Blue Gemini

by Mike Jenne

  8:35 a.m., Friday, October 25, 1968

  Ourecky sat at the kitchen table, watching Bea fix breakfast. She wore her pink cotton nightgown, tied snugly at the waist, and an old pair of thick woolen socks with frayed tops rolled down to her ankles. Humming quietly, she fried bacon and eggs for him and poached an egg for herself. As the bacon sizzled on the stove, she filled two mismatched cups with steaming water from the kettle; she dropped a tea bag in one and spooned Nescafe into the other.

  From the living room, a television news anchor commented on the marriage of Jacqueline Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis earlier in the week. Two slices of toast popped up in the toaster; she jabbed them with a fork and dropped them onto a plate, then used a spatula to slide the eggs out of the cast iron frying pan. “Did you sleep okay?” she asked, putting the plate before him. “I’m glad you eventually made it to bed last night. Was something wrong?”

  “Just a tough week,” he answered, chopping up the eggs with his fork before dusting them with salt and pepper. His temples throbbed with the onset of a headache, and his hands still ached from the prolonged stint in the Box. “The tests are a lot more involved than what I thought. They go on around the clock, and I have to stay with them, kind of like a babysitter.”

  She stirred his coffee and handed it to him. Then she used the spoon to dip the tea bag from her cup. “Did you fly back from Alaska in Drew’s trainer? A T-38, right? It looks like that ejection seat was pretty rough on you again.”

  He rubbed his left shoulder and nodded. “I’m also going up a lot with the flight tests. It can be pretty brutal. Drew said I would eventually get used to the seat. He said that over time, you just grow calluses in all the right places.”

  She leaned across the table and took his hand. “You just ride in the airplanes, Scott, but you don’t fly them, right? That hasn’t changed, baby, has it?”

  “Well, sometimes Drew lets me take the controls when he’s eating or adjusting stuff, but all I have to do is hold it on course.” He desperately wanted to share with Bea how his quick thinking had saved the ship in Alaska, and how Drew had trusted him enough to land the paraglider himself. He wished that he could cast away this whole façade and just tell her everything.

  “So you’ll be flying more often?” she asked, spooning honey into her tea.

  Taking a bite from the toast, he nodded. “Looks like it. Between the flight tests and the ground evaluations, it’s really becoming an ordeal. Bea, you really shouldn’t be surprised when you come home and find me a wreck like last night, at least for the next few weeks.”

  He really hated having to mislead her, but in a sense, he really wasn’t. Most of what he told her was true, at least to some extent, but he still wasn’t overly comfortable with having to constantly spew half-truths and white lies to obscure the true nature of his work.

  He glanced at the empty beer cans in the trash can next to the refrigerator; recalling how drained he had been last night, he wondered just how much he might have already told her and what else he might have said. But if he had disclosed anything truly significant last night, she wasn’t showing it. If anything, she seemed a little antsy, like she was anxious about something.

  Bea sipped her tea as she watched him finish his eggs, and then she said, “Scott, is there something you wanted to ask me?”

  Setting down his fork, Ourecky looked at her; his mind spun as he contemplated her question. Was there something I wanted to ask? What does she mean by that? What is it that she wants? Did something happen last night that I can’t remember? Finally he asked, “So do you want to catch a movie this afternoon?”

  “What?”

  “A movie,” answered Ourecky, immediately aware he was following the wrong course. “Before I left for Alaska you said that we never seem to make it to the movies anymore. I thought maybe we could hit a matinee. I think Funny Girl is still at the Strand. Didn’t you want to see that? Isn’t that the one with Barbra Streisand?”

  He watched her closely, trying to gauge her reaction. For just an instant, a strangely quizzical look crossed her face, and then she laughed. “Oh, Scott, you’re a funny one. Are you sure there wasn’t something else you wanted to ask?”

