History of Stargazing: Part 1

[olbustedhotness]

March 2, 1961

Light-years and millenia had led up to this moment. Galaxies and asteroid belts had been waylaid in pursuit of this one, crucial destination. Now, at last, it loomed within sight. The alien spacecraft loomed high above the Earth, veering by minute degrees left and right, up and down, bobbing and weaving until it found its desired coordinates. Having acquired a proper landing site, it slowly, carefully began its descent into an uncharted world...

"Hannah Faye Brown, if you drop that ugly old fishing hat on my head any time between now and tomorrow morning, I -will- be forced to hurt you."

The ten-year-old girl pouted as she jumped down off her brother's bed, taking both fishing pole and hat with her, the hat dangling precariously from the pole's hook by the loop of one shining green lure. "Aww, but Kevin! I bet Lizzie would think it was -adorable-."

He snorted, trying to pass off a laugh as annoyance - yet it didn't quite seem to work. "I doubt it, Hann, I really, really do. Besides - don't I look sharp?" He offered her a grin as he fixed the collar of his father's plaid dress shirt and checked his hair a second time in the mirror.

"You look like you should be on the TV, with all those fancy famous people. Or in the movies." Hannah grinned. "It's weird. It's really weird."

"You think so?"

"You were mucking the stalls with me this morning," his little sister pointed out.

"I guess it isn't really what I usually look like, is it," Kevin admitted. "But girls aren't really impressed by barn boots and jeans, I don't think. Anyway, you have to look nice when you're meeting someone as important as Liz." Here, he smiled, his eyes resting on a small newspaper clipping of a girl in a checked dress, her hair pulled back in barrettes, standing on a small platform, her hands clasped behind her back.

She'd sung at the school recital-"Manhattan Serenade", it had been, if he remembered correctly. He couldn't remember the words - he'd been too busy noticing just how pretty she was. The next thing he knew, she was walking up to him at the barbecue afterwards, across the front lawn of the school.

"So," she'd said. "Bud Lowell told me you think I'm pretty?"

He'd blushed like a Valentine's Day rose and managed a nod. This, through some arrangement of words and phrases he still couldn't explain, had landed him a date with Elizabeth Ann Reston. ... Of course, his best friend had gotten an Indian sunburn and a talking-to the moment that Kevin regained his senses, but the simple remained that somehow, tonight, he was going to be picking her up at her house, in his father's car, and taking her to dinner at the diner. It still seemed a little too good to be true.

Hannah's voice shook him from his reverie as she clambered up onto the foot of his bed once more and began waving the fishing pole as if conducting an invisible chorus. "Kev-in and Liz-zie, sittin' in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

"Hey!"

"First comes love-"

He made a grab for the fishing pole. "Now cut that out!"

"Then comes marriage-"

"HANNAH!"

"Then comes a baby in a -HEY! KEVIN! No fair!" She whined, as her brother tackled her to the bed, tickling her.

"Now you're gonna get it," he menaced, grinning as she shrieked with laughter. "That'll teach you!"

"Stoppit!" Wriggling, she made a grab for the edge of the bed and tried to pull herself free. "MOOOOM!"

As if on cue, Joyce Brown appeared in the doorway of her son's bedroom with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. "Kevin, let your sister go, for the Lord's sake. I swear... you're gonna make yourself late."

With a chuckle, he released his captive, and she promptly boffed him over the head with the fishing hat. "Yes, ma'am," he grinned sheepishly. "But Liz said her house is only half n' hour away..."

"If you know the way," his mother amended. "She lives way out on those back roads behind the forest, sweetheart. You're gonna want some extra time, just in case."

"Mama, I'll be fine," he sighed, rolling his eyes. "I'm sixteen, I been living here all my life, I'll find her."

"All your sixteen years, mm, you old Methuselah." She reached out to ruffle his hair, then noticed the amount of pomade and work that had gone into his styling job, and thought otherwise. "Okay, dear. But if you get lost, you stop and ask for directions."

"Yes'm," Kevin nodded. "Where's Daddy?"

"He's out back closin' up the barn, honey. You'd better go say goodbye to him now, since I think he's gonna work on that old tractor. Better to get hay on you than oil."

He quirked a smile. "Absolutely."


By the time his son found him, Martin Brown was scattering the last of a bale of hay at the end of the barn. The Kansas air was still and quiet, save for the sound of the Browns' herd of cows enjoying their dinner, and the hum of insects outside. Kevin stepped carefully through the hay, not wanting to scuff or soil his good Sunday (and now, good Date With Liz Reston) shoes more than necessary. "Hey..."

"Hey, it's the ladies' man," his father beamed, tossing the twine from the hay bale into a trash bin and dusting his hands off on his jeans. "You nervous?"

"As hell," he admitted, making a face.

"It's a'right. Don't you worry about it. All she's really interested in is enjoyin' herself and spendin' time with you. If anything goes wrong on your end, just treat it like an attempt at entertainment - because if anything, she'll laugh. Which counts as what, now?" Martin winked.

