thing that's happened to Glen Oak since Jesse James's gang came through and camped at Hartley's Pond." Ackroyd laughed and shifted the car into gear. His hands were so large that they made the steering wheel and gearshift look like toys. Baedecker imagined that Ackroyd came from the kind of Midwestern stock that had used such huge, blunt hands to string up outlaws.
"I didn't know that the James gang ever went through Glen Oak," said Baedecker.
"Probably didn't," said Ackroyd and laughed his big, unself-conscious laugh. "That makes you the most exciting thing ever to happen to us."
Peoria looked like it had been abandoned or bombed. Or both. Storefronts held dust and dead flies. Grass grew up in cracks in the highway and weeds flourished in the untended medians. Old buildings sagged against one another and the few new structures sat like overscaled druid altars amid razed blocks of rubble.
"My God," muttered Baedecker, "I don't remember the city looking like this." Actually Baedecker hardly remembered Peoria at all. Once a year his mother had taken them to town to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade so they could wave at Santa Claus. Baedecker had been too
old for Santa Claus, but he would sit with his younger sisters on the stone lions near the courthouse and dutifully wave. One year Santa had arrived in a jeep with the four elves dressed in the uniforms of the different services. Baedecker remembered that the lawn of the city square had risen in a gentle arc to the elaborate stone gingerbread of the courthouse. He would play at being shot and roll down the grassy incline until his mother yelled at him to stop. He noticed now that the squareâhe thought that it was the same blockâhad been turned into a fussily landscaped sunken park near a glass box of a city-county building.
"Reagan's recession," said Ackroyd. "Carter's recession before him. Goddamn Russians."
"Russians?" Baedecker half expected to hear a torrent of John Birch propaganda. He thought he remembered reading that George Wallace had carried Peoria County in the 1968 primary. In 1968 Baedecker had been spending sixty hours a week in a simulator as part of the support team for Apollo 8. The year had held no meaning for him except in terms of the project deadlines. He had emerged from his cocoon in January of 1969 to find Bobby Kennedy dead, Martin Luther King dead, LBJ a memory, and Richard M. Nixon president. In Baedecker's office in St. Louis, on the wall above the liquor cabinet, between two honorary degrees from colleges he had never visited, there was a photograph of Nixon shaking his hand in a Rose Garden ceremony. Baedecker and the other two astronauts looked tense and ill at ease in the picture. Nixon was grinning, his upper teeth white and exposed, his left hand on Baedecker's elbow in the same salesman's grip Ackroyd had used at the airport.
"Not really their fault," grunted Ackroyd. "Caterpillar's fault for dependin' so much on
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