CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Al clutched the stitch in his side and stumbled to the picnic table outside of the simulation hangar. He couldn't remember the last time he had walked so far or so fast. Probably the forced march from Mai Choi back to Cam Hoi, in the spring of '70. He hadn't been in very bad shape then. A bit underweight and weak with hunger and wounded and in a lot of pain, but still essentially a status symbol, not a challenge to be met and destroyed from the inside out. At the time he had been torn between holding on for Beth and praying for death, sure that stumbling barefoot through the jungle with an iron collar linking you to your wobbling compatriots, running away from rescue, was as near to hell as you could get without actually buying the farm. Ah, the ignorance of inexperience. He had learned.
Now, he was almost as exhausted, if admittedly not even remotely as injured. Not physically, anyway. His heart was breaking. Funny, because he'd been pretty sure it was nothing but a bloody pulp by now.
He didn't know why it hurt. Everyone had thought he was dead. Everyone. It wasn't fair to expect Stacker to be any different. Besides, he'd told Beth what he thought back in '67, and she hadn't given up until the spring of '69, so it wasn't Stacker's fault. Or, not just Stacker's fault. Dozens of people telling her over and over again that he was dead had worn down her resistance, so that when the legal nozzle had come along with his charm and his oh-so-lawyerlike timing, she had finally broken down. And the wound was still so raw, the pain still so great…
Al folded his arms on the table and buried his face in them. How much agony could one man take? Why wasn't it going away?
"Heal," he whispered futilely. "Heal, heal. Heal. Heal, heal, heal, heal, heal. Heal… please…"
It wasn't healing. Maybe it wouldn't. Ever. Maybe the only thing he could do was bury the pain and try to forget like he'd planned to in the first place. Which wasn't easy when people insisted on reminding him.
A hand came down on his shoulder. Sharp nails brushed him through the cotton of his uniform.
"Not you," he moaned.
"Sorry," Elsa Orsós said brightly. "No one else."
Al straightened, glowering at her. She was in the wrong place at the right time. He needed a distraction, and a fight with the programmer from the fifth dimension was like a prescription from God. "Hi," he said. "Eat any good books lately."
"I just finished Jane Eyre," Elsa said, apparently missing it. "It was very interesting."
"Yeah, it's great. One of my favorites," Al said, even before he realized he had opened his mouth.
Elsa snorted in surprise. "You read something written by a woman? What happened? Did you lose a bet?"
"You read something that wasn't new-wave crap?" Al retorted. "What happened? Did you get struck by lightning?"
"Too bad I wasn't," Elsa said. "If I had been I wouldn't have to stand here and have this conversation."
"Why are you standing here anyway?" Al asked.
She snapped her fingers. "You're right!" she said. "I should sit!"
She sat, crossing her legs in a very becoming fashion. God, she was gorgeous. And from her flashing blue eyes and her flame-colored hair to her uniform caramel tan and her diminutive stature, she was absolutely nothing like Beth. A blaze of instinctive desire gripped him and Al slipped his hand onto her firm, trim thigh.
She grabbed his wrist, digging her talon-like nails into the fleshy underside, between the tendons.
"You try that again, hapsi," she said pleasantly; "and you'll be picking your nose with your toes."
Al pulled his arm out of her downright dangerous grasp, rubbing the little white half-moons she had left in his skin. He whistled. "That's quite the grip you've got there, Missy," he said. "Daughter of a midwife and a vice-maker?"
"Daughter of a lawyer and a háziasszony," Elsa said. Then she pursed her lips condescendingly. "In American you say housewife."
"It's 'English', not 'American'," Al corrected.
"I'm not stupid, Calvichy. I have lived in this country for fourteen years," she said. "You do not speak English the way that people from England do. You speak an American language."
"I'm flattered—I think. Anyway, the lawyer part explains the acid tongue, but I have a hard time thinking of you as a little Hungarian girl trailing around behind a housewife."
"Why? Because all women are supposed to be feminist?" Elsa challenged.
Al surprised himself by making a sound he hadn't thought he was capable of producing. He laughed. "You're impossible!" he said.