  Now he was really perplexed. What in the world was she after? Some sort of clue would be very welcome at this point. “Uh, dinner?” he asked, reaching for his orange juice. “You want to go to a movie and then dinner afterwards? Maybe that Italian place again?” He gulped down the orange juice but was still terribly thirsty. He stood up and filled the glass with water from the faucet. He drank it quickly, but his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton and his headache was getting worse. He refilled the glass and quaffed it, and then filled it again.

  Turning back to face her, he sipped from the glass. What was it that she was looking for? Something obviously had happened last night, but try as he might, he couldn’t snatch that memory from the folds of his brain.

  As much as he didn’t want to rely on Drew’s advice on dealing with the opposite sex, he recalled one of their late night campfire conversations in Alaska. Drew asserted that women always desired some form of affirmation, so Ourecky decided on another tack to steer out of the unfamiliar waters. “Bea, do you love me?” he asked.

  Her face lit up as she hugged him. “Yes, Scott, I love you. I love you, I do!”

  It was a little more of a reaction than he expected. He placed the glass on the counter, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. Her lips tasted of her breakfast tea, sweetened with honey, and she smelled like soap scented with flowers. “I love you, too,” he said.

  Simulator Facility, Aerospace Support Project

  9:17 a.m., Thursday, October 31, 1968

  Carson studied the clock, desperately wishing that he could somehow will it to move faster. They were almost twenty hours into a twenty-six hour simulation, and to say that he and Ourecky were absolutely wrung out would be a gross understatement.

  To make matters much worse, they should have climbed into the Box early yesterday morning, after a full night’s rest, but technical problems had postponed the start until later in the afternoon. Gunter Heydrich had wanted to scrub the simulation altogether, but Carson insisted that they press on, so as to achieve their objective of logging two additional hours every week until January. Now, watching the hands tediously creeping across the clock’s face, Carson wondered if he had made a mistake.

  As he scanned his instrument panel, he listened to his stomach growl. As they worked toward the forty-eight hour goal, one of their chores was to develop efficient procedures for eating. It was really more of a time management exercise than anything else; in the cramped, chaotic environment of the capsule, it was virtually impossible to find time to eat.

  Carson reached behind his seat, unlatched his food storage container, and yanked out a glassine bag. Lacking NASA’s seemingly unlimited budget, Blue Gemini’s dietary plan relied on far more pedestrian fare than the freeze-dried meals eaten by NASA astronauts in orbit. The only criteria was that the food be simple to prepare, that it produce the least amount of crumbs and mess, and that it result in the least amount of residue in the lower GI tract. The last issue could not be taken lightly; with the relatively short duration of the planned missions and the incredibly kinetic workload, there would be little time for a potty break. Consequently, any bodily waste would remain in the adult-sized diapers they wore until they returned to earth and emerged from their spacesuits.

  And unlike the NASA missions, where every rehydrated shrimp and strawberry was painstakingly accounted for, and every calorie inventoried, there was no structured nutrition plan. Whenever they were hungry, they were free to eat whatever they grabbed out of their individual pantry box.

  Carson looked at the transparent bag to determine the meal du jour; as best as he could determine, it was a collection of sandwich squares—about an inch on a side—made of peanut butter smeared on tortillas. Famished, he jammed two of the squares into his mouth and chewed. He was pleasantl
y surprised; the stuff actually tasted reasonably good. He held a square toward Ourecky. “Sandwich?” he asked. “Sorry, but we’re all out of the filet mignon.”

  Ourecky was busy plugging entries into the computer keyboard. Although still waiting on his hand-me-down spacesuit, he had received a pair of custom-made gloves to train in. He wore them as much as he could bear, so he could become used to them, particularly for the tasks that required the greatest dexterity. Hindered by the clumsy gloves, each computer input sequence took roughly twice as long as normal. “Drew, I thought the rules were that we were only supposed to eat meals from our own food stash. Won’t that . . .”

  “Eat, Scott. If you’re too busy to unwrap your chow, the least I can do is feed you.” Ourecky nodded and then opened his mouth; Carson popped the sandwich square between the right-seater’s teeth. “Someone else can balance the books on peanut butter later.”

