Note: To those who came up with the name for Al's Command Module, thank you! I'm standing on your shoulders there… I just wish I could remember who you are and where I read it!
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
"Damn, Calavicci, take it easy!" Clem Jacobs exclaimed.
Al, hauling wrathfully on the bar of the lat machine, pretended he couldn't hear. His undershirt was drenched with sweat and his bare arms rippled, relishing the strain. His mind focused on jerk after jerk, working out its frustrations in physical exertion. What he really needed was some sparring with a smart-mouthed partner. Nothing like throwing punches and insults at the same time. That not being a NASA-sanctioned catharsis, however, he would have to settle for this apparatus with its wires and pulleys and weights. His arms worked harder and faster. The cables began to creak.
Jim, who was doing hamstring curls on the next bench, frowned at him. "You better cool it, Al. You're going to strain something."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Al grunted, still working his arms so that the iron plates in front of him rose and fell with the regularity of a pump jack.
"Get off it, Calavicci," Jacobs said. He was unloading the free weights from his favorite barbell. "What're you so angry about, anyways?"
"Who says I'm angry?" Al pinned his attention all the more fervently on the resistance of the bar.
"You kidding?" asked Jacobs. "When you're not slamming doors or pumping iron you look like a bull ready to rip somebody's head off."
"Al, knock it off!" Jim said as the weights came down with undue violence.
"Both of you mind your own business," Al snarled between clenched teeth.
"Don't be stupid," Jim said.
Al turned his head to glare at him. The action sent a twinge up the side of his neck, but he ignored it. "Oh, so now I'm stupid?"
"You pull a muscle now, they won't let you go up next week," Jim reasoned. "Take a break."
Damn it, the kid was right. Glowering blackly, Al raised his arms and released the bar. He swung both legs to one side of the bench and started massaging the biceps of his left arm. Jacobs threw him a towel, which he caught expertly and used to wipe down his face and neck.
"You gonna tell us what's wrong?" the Texan asked, coming over to sit on one of the benches near his crewmates.
"It's nothing," Al said stoically.
"Then there's no reason you can't tell us what's going on," Jim reasoned.
Al looked from one clean-cut, earnest, all-American face to the other. In a little over a week these men would be all that stood between him and the myriad dangers of spaceflight. They were going to have to trust each other. They were going to have to be honest with each other. Besides, they'd find out sooner or later.
"Elsa's divorcing me," he confessed.
"What?" Jim cried.
Jacobs shook his head. "Damn. Why?"
Al shrugged. " 'Cause we hate each other's guts? 'Cause we can't settle on a color we'd both like to paint the kitchen? 'Cause news of my sexual exploits is adorning supermarket checkouts across the country?"
"You aren't sayin' she believes that?" Jacobs asked.
"She wouldn't divorce you," Jim said, with all the innocence of a man still married to the love of his life. "Not Elsa."
"Tell her that," Al said. "Soon's Yardley'll let her she's getting me up in court. She's got a lawyer already."
"I'll talk to her," Jim said fiercely. "I'm not gonna let her do it. She can't just throw your marriage away! You're perfect for each other!"
Al shook his head wearily. "Let it go, kid. Just let it go. It was bound to happen."
"But…"
Clem put a silencing hand on the younger man's shoulder. "Commander said let it go, fly boy," he chided. Then he slapped his knee and got to his feet. "I'm hitting the shower," he announced. "We've only got forty-five minutes till we're due for our makeovers."
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM
The last press conference was to be officially televised and broadcast live on NBC, which meant that the astronauts had to be dusted down with face powder. Jim and Clem thought this was an indignity. Al felt rather differently about it. Makeup was, as any actor knew, an integral part of the theater, and since it was all one big act, anyway, why not?
He sat meekly in the makeshift green room while a sprightly young woman brushed powder onto his cheeks, nose and forehead, chattering excitedly about the launch. He closed his ears to the sound and reflected grimly that he'd done it this time.
Elsa wouldn't even look at him now. He couldn't blame her. She had expected him to go on with the moment of tenderness, to continue his consolation and keep whispering assurances and understanding—not run out of the room like a demon fleeing the sunlight to sit on the floor of the bathroom, retching fruitlessly for half an hour while bitter tears burned unshed in his eyes.
He couldn't… he couldn't bear it. Beth, his Beth, feeling her life was being tied up because of him, putting her dreams and her future on hold because he had been selfish enough to sign up for a second tour instead of staying home like she wanted him too… so cut up about the way he had abandoned her that she was pouring out this pain on a total stranger…
A total stranger who had shared his bed for the better part of a year.
It wasn't fair. All he wanted was forgetfulness. Why couldn't he forget? Every time he even got close, there was another ghoul popping out of the shadows to torment him. All he wanted to do was forget.