"Nothing is impossible," Elsa said. "Not even you going into space, although I think I'll believe the story of Jack and the Giant before I think that will happen."
Al whistled. "That was almost a compliment!" he said. "Did somebody slip you a chill pill this morning?"
Elsa ignored him. "Do you know that there is a man from the Navy here trying to reassign you?"
"Carpenter," Al said. Then he straightened in surprise. "How'd you know that?"
Elsa shrugged. "I'm a woman," she said. "I know everything."
"Hmph." Al tried to smooth his tiny, sweat-dampened curls. His hair was getting too long. A flash of memory—filth-matted tresses clinging to his bloodied shoulders—sent a shiver down his back. "I'm not letting them reassign me," he said.
"Oh, do you have a choice?" Elsa asked, her voice less taunting than Al would have expected. "I thought military men follow their orders."
"I think I've done enough for the Navy that they can throw me a bone now," Al muttered.
"I agree," Elsa said curtly, getting to her feet. "But do you think that that will stop them?"
Al tried to scrutinize her factual expression. What the hell was she up to, anyway? Elsa leaned forward, cupping her hand around the back of his neck and drawing his head towards her own in a way that usually indicated that a passionate kiss was called for. She moved her lips close to his ear.
"I'll tell you a secret," she said. "If you give them excuse to let you stay, they will let you stay."
"Huh?"
"They don't think you can do it," she said. "But they want you to."
Al frowned. "What do you mean, they want me to?"
She backed away, hands on her hips and disgust on her face. "You are very stupid," she said. "Stupid and also blind. You deserve this."
She walked away.
Al watched her go, confused as hell.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMElsa left Calavicci at the picnic table, but instead of returning to the simulator hangar as she had intended to, she turned a corner and moved off in the direction of the administration buildings. Calavicci's obdurate determination did him credit, but proud words were not going to change NASA's mind about him. He had to prove himself worthy. He had to show that he had, as the astronauts said, "the right stuff".
He couldn't do that unless someone gave him a chance.
She found her way to Yardley's office with the practiced steps of one who had spent the better part of a decade on this base. She had never had any personal dealings with the Space Flight administrator, but from Calavicci's records she knew that Yardley was in charge of his case. That's what it was now: a case. A problem.
It wasn't hard to imagine Calavicci as a problem. In fact, it was difficult to see him as anything but. Yet he was a man, and from the looks of things a tormented one. Elsa did not understand the pain behind the muted exclamations he had made before she had drawn him out of it, but she knew that the agony was there. Despite his assertions and the general opinion of the entire male population of Cape Canaveral she was not entirely without a heart. He had so much spirit, so much fight. He just didn't understand the battlefield.
She knocked on the door to Yardley's office, and a pleasant, absent voice ushered her in.
The middle-aged aeronautical engineer looked up in surprise. "What can I do for you… uh…"
"Orsós," she said. "Elsa Ildiko Orsós. I am a programmer for the computers."
"What can I do for you, Miss Orsós?" Yardley asked courteously.
She sat down in the chair in front of his desk. "I watch the astronauts every day," she said. "There is something that you need to know about one of them."
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl wasn't going to stew in his misery. He couldn't. If you did that, it was a short road to insanity. So after Elsa left he got to his feet and made his way to the cafeteria. Lauren Taggert greeted him warmly, and he played off of her for a couple of minutes. To judge from her pleasured blushing he was coming across as his usual charming self, but he certainly didn't feel like it. Lunch today was penne pasta with some WASP travesty of alfredo sauce over it. Al took his food and found a table in the back corner of the room. He was so tired… physically and emotionally exhausted. His mind couldn't work anymore.
The pasta was lukewarm to the touch, and almost cold in his mouth, and it tasted vaguely of Styrofoam. Al's jaw worked methodically. Then a shadow was cast over the table.
"Bing—Al…"
Al looked up to see Carpenter standing in front of him, hesitant and apologetic.
"Have a seat," he said grimly. "I promise I won't bite."
Stacker sat. "Listen, I'm sorry for what I said. I just… I never thought she'd leave you like that. Not Beth."