  Still inputting data into the computer, Ourecky chewed quickly and swallowed with some obvious difficulty. “Give me a quick shot of water?” he asked.

  Carson reached between the seats, found the water dispenser nozzle, and squirted some into Ourecky’s mouth. “More sandwich?”

  “Yeah. One more ought to hit the spot for a while.”

  Carson obliged and then ate one himself. “Okay. Just yell if you want more.”

  “Thanks,” answered Ourecky. “Hey, I’m done punching in this sequence. We have seven minutes until our next star shot. Would you mind if I check out for five?”

  “Go ahead, babe. I’ll stand watch until you’re back.” He watched as Ourecky immediately fell asleep. Perhaps even odder than his ability to suddenly lapse into deep unconsciousness, Ourecky would blink out of his slumber right at the time he stated—five minutes, almost to the second—and go right back to work as if he had been awake the whole time.

  Both men had developed this ability, primarily as a survival mechanism to cope with the excruciatingly long simulations. Their flight surgeon was intrigued with it and wanted to wire them up with equipment to monitor their brain waves, but Wolcott had intervened to squelch the idea at least until they had successfully completed the first forty-eight hour simulation.

  Exactly five minutes later, true to form, Ourecky jolted awake. “Okay, Drew, time for our astronomy lesson,” he said, taking off his gloves and jamming them between his legs. He dialed a setting into his sextant. The eight-pound navigational instrument was bulky and awkward in the cramped space of the cabin. They were still using the NASA version, although a smaller and easier-to-use version was being developed.

  As Ourecky peered through the sextant at simulated stars in his small window, Carson made small adjustments to the spacecraft’s attitude to ensure that the horizon was in view and that everything lined up correctly.

  Next came a communications window, in which they received instructions and minor updates from a simulated tracking ship at sea. Carson forced himself to remain awake as Ourecky collected the data. As he watched, he noticed that Ourecky was not writing down the information, but as he repeated it back to the mission controller, it was obvious that he knew the details verbatim. With the communications session concluded, Ourecky punched in corrections into the computer and made adjustments on the instruments.

  “You’re not writing down the instructions,” observed Carson, stifling a yawn. “Are you sure you got them right?”

  “I am,” answered Ourecky impatiently. “Look, Drew, my fingers are about to give out on me. It’s all I can do to hold a pencil. Just trust me: I have the information in my head, and I’ll give it to you when you need it. Can you trust me, Drew?”

  “Guess I had better. Hey, I’m frazzled over here. Can you give me ten minutes?”

  “I have it,” replied Ourecky, scanning his panel for any aberrations. “Take a nap.”

  7:15 p.m.

  Ourecky awoke to a loud tapping noise punctuated by blaring horns and shouted curses. Gradually regaining consciousness, he saw a police officer tapping a silver flashlight on his side window. Grimacing at the stabbing pains in his hands, he slowly rolled down the window. The horn noises were much louder now, and he realized that they were coming from several cars behind him. Realizing that he was stopped at a traffic light, he vaguely recalled finishing the simulation over an hour ago before leaving the base to head to Bea’s apartment.

  As the police officer motioned cars around Ourecky’s Ford, he said, “I’ve been banging on your window for the past five minutes, pal. You drunk?”

  Ourecky shook his head. “I haven’t had anything to drink, sir. I’m just very tired. I’m sorry for falling asleep here.” In his peripheral vision, he saw strange figures strolling by on the sidewalk. Turning his head, he saw Batman and Robin, the Green Hornet, ghosts, and a variety of strange figures that he didn’t recognize. He thought he was hallucinating, and then he realized it was Halloween and that kids were just now venturing out for an evening of trick or treat.

  “You best not be fibbing, buddy, or you’ll be eating asphalt in about half a second.” The police officer used his flashlight to gesture at an Esso gas station. “When the light changes, pull over there. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ve already called your plates in.”

  Striving to remain conscious, Ourecky nodded. The light changed, he pulled through the intersection, parked his car next to the building, and stepped out. An icy gust of wind immediately sliced through his windbreaker; he wished that he had worn something more substantial. The police officer pulled in next to him and climbed out of his cruiser.

