Excerpt

Melville, South Carolina was out of money, it was out of jobs, it was out of hope, and today it was out of astronauts. It'd only had two to begin with, so it's not like there was a lot of room for error in the first place. One was Walter Reddie, a leftover from the Shuttle Program who couldn't even piss with conviction anymore. He was paunchy and pushing sixty, with bug eyes, a gray crew cut, and a face that was as ugly as a donkey's asshole. He wore his sagging ass and paunch down low like they were on worn-out suspenders, and the less said about his time in the Shuttle Program, the better.

The other astronaut was Walter Reddie's second cousin once removed, Bobby Campbell, Jr. He was twenty-nine years old and a flight engineer on Mission 31 to the International Space Station under Commander Paul Fields and right now he was all alone, 247 miles above the surface of the Earth, helplessly falling around the planet at 17,239 miles per hour with no way home. This had resulted in a crisis at Melville's Ron McNair High School.

"Everyone got off except him?" Mr. Gaudy, the headmaster, said to the NASA public relations officer who called him. "Every single other astronaut got off that space station except the one who was scheduled to speak at my graduation?"

"Would you like another astronaut?" the NASA official asked.

"By when?" Mr. Gaudy asked.

"End of the week."

"End of the week? That means I'll no longer have the use of our gymnasium. Melville is not made of stadium seating. I'll have to go to Gaffney and rent their AMC screen. Who's going to pay for that?"

"I could come and speak," the NASA official suggested.

"Are you an astronaut?"

"Public relations are a vital part of the American space program."

Mr. Gaudy terminated the conversation. No one wanted to hear what an almost-astronaut had to say. Just his luck that he had scheduled a graduation speaker who was one of those obnoxious martyr types, always looking for an opportunity to sacrifice himself for the "greater good" and play hero. Now Mr. Gaudy would have to make one of the most irritating phone calls of his entire life. He dialed Walter Reddie's number from memory.

"Walter, it's Glenn Gaudy over at the school."

"I knew you'd come crawling back," Walter slurred.

"I'm calling to see if you might want to speak at the graduation tomorrow?"

"Oh, yeah?"

"You've been the commencement speaker for so many years, I thought it would be special to have you do it again."

"Cause Bobby's stuck up in space. Haw, haw."

For ten years in a row, Walter Reddie had shown up loaded to the gills to give the graduation speech, and it was always the same. "Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon, follow your dreams, et cetera." Always delivered with a total lack of conviction and completely flammable breath.

Mr. Gaudy had been delirious with joy when he'd heard that Bobby Campbell, Jr. would be able to give the speech this year, and he'd lost no time in striking Walter Reddie from the program. But now here he was, back again. It was like the two of them were stuck in some kind of horrible marriage.

"What if I doan wanna do it?" Walter said, mush-mouthed.

Parents expected a commencement speaker and, more than that, they expected a celebrity. It was no good explaining to them that Ron McNair High School was too small to draw a celebrity worth the name. To them, explanations sounded like excuses, and excuses made them angry. Mr. Gaudy had no pride when it came to avoiding angry parents.

"I'll give you fifty dollars," he said.

"Sixty."

"I'll give you sixty dollars but no more. That's coming out of next year's textbook budget, so I hope you're happy. I'm drawing the line at sixty!"

Walter gave a phlegmy chuckle and hung up the phone. And that was how Mr. Gaudy wound up sitting on the portable stage in the Ron McNair High School gymnasium watching a sick and sweaty Walter Reddie staring at the deactivated scoreboard on the far wall as the high school string orchestra joylessly sawed its way through Pachelbel's Canon.

Mr. Gaudy found it troubling that Walter Reddie had arrived sober. He'd never seen the man sober in his life. But he had done the best he could with what the Lord had given him, and now there was no turning back.