"Enjoyin' herself," his son echoed, smiling slowly. "So you're saying even if I make a fool of myself, it's okay?"

"You've heard your mother an' me reminisce. The mistakes are what we remember the fondest, when all's said and done. ... Doesn't mean you should go out of your way to make 'em happen. Just laugh at 'em when they do."

"Yessir."

"I'd offer you a hug, but ... I doubt you'd want to show up to the Restons' front porch smelling like barn."

He grinned. "I'd say not, no."

"Then go on and get going - don't want to be late, do you."

"Nosir."

Martin reached out for a handshake. "You take care and enjoy yourself. Be on your best behavior." So saying, he pressed a five-dollar bill into his son's hand, winking. "... and get her some nice flowers. They like that."

"Thanks, Daddy," Kevin beamed, stuffing the bill into his pocket along with his mother's car keys.

"Back by ten, you hear?"

"Yessir!" With a wave, he jogged out of the barn and back to the front yard, where the family car stood waiting. It was a Volkswagen, about seven years old and well-cared for. His father had bought it new for his mother, after they'd had a particularly successful year with the cattle. It was a slightly garish aquamarine color that the man on the showfloor had assured them was 'all the rage' - though in what part of God's great earth, no one in the Brown family had been able to guess. Thankfully, the years had faded it a bit, so that the thing no longer looked like an Easter Egg going down the street.

Taking the keys from his pocket, Kevin turned the engine over and carefully put the wagon into gear, turning on the headlights. As he waited for it to idle, he turned on the AM radio and tuned it carefully from his mother's talk station to the one he and his friends listened to after school. Buddy Holly's voice rang out in a slightly fuzzy manner through the old speakers, and Kevin sang along as he pulled out onto the road.

"Oh, that'll be the day..."

Drumming his fingers a bit on the steering wheel, the way his father always did, he drove out into town, stopping at the general store, its yellow light illuminating the parking lot as the sun began to set. Climbing out of the cab, he took the steps up the store's porch two at a time and bounded into the place grinning. "Evenin', Mr. Johnson."

"Well, hello there, Kevin. Aren't you looking jazzed up this evening. What's the occasion?"

He blushed. "... you wouldn't happen to have any flowers left, would'ja, sir?"

"Ahaaa, I see." Mr. Johnson smiled warmly, reaching out to the rack beside the counter. "Well, the bouquets are all pretty much gone, but I've got a few carnations that'd make quite a nice corsage if you've got a second for me to find you a safety pin."

"That'd be perfect," Kevin grinned, imagining the carnations pinned to the lapel of Elizabeth's checkered best dress. "Thank you very much, sir."

The storekeeper nodded, pinning the flowers together carefully and adding a short length of white ribbon. "There you go, Mr. Brown. Two dollars, if you please."

He beamed, handing over his fiver and pocketing the change, taking the flowers as if they were made of crystal. "There you go..."

"You have a nice time, now, son."

"Thank you, Mr. Johnson." Waving with his free hand, Kevin made his way out of the store much more carefully than he'd gone in, and set the corsage gingerly down on the passenger seat.

Buckling his seatbelt, he pulled out onto the street once more and made his way out toward Forest Road at the edge of town. Forest Road was aptly named, as it was the main road out of town. Not only did it run straight through the forest, but several back roads branched off of it like the trees it circumnavigated. Kevin paused in singing along long enough to try to remember the directions that Elizabeth had given him to her house. His mother had written them down, and he pulled onto the shoulder of the road carefully, reaching into his shirt pocket to take them out. As his fingers poked into an empty pocket, he realized with a slow, quiet sort of fear that the directions were sitting folded on his dresser, placed neatly beside his comb.

"Well, damn," he said softly, frowning at the radio. "Whaddaya think of that." He leant his head back against the seat of the car for a moment with a sigh, then looked out at the darkening road, trying to remember. "... well, it's not far. I think she said it was the third left ..." Pulling back out onto the road, he spotted the turn in question and nodded to himself. "That's it, sure. Third left, then a right and a left again. Grey house, white porch, little yappy dog..."

A slow smile spread across his face - yes, that sounded about perfect. Proud of himself for remembering, he glanced down at the corsage for a brief moment before taking the left turn in question. "Won't be long now, Liz. We're gonna have a grand old time, you and I, I promise."

However, when turn number three opened up into a broad clearing filled with cars, he frowned. Cars were common enough, but ...

In place of a grey house with a white porch and a little yappy dog, there was something very large, silver, and metallic sitting in the middle of the field that looked like nothing he'd ever seen before.

With a heavy sigh, he shrugged and let the car idle. Taking the corsage in hand, just in case her driveway was around here somewhere, and he just had to walk a bit, he climbed out of the car.

After all, he decided, heading toward the knot of official-looking men gathered around the BigSilverThing, if that wasn't the case, he could at least ask for directions.