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mixed-up smells all clinging to his tan uniform. Work gloves would be shoved in his back pocket, stiff like the tails of two cocks fighting. This gift he would bring back for me and only me. Not for my brother, who couldn’t name another planet other than the one his two feet were standing on, and who hated being dragged away from his ‘hood’ on astronomical campouts.
    That day in the library, when I was fourteen and growing like a weed, I cut out the Earth from the encyclopedia and shoved it in my pocket. I strutted out onto the sidewalk and held it high in the air in front of me. A crescent moon gleamed in the upper atmosphere. The sun-split blue horizon shimmered to a darker indigo over the black expanse. The sky was zipped open by a pair of parallel contrails, ribs holding the guts of the Earth inside. I held the picture over the toenail moon and imagined me up there, looking back at the me down here. In the picture, I saw the Earth as an iris peeking into the dark void, and was awed by the question of God and if there was ever an end.
    Now I was standing outside a hangar watching the day come into focus, the sun crisping a sheet of clouds into a beautiful pink to welcome a new day. Somehow a fiery intuition burning inside me knew this life was over. My hand was still over my heart, feeling the rim of the photo strapped to my chest. The Earth beat under my palm, and I felt I was going to burn up into ashes as the sun crept into the horizon. I thought the moment could last forever, lingering as long as I didn’t exhale.
    Then, a woman’s voice behind me asked, “So what are youthinking?”
    I turned around to see Briana staring at me. “I’m thinking it’s going to be a long flight.”
    “Could be.” She paused a moment. “But that’s not all you’re thinking about, is it?”
    This was Bunny. She had a way of getting in your business. She had her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Temple, and it was just her natural proclivity to be curious. I was silent. Finally, she threw up her arms in the air. “Okay. Keep it to yourself. I won’t press you.”
    “What exactly do you want me to say and I’ll say it.”
    “What’s on your mind—it’s the same as what’s on everyone’s mind.”
    “And that is?”
    She scoffed, blowing air out of her lower lip. “We’re all scared, man. You’re not a wussy if you admit it.”
    I laughed. “Scared? I’m not scared. Save your shrink degree for The Abattoir, Bunny.”
    “You’re all fine,” she said. “Just like always.”
    I smiled and winked at her. Out in the distance, a half a mile down the road, came the faint flicker of headlights. A black van appeared. Someone trotted out of the hangar while Briana walked back in. The guy went and opened the chain-linked gate. The van pulled in and parked among the six others. Grus and Bunker jumped out with their driver, Bunker with a wide grin on his face. He bounced toward me and yelled out, “Thought I wasn’t going to make it, didn’t you?”
    “It crossed my mind.”
    “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” Striding past me towards the hangar he said, “Look at you trying to bag the Energizer Bunny while I’m away.”
    Grus walked past. “We had to wait for Elliot and Harold, both of whom didn’t show.”
    “Pussies.”
    “Maybe,” Grus said, “or just smarter than the rest of us.”
    Then it started in earnest. A guy in a dull-green camouflage jumpsuit walked up to us with a clipboard. “Sanders, Richards, O’Donnell, Davis, Pugs, Blanchard—you’re out. You can go home.”
    “What the fuck?” Pugs said, losing his temper. “Why even bring us here if you’re just going to boot our asses right back?”
    “Decisions of who goes are made last minute by The Abattoir. You didn’t make the cut.”
    “That’s bullshit,” Blanchard roared. “You got to give us a reason!”
    “It doesn’t say,” the airman said, avoiding eye contact. “It never says. But that’s the way it is. It’s