  “Driver’s license,” ordered the police officer curtly. He positioned himself directly in front of Ourecky, obviously close enough to smell his breath.

  Struggling with uncooperative hands, Ourecky eventually found his license. He held it out with shaking fingers. Woozy, he just wanted to climb back into his car and fall asleep.

  The officer snatched it from him. “Florida? Care to explain why your driver’s license doesn’t match your car tag? What are you doing with a Florida license, pal?”

  Florida? thought Ourecky. What about Florida? Then it clicked. “I got the license when I was stationed in Florida. Air Force. I was at Eglin, on the Florida Panhandle.”

  “Air Force?” asked the officer. “So when did you get out?”

  “I didn’t,” replied Ourecky. “I’m still in. I’m on the base.”

  “You got your ID on you? Let me see it.”

  Looking for his military identification, Ourecky fumbled with his billfold. His hands were knotted in pain. Giving up, he just handed the entire wallet to the police officer.

  The officer examined his identification. “Are you positive you weren’t drinking, Captain?”

  Ourecky nodded. A chill came over him, and he shivered uncontrollably.

  “Well, I don’t have a lot of options here,” said the officer. “You were asleep at that intersection for at least five minutes. If there’s something wrong with you, like your heart, we need to drive you to a hospital. Otherwise, I can call the SPs on Wright-Patt, and they can come pick you up, or I can take you to jail and have your car impounded. If there’s someone you can call, they can pick you up, but you’re in no state to drive. So is there anyone you want to call?”

  He pulled a scrap of paper out of Ourecky’s wallet and held it out. “How about this number?”

  Ourecky looked at it and nodded. As anxious as he was to see Bea, he was beginning to think that he should have followed Carson’s suggestion and taken a nap before hitting the road.

  “Okay. Look, Captain, I’m going to go inside and use their pay phone. Let me have your keys. Climb in your car, and we’ll just wait right here until someone comes to pick you up.”

  About twenty minutes later, Bea arrived at the gas station. She spotted Scott’s weather-beaten car and pulled alongside. Just as the police officer had described over the phone, Scott was sound asleep in the driver’s seat of the Ford. The officer was inside the gas station, drinking coffee and chatting
with the owner, when he saw Bea. He stepped outside just as Bea was getting out of her car.

  “So this is your friend?” asked the police officer.

  “Afraid so,” answered Bea, buttoning her coat to ward off the autumn chill. “Is he all right?”

  “I think he’s fine,” replied the officer, shining his flashlight into the Ford to check on Ourecky. He switched off the light and looked at Bea in the flickering illumination of a streetlight. “Hey . . . you look mighty familiar. Aren’t you on TV? You look just like that girl on . . . you know the one. The girl who plays the genie. You look just like her, except that her hair’s longer.”

  “I get that a lot. I’m very flattered,” Bea said, smiling. She looked at Scott through the side window of his car. “Are you sure he’s okay?”

  The police officer nodded. “He appears to be healthy, just really tired. I can’t let him drive away, though. I’ve never seen anyone so out of it. He fell asleep at a red light, so there wasn’t anyone in immediate danger, but he could have passed out while he was driving, and that could have been an awful calamity. On top of everything else, it’s Halloween, and there are a million kids out tonight.”

  “I’m really sorry, officer. I’ll take him home and put him straight in bed.”

  “Lucky him. By the way, is there any chance that he has some medical condition that might be to blame? Something that he might have to go to the hospital for? Narcolepsy, maybe?

  She shook her head. “Not that I know of. He just works very long hours.”

  “So what does he do on the base?”

  Bea laughed. “I have no earthly idea. He’s an engineer, but I’m not quite sure if that’s what he does now.”

  “Are you positive that he’s not taking any kind of drugs? LSD? Marijuana? Barbiturates?”

  She giggled. “Drugs? Oh no, officer, Scott doesn’t take any drugs. I’ll tell you: wild Indians don’t make arrows as straight as him.”