My Summer Vacation

Missiles were part of the economy. People said, "two more built in Colorado," the same way they said gas prices were up and the NASDAQ was down. The strange thing was that though everyone knew there were missiles being built, few asked, "where are they now?" Which looking back from here, seems an important question.

Where they were, was a secret. Where they were, was buried in the desert. The ones in the Black Hills only a few miles from farmers who still used horses to plow the fields. The rocket ships, capable of flying without a man and destroying large chunks of the earth, did not belong in that place, in that time, buried in the earth that some politicians threw over their metal gleam, to keep them hidden.

And one day the war was done. The farmers started using tractors. The newspapers said, "RUSSIA NEGOTIATES THE END!" and people forgot about rocket ships. Tourists started walking around in the Black Hills, so a few nerds who remembered scraped out the plutonium and put it in the government's freezer, to keep for a rainy day. Meanwhile, South Dakota, to keep the tourists amused and alive, put up guard rails and signs that said, "BEWARE RATTLESNAKES," and, "THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRAIRIEDOG," but not, "LOOK OUT FOR MISSILES!" or, "A SIMPLE DIAGRAM OF PLUTONIUM (alert authorities if found)"

There were lots of signs in the Black Hills, though you would think it was enough to look at the candy striped rock while hiking the edges of dusty cliffs, and glimpsing the fluffy tail end of a goat leaping into space before landing in an impossible hoof-hold. But it wasn't. And one day a sign was pounded into the ground beside a beat up shed by the last gas station before a long stretch of pure, government protected rock.

The sign was crowded with pictures: buried rocket ships, smiling farmers, serious politicians pointing at maps with long fingers that had just stopped pounding the glossy tabletop. The sign had a map of the U.S., a map of us, relative to the locations of rockets. And there were arrows pointing into the desert, to reveal their true present position. And there were arrows pointing

at Russia, in case anyone wondered where they could go.

The words, which were short and curled in small chunks in order to hold the attention of a bored tourist, told how once we had the best weapons arsenal on earth, but our rocket ships are forgotten now, and uselessly rusty like the rest of the secrets our country holds. Really.

Gas prices are up again.