The minutes limped by. Mr. Gaudy got up and gave his introduction, they droned through a hymn ("O God Our Help in Ages Past"), he introduced Walter Reddie, and then he prayed that nothing truly horrible would happen. As the smattering of applause died out, Mr. Gaudy was unnerved by Walter Reddie's steady stride to the podium but reassured when Reddie unfolded the same old greasy print-out he always used. Mr. Gaudy had seen Walter Reddie—cup of coffee in one hand, cigarette burning between his fingers—vomit explosively onto the school parking lot, then slur his way through this same speech without serious incident fifteen minutes later.

"Greetings, class of 2023," Walter began. "My name is Walter Reddie and I was an astronaut. Being an astronaut is hard work, but when you finally go into space, you realize it is work that matters. Think about this pale blue dot on which we all live. Do any of us ever expect to see it the way an astronaut does, looking at this tiny arena like a cosmic stage…"

Walter Reddie stopped. Carefully, he folded his speech up and tucked it back inside his jacket. He gripped the sides of the podium and lowered his head, like he was thinking hard. Mr. Gaudy did not like it when people thought hard. It never worked out well. Then Walter Reddie lifted his head and stared out at the forty-two kids fanning themselves in the humid gym.

"You're fucked," he said. Parents recoiled, kids pricked up their ears. "There ain't no jobs out there for you. They're all being hogged up by folks who want them worse. You're soft. You're weak. Most of you are borderline retarded, and I bet if you think real hard, you can't remember a single useful thing you've learned in the past twelve years you've spent cheating on tests, copying homework, playing video games, and huffing glue."

Mr. Gaudy was paralyzed with horror. It was like all his nightmares were coming true at the same time. A rambling drunken monologue he could have handled, but an attack on the American education system? And the insults! Plus the r word. These children were violent. Push them too far and they'd come at you with their phones. He'd had two teachers quit this year already because of what had been done to them on Instagram.

"My cousin is up there on the International Space Station," Walter Reddie said. "He stayed behind to manually undock the Soyuz reentry vehicles so his six crewmates could return safely to their families. He didn't give a tinker's damn that two of them were probably Putin-loving Russian spies and one was a godless Commie from Red China, because when times are tough, you don't see color.

"Now, NASA don't fly Space Shuttles no more, and the Commies crashed their last two Soyuz rockets, so everyone says that Bobby Junior is gonna be stuck up in space for a while. They say he won't die because Richard Branson is gonna build a space plane and go get him, but I'll tell you a fact: Richard Branson is a pussy. He comes from a long line of pussies born and raised in a country run by pussies who couldn't even beat a bunch of dirty, lowdown Nazis without our help. I'll tell you another fact. Bobby Junior is going to die up there because America has become a nation of people like you: cowards and fuck-tards who would rather send an email than go into space."

The graduating class of 2022 had never listened to a speech this long before. Normally, they'd be rioting by now, but Reddie's carefully timed insults had captured their attention. They had their phones out, recording his every word. It felt safer that way.

"When Bobby dies, that bloodless mummy in the White House is gonna make some pretty speeches and call him a hero and build him a monument and Bobby's momma will get a check in the mail and be invited to the Rose Garden so she can shake that grinning fuck's hand. But let me tell you something: she'd rather have her son back.

"So, I'm gonna do what the corporate knob-gobblers in the White House and the Commies in the Kremlin can't. I'm gonna do what those spineless nerds at NASA won't. I'm gonna build a rocket and I'm gonna bring my cousin back home to his momma. And the only reason I'm standing here today is because I need manpower. So do you, the future unemployed assholes and prison-cell-fillers of America, want to stand with me and do something with your miserable lives, or do you want to sit there and continue being incredible pussies like Richard Branson?"

There was silence. Then Jimmy Ferguson started laughing, a harsh, braying sound that echoed through the gym. Other students joined in, and soon Walter Reddie was being razzed by the entire graduating class. He flipped them the bird and someone threw a chair. He flinched but there wasn't enough power behind the throw and it crashed into the podium, which went over and landed on Mr. Gaudy's foot. Coach Greene stood up and began blowing his whistle. Someone tipped over the American flag. Chaos reigned.