He was going to, he told himself fiercely. He had lost sight of that goal in the whirlwind of change that had encompassed the last two years. The battle with his mind, the struggles to qualify, the funding wars, Elsa… all of those things and more had distracted him from his primary reason for coming out here. To forget. To have a fresh start. To pretend that the last decade and a half hadn't even happened.
Well, his chance was coming. In a few days he'd be leaving the earth behind. It would be a different man who would splash down just before New Year's. A new man. Albert Calavicci, the fifth attempt. When he got back to earth he would wash his hands of Elsa Orsós and NASA and everything else he had built up since his reassignment. Then… what?
Maybe he could go back to school. He'd love to learn more about computers… and if there was one place you could count on meeting girls of every description it was M.I.T. That was it! He'd go back to school, throw himself into the blossoming disco culture—surely there were ladies galore who would fall for a guy who'd been to the moon and back!—and forget. Forget. God willing, as Elsa would say ha isten is úgy akarja, he would finally be able to forget.
If any faith at all had survived the years of cruelty and hatred and desolation that had begun when Poppa died and culminated in that hideous homecoming in '73, Al would have prayed for the blessing of forgetfulness.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM
Elsa sat on the sofa, her legs curled under her, rubbing Andrew's dog tags between her thumb and forefinger and staring at the television set. Al, looking fearless and handsome and utterly dashing, was addressing a multitude of reporters. His face was alight with optimism and contentment, as if nothing was wrong in the entire world.
You couldn't tell, looking at him, that he was the most selfish, ignorant, evasive and infuriating worm ever to crawl upon the face of the earth.
He held it against her, her past love. He was jealous of Andrew, sweet, brave Andrew who had done what even Albert Calavicci had never been called upon to do and surrendered his life for his country. He had pretended to feel sorrow at her loss, but his body had betrayed him in the end. He was angry that she had had a man before him—like all men he was grasping and jealous and wicked. Sure, he could have as many girls as he wanted, flirt when married as well as when single, betray his wife with cheap prostitutes for the titillation and amusement of the world, and call out to his first wife after making love to his second all he wanted, but the knowledge that Elsa had had a love before him made him sick with envy.
It was loathsome, and Elsa burned with anger whenever she thought of it. She had entertained the dream, while he had held her and reminded her that she was worthy of care and affection despite the way she had failed Andrew, that they might have a long and happy life together, two wounded souls finding their solace in each other. He had been hurt by Beth, she by the vicissitudes of fate and the cruel hand of pseudomonas aeruginosa. They might have found healing in one another, as she had found healing in pouring out her guilt in his arms.
But he was determined to be envious, to put on a show of righteous anger, pushing her away as if she was vile and repulsive in his eyes. Unclean because she had committed the unforgivable act of sleeping with a man who was not Al Calavicci.
She would drag his name through the mud. She would take him for everything that he had. He would not shame her so easily. He would not scorn Andrew so easily. There would be a divorce, and it would not be pleasant. With all the strength of her iron will and the might of her fighting spirit, she vowed that he would wish he had never crossed paths with Elsa Ildiko Orsós, who should have been del Rio.
As soon as the mission was over and the eyes of the press turned away from NASA.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAt Mission Control in Houston, Texas, scientists and astronauts and bureaucrats cheered, clapping one another on the back and hooting with delight. Over the radio feed from Cap Com, Commander Calavicci was eulogizing over the beauty before his eyes between acknowledgments of the engine jettison procedures.
Gene Kranz, the last of the Apollo Flight Directors and one of Yardley's oldest friends, clapped the Associate Administrator of Manned Space Flight on the shoulder.
"We should televise the whole damned mission," he said bracingly. "That sailor's delivering better stuff than Hollywood could script."
John tried to smile, but the fact was that he was too damned tired. Two years was too long by far to struggle with a boneheaded, scarred and generally uncooperative Italian who was so used to fighting that he didn't even remember how to play ball. This wasn't what he wanted from life. He wanted aeronautics. He wanted to work on the Shuttle, to craft her like she was his baby. Now, if everything went smoothly, he might just get the chance.
"He'd better," he muttered. "Bloody wop shouldn't even be up there."
A dreamy look came into Gene's eyes as he fingered the buttons on the only even-numbered mission vest he had ever worn. "I dunno," he said. "I think if anybody deserves to be up there it's men like Calavicci. I mean, look what he's been through, and he came through it all with courage and dignity. That's what Apollo's about. What it's always been about. American courage. American dignity."
A siren sounded somewhere on the other edge of the room, and Kranz stiffened. "Report?" he barked, dropping his sentimental demeanor in favor of the air of command he exuded as no other man could.
"Got a red light on the S-II!" someone shouted.
"Confirm, Enterprise?" Kranz asked, turning to Colonel Simmons.
"Uh… Enterprise, confirm a red light on your S-II module?" the astronaut asked. Calavicci's voice filtered through the room.
"That's a negative, Houston," he said. "No red light up here. Probably a glitch on your end—damn, Pete, you oughta see this sky!"