"Wasn't her fault," Al muttered, speaking his mind without intending to. "Bastard took advantage of her. God, he'd better be taking care of her."
"Al… I've still got a job to do," the other man said. "We didn't even get around to talking about that."
"So talk," Al said flatly.
Carpenter clasped his hands on the tabletop. "There are a lot of opportunities out there for a man of your talents—"
"I'm fine right here," Al said.
Carpenter shook his head. "Come on, Al. We both know you can't stay here drawing a paycheque on NASA's tab and not doing anything. If you're headed for a breakdown, that's okay, but it's got to be on the Navy's bill."
"I'm not headed for a breakdown!" Al snapped. "And I'm not doing nothing, either. I've been doing equilibrium training and G-force tests and centrifuging and—"
Carpenter shook his head sadly. "Bingo, don't you get it? You're not going into space."
"Why not?" Al challenged, his eyes flashing.
Stacker frowned in confusion. "Yardley told me you two went through this," he said. "You've got claustrophobia."
"So what?"
"So you can't go into space."
"You say that and Yardley said that," Al told him; "but one of the flight surgeons and his pet headshrinker both told me it's easy to lick claustrophobia." That was a fib. They'd both said it was possible. Neither had said a thing about easy. Judging from Al's own attempts, it was going to be hard as anything he'd ever done. Maybe impossible. "That's what I'm doing. I'm going into space."
"I'm sorry, Al, but just saying you're doing it isn't good enough," Carpenter said. "You've been through a lot, and obviously the trauma—"
"Oh, you can take that and shove it up your tailpipe right now!" Al exclaimed angrily. "Let's get one thing straight, desk jockey. I'm not a delicate little debutante who's going to go into convulsions because of my terrible, terrible traumatic experience! I'm a man and an officer and nothing even remotely important happened in Vietnam. I lost some time, which is why I've got to take full bird crap from some shavetail I taught more about women than he could have picked up in ten years on his own. That's all. Now, you've got the authority to be a real pain in the neck, but that kind of garbage I'm not going to listen to! You start patronizing me, and God damn it, I'll tear you into so many pieces that you'll wind up in a museum, labelled The First Human Jigsaw Puzzle, Product of Calavicci!"
Stacker's eyes narrowed in rage. "Look, I came here genuinely trying to help you, you ingrate, and all you've done since I got here is bite my head off! I thought we were friends, but you know what? You're right! You're right! The Bingo I knew did die in Vietnam, and I don't know who you are, man, but you're nobody I'd cross the street for, not even to save your miserable life!"
The words stung. Al gave Carpenter the Calavicci Evil Eye. "I wouldn't want you to," he snarled. "Now go to hell and let me eat my lunch."
So saying he filled his mouth with pasta and chewed viciously, trying to imagine that the other man wasn't there.
It wasn't easy. Stack's storm-clouded face suddenly went white, his eyes wilting in grief and pity. "Oh, Bingo…" he whispered, staring at Al's hands.
Al looked down at the noodles he was holding and realized to his dismay that, distracted and miserable as he had been, he had forgotten the new habit of using utensils. Shaking with horror and shame, he fled the cafeteria as quickly as he could, closing his ears to his old friend's entreaties.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl climbed out of the bathtub, wet and shivering. He hugged himself as he went into the bedroom and pulled on his bathrobe. He hadn't even bothered to sign out before leaving the base. He had just driven straight for his apartment, as fast as the Ferrari would go, and got himself under the shower as if he could wash away the pain and humiliation of the day that was supposed to have been so good.
Stacker was right. He was never going into space. He had alienated his last friend and destroyed his last chance of success. Look at him. He was no better than an animal, unable to control his own mind, unable to curb his emotions. He even ate like an animal. And why not? After years of living like an animal, of being beaten and branded and caged like an animal, of howling and screaming like an animal, was it so impossible that he had finally turned into one?
He couldn't take it anymore. He was too tired to fight anymore. Time to admit defeat. Al went into the living room. He picked up the phone and dialled the Cape.