This afternoon, CVH told me that William Shatner had returned from his short space trip.
“Yes, I saw that in the news,” I replied.
“In Van Horn,” she said. “They could see the Guadalupe Mountains on the way down.”
“Everyone should see Van Horn at least once in their life. We had a good time there.” We had visited Van Horn when we went to the fiftieth anniversary of the UFO crash in Roswell.
“There wasn’t much there twenty-five years ago; I can’t imagine what it looks like now,” she added.
“Probably like Boca Chica,” I guessed. “A lot of highly paid rocket scientists walking around.
“I remember going on vacation in Boca Chica when I was little. The adults rented these beach things called ‘cabañas’, which were completely unadorned concrete block boxes with concrete shelves on the walls holding thin mattresses where you slept. I’m not even sure they had doors. There was a bathroom area in the back, and that was all.”
“After playing in the sand and waves all day, they would put us kids to bed and then go back out to…to…”
“Do God knows what.”
“Yes. We were right on the Mexican border. Heck, we might even have been on the Mexican side. I’m sure they were dirt cheap to rent. Uncle Willis probably hopped in the big Chrysler and got a bunch of cheap tequila.” I paused. “You know, the more I think about this, the better it sounds.”
“They knew how to live, Conrad. They knew how to live.”