"Check aft sensors!" another voice barked.
"I bet it's really something, isn't it?" Simmons asked.
"Damned right!" Calavicci enthused.
"Aft sensors!" Gene barked.
Simmons grinned sheepishly. "Al, the fellas out here want you to check your aft sensors. Think you can take a break from the sightseeing to manage that for us?"
"As a personal favor to you, buddy? Sure." There was moment of silence. Then, "Nothing, Houston. Must be something wrong with your equipment."
Yardley wasn't so sure. Sending refurbished rockets into space suddenly seemed like a bad idea. All very well for the budget, but how was it going to look if those boys blew up without even making it into orbit?
"Confirm sensors functioning properly!" Gene snapped. Then the room went suddenly silent, save for the frantic beeping of one of the command consoles, as a heated exclamation ripped through the speakers.
"God damn it!" Calavicci roared. "Jim, what the hell was that?"
"Iterative guidance malfunction!" someone called. "I. U. exceeding maximum limits…"
"Al, what's going on up there?" Simmons demanded.
"Uh—Houston, we just had one hell of a shiver up here… attempting to assess…"
"Recommendations?" Gene demanded.
"Abort!" the same voice yelled. "Abort, or these guys are going to go up like a Roman candle!"
"Abort Mode One: Charlie," Gene instructed, striding towards Cap Com.
"Al?" Simmons said. "Prepare to go to Abort Mode One."
"What?" Calavicci roared. "Hell, no!"
"Abort Mode. Charlie!" Gene snapped. "They'll disengage and we'll proceed with a normal splashdown."
"You can't do that!" Yardley exclaimed. "We've never aborted a mission! You can't do that!"
"The hell I can't!" Gene cried. "We were fools to send them up with a faulty engine, and now—"
"Al, you've got to bail," Simmons was saying. "Abort Mode One: Charlie, on my mark."
He looked up for a prompt.
"In five!" the engineer called. Simmons relayed his words. "Four! Three!"
"That's a negative, Houston!" Calavicci barked. "Switching to manual control—you ready, Clem?"
"Manual control!" the Command Module pilot replied over the vox.
"Tell him to abort: that's an order!" Kranz exclaimed.
"Al, Houston says abort!" Simmons relayed. "That's an order!"
Then Calavicci snapped something unintelligible, as if he wasn't even speaking English.
"Insufficient compensation!" another scientist cried. "They're going to blow…"
"Damn it, Clem, gimme that stick!" Calavicci's voice demanded. "Jim, get these offa me!"
Another siren went off. "He's just undone his harness!" one of the medics cried.
"The idiot!" Gene cried. "Has he got a death wish, or something? Have we sent a suicidal moron into space?" He plucked the headset off of Simmons' ears and donned it himself. "Enterprise, respond!"
"I'm a little busy right now," Calavicci said tersely.
"Sir, they've got to abort!"
"Calavicci, this is Kranz," Gene said. "You abort right now, and that's an order!"
A laugh crackled across the airways, bitter and yet defiant and strangely exulted.
"Oh, no, sir, not today!" Calavicci exclaimed. "Never let any Charlie lick me yet!"
Gene cast a puzzled look at John, who shrugged. Calavicci was always saying strange things like that.
"This is mutiny, mister!" Gene cried.
"So court-martial me!" crowed Calavicci. "Clem, fix that roll… Jim, stand by to jettison the interstage."
"Standing by," said Lieutenant Taggert.
"Houston, gimme a countdown on jettison!" Calavicci ordered. "If you're not too busy filling out my reprimand papers."
"On ten!" cried another aerospace expert.
"Enterprise, jettison on ten," Gene instructed. "Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five…"
Calavicci joined in the chant. "Four. Three. Two. One. Jettison!"
There was a moment of apprehension that crackled through the room. Was it too late? Had the interstage hit the rockets? Then…
"Clear! They're clear!" somebody cried triumphantly. "Prepare for center engine shutoff."
"Prepare for center engine shutoff, Enterprise," Gene said.
"Preparing for center engine shutoff," Calavicci acknowledged. "Jim, you'll have to do that. My hands are full."
"Status report!" Kranz demanded, thrusting the headset into Simmons' lap.
The engineer who had sent up the alarm in the first place gestured broadly in bewilderment. "They should have blown. I don't know what he did, but that man must be one hell of a pilot."
Something in John Yardley's soul sparked at the words. Sure, Calavicci was one of the most stubborn, difficult men he had ever had the misfortune to meet. But as hard as he was to get along with, he was still brave and charming and incredibly resilient. Gene was right. The guys from P.R. were right. The goddamned press were right. He was the living embodiment of everything that made America great.
"He is," he said firmly. "He is one hell of a pilot. And he's one hell of a man, too."
"Amen to that," Gene said, taking a deep, calming breath as he stared up at the board tracking the shuttle's progress. "Looks like one more trip to the moon after all."
The cheers sounded again.