A Long Time to Endeavour

A short story exploring the individuals place and influence

A Long Time to Endeavour 

The street has the hot stench of sweating tarmac. A breeze calmly slams dead newspaper articles against the concrete walls, splashed in a firework of colour, deal of the day at Randy's Donuts, the space donut for ninety nine cents. I had one a few days back. The cream had space dust sprinkled in it, you know that sugar that pops on your tongue. It tingles like mini explosions.

Workmen have been out early, making sure the jobs done. The power lines have been de-energised and raised, making way. Afternoon sun reflects of camera lenses, making me think of Chinese lanterns in the sky. Photographers perched like golden eagles on the flat roofs, patiently waiting their prey. There's a guy up on my roof, gave me thirty bucks to sit up there for the afternoon. Money is money I guess. 

'Hey man, do you want ice tea or something?' I shout up to him

'No thanks mate. I'm good.' 

I know his a professional tourist. Sucking up opportunities round the world; a plastered image, stolen from the organic everyday living and breathing, shared across the media machine. Think he's from England, although he has well tanned, travelled skin. Don't know if he realises how hot the California sun can be during the afternoon stretch. He's going to be panting for that iced tea then. Guess all of them will be, as they wait for the perfect shot. Could make a bit of a business selling them drinks. Maybe I will, but for now I just want to soak up the atmosphere.Get myself a Bud, and pull out a lounger. Prop it up next to the stump of the tree outside my house. They cut that down to make way too. Didn't cut down those pine trees down Martin Luther King Boulevard though, guess their deemed to important, planted in honour. My tanoak tree obviously wasn't that important, I told my boy not to worry, we can find somewhere else to put our rope swing.

My boy's across the road now, playing with Elwood's son. Good lads, arms out, flying some mission. The wonder of imagination. Elwood's up on his roof. I say hi, raise my hand up, partly to block the sun from my eyes. His got his camera out too; been taking shots of the dusty street, dirty browns and dead greens. Elwood makes me laugh, always thinking big. Thinks he can get a picture that the professionals littering the streets around Inglewood won't get. Pictures being sold around the world, and Elwood thinks he can get in on the action. Always has. He got sacked from Disney, but that hasn't stopped his pointlessly lost ambitions. He wanted to be Micky. He wants to sue disney for continuous Nazi interest, said they wouldn't have a black guy being Micky. He only ever got to be Goofy or Pluto. Dogs. He ended up arguing with his line manager over it while he tried putting on Micky's outfit. Kept spilling out the old lines, Walt was in with Hitler, Disney wants to keep with the ayran race. His manager wouldn't have it. Elwood just went on about Snow White. Said they wouldn't even let an African do the music for Lion King, they had to get Phil Collins and Elton John. His convinced it's all a conspiracy. 'Phil Collins, he was from genesis man' he said to me . Told me it's all linked, Genesis, the bible and Christianity. All some kind of code. He said the argument with his line manager turned into a fight. A fight for truth against Walt Disney's white christian new age control, well so Elwood says. I heard Elwood went to hit the guy, but tripped over his costumed feet, fell flat on his face.

'It's running late.' said Mr Jamison.

'Lots to plan.' I said, without turning.

Mr Jamison is my neighbour, old guy, always sucking on a mint. You can smell it on his breath as he talks. He tends to suck them so hard his cheeks keep on moving in and out. Looks like a wrinkled fish gasping for it's last unimportant moments.  

'I'd like to think I'll be more prompt.' Mr Jamison said.

'What d'ya mean?' I ask.

'Well, when my time comes to be driven through these streets, and taken to my final resting place.' 

'Long time yet Mr Jamison, long time yet.'

'Maybe, maybe not. One thing for sure. I won't be getting all this pomp!'

'Won't be getting Debbie Llen to be choreographing a tribute for you then?'

He laughs at that. Little bit of spittle flopping out of his mouth and onto the sun cracked dirt below. I'd taken my boy to see the Fame actresses efforts of dedication: dancers and aerial performers pranced around to her direction. It looked good, not my thing really, but the boy enjoyed it. Enjoyed the whole atmosphere; the feverish pride and joy. The crowd working itself up into a frenzy of glorified importance. I joined them in the chant' U.S.A, U.S.A', felt like just by saying it we confirmed out place in history. And there she was sitting proud as anything hitched up on a trailer to a Toyota Tundra, The Endeavour. Ready for her twenty-sixth mission. They're calling it Mission 26: The Big Endeavour. You have to ask how big a mission it really is? This space shuttle, on its previous missions, has circled the earth four thousand six hundred and seventy one times, travelling at speeds of seventeen thousand miles per hour on journeys of discovery. Now it is travelling at two miles per hour on a two day journey, leaving much of Inglewood in darkness.

  'Darn annoying having the power out, all my beers are warm!' Mr Jamison said, eying my cold Budweiser.

'I put some in the cooler, do you want?'

'May as well.'

'It's gonna be pretty neat to see a spaceship in our street huh?'

Mr Jamison lifts his chin a little in answer, not quite a nod, just an acknowledgement; he props himself onto the tree stump as I toss him a beer. Someone down the street has started a barbecue, the smell of smoke and coal, mixed with lighter fluid drifts down the road, carried on the warm breeze.

'The Endeavour was born here you know. There were parts of it made in Inglewood. Some parts in Long Beach. It was assembled between Palmdale and Downey. Guess it's only right she come home to Southern California. I watched it's first flight when it entered service back in nineteen nighty two. Doubt you remember.' Mr Jamison said.

I give a wry smile. Old guy thinks he's the only person to have lived. I know about the Endeavour, and it's history. We did a project about it at school around the time of it's first mission.

'Yeh I remember. Did you know that The Endeavour entered service as replacement for Challenger?' 

Mr Jamison gave a look toward me. The sun continues to beat down with a haze drifting over the dusty sidewalk. I can see Elwood's camera flashing as he takes pictures of the photographers.

'I knew.' Mr Jamison said, talking into the bottleneck of his beer, a dim whistle forced out from the pressure. 'I've watched every launch of the Endeavour, and now I come to watch it come to rest. If it gives me any sense of peace... it's funny the lives we lead. The Challenger, like a burning beacon. So bright, humans, reaching so far...somehow never really making it.'

I take a sip of my beer, and then realise he's stopped talking. 'The Challenger may not have made it, but the Endeavour has. It's nice to celebrate it's achievements.'

'Achievements...' Mr Jamison clears his throat. 'You know Reagan said "we would never forget them as they slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God." Funny really, their souls were cremated above earth and fluttered down like gold dust. Do you know Christa McAuliffe?'

'Of course I do, the school teacher. My boy goes to a school named after her.' The old guy's beginning to annoy me.  Just talking.

'You know she won a place on the Challenger. Part of the teacher in space project. Won over thousands of applicants.'

'Yeh, bet she wished she never won.' I said, not really listening now.

'My daughter applied for that space project.'

'Lucky escape for her then.'

'Yep, lucky escape. She thought the same. Heartbroken when she wasn't chosen, ended up dying three days after Challenger exploded. Liza Jamison. Not many people know her name.'

Mr Jamison takes another drag of his beer, and the cheers begin to greet us as The Endeavour is towed round the corner. Camera's flash as the immense mass of metal rolls down the street, blocking the sun, casting shadows. I can see Elwood in the dim light, looking at the professional photographers, overwhelmed. Mr Jamison and I sit there and watch The Endeavour roll by.

 

Author's Note

Constructive criticism is welcome, I am quite new to this and eager to develop.