Altered America

by Ingham, Martin T.

  “They’re looking for astronauts,” repeated his dad, casually.

  “I heard you the first three times, dad,” said David, a wry smile on his face. ‘Hmm. Now where the hell does this go?’ he thought as he picked up a T-shaped chunk of metal.

  “Just pointing out that they’re looking for astronauts, Dave,” said his dad, pretending to read the newspaper.

  There was a clunk sound and David’s dad looked up to see David staring at him.

  “Something on your mind, son?” he said, innocently.

  “I told you, dad, I’m not applying.” Grunting, David turned and went back to work on the grill.

  “Why not?”

  “Told you why, dad,” replied David, picking up a screwdriver.

  There was the sound of a newspaper being loudly—and angrily—thrown down. David turned to see his dad fuming at him, the newspaper in a heap at his feet.

  “No, you did not. ‘Because I don’t wanna’ isn’t a good enough answer!”

  David stood up, throwing his screwdriver onto the floor as well. “Dad,” he said, patiently, “it’s none of your business, okay? I’m not applying and that’s final!” He turned his back and bent down to pick up the screwdriver.

  A bony hand clamped down on his wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. “David Daniel Thomas,” intoned David’s father—and David knew then that he had crossed a line, because his father only used his middle names when he was pissed at him—“You know damn well not to speak to me like that and I know you God-damn well enough to know when you’re lying to me!”

  The venom in his father’s voice shocked David—and, he realized, shocked his father as well. His father took a deep breath and then, more calmly and slowly, repeated his question “Why not?”

  “Because I’m scared!” yelled David, throwing down the screwdriver again. He saw the look of confusion in his father’s eyes and, after a few seconds, he had to break eye contact. He took a long, slow, deep breath and turned to look at his father again. “I’m scared, dad,” he repeated. He saw the look of complete incomprehension on his father’s face.

  “But... you were in Korea... your plane was in combat... why... how...” he stammered.

  “So how can I be scared?” David asked, completing his father’s unspoken question. His father gave a nod of acknowledgement, and David shrugged his shoulders in reply.

  “I don’t know why,” David eventually replied. He took another deep breath. “Maybe... maybe I’m scared of disappointing you. Or me. Maybe I can’t deal with being turned down. Maybe... maybe... maybe I’m not sure how I would feel being washed out.”

  “But how do you know if you’ll wash out if you don’t even try?”

  “Do you know how tough it is to just get accepted, dad? You remembered me telling you about all the guys who got rejected the last time?” A nod from his father. “Dad, I knew some of those guys! They were good, really good.” He paused and licked his lips. “Some of them were better than me.” David bent down and picked up the screwdriver and looked at his father. “If they got rejected, what chance do I have?”

  “But son—what’s the worst that can happen? So they say no? Big deal!” He stared at David, his mouth a straight line. “Those guys who got rejected—the good ones—do you think less of them because they didn’t make the cut?”

  “What?” David asked, genuinely surprised. “No, of course not, but—”

  “No ‘buts!’” yelled David’s father. “If nobody thinks less of them for not making the cut, then why would anyone think less of you?” He took a step forward and rested his hands on David’s shoulders. “What have you got to lose?”

  There was a very long moment of silence from David and then—“Okay, dad.” He let out a long sigh. “Tell you what—let Lady Luck decide.”

  “I’ll do one better,” said David’s father. “Let’s let God decide.”

  David smiled. “Of course, Reverend.” He leaned back. “What have you got in mind?”

  David’s father—the Reverend Patton—pulled out a coin from his ‘special’ pocket in his pants and held it up in front of him, like a medallion. David had seen that coin hundreds of times in his life. It was a 1928 Peace Dollar coin. His father had picked it up from his bank the day David was born thirty-four years previously. They had been very much in demand as Christmas presents for every year of their 1921-1928 production run and the coin in his hand had been one of the very last ones left in stock at the bank. He’d promised that it would be David’s whenever he wanted it. All he had to do was ask for it.

  David had never found the ‘right’ event to ask for it; not his acceptance into the military, not his successful return from Korea in one piece, not his graduate degree in aeronautical engineering, not his marriage to Karen, not her... funeral—not anything at all.

  But one day, one day soon...

  “Okay, dad,” said David. “What’s the deal?”

  “You decide,” he said, handing the coin to David. “Heads, you do one thing; tails, you do something else.” He leaned back. “Either way, I never bother you about this ever again. Deal?”

  David nodded his head. “Deal.” His fingers played with the coin in his palm, feeling the rough edges and lines of the coin. “Heads—I send in my application first thing tomorrow morning. Tails—I chuck the application into the garbage.” He took a deep breath.

  The coin flipped up and up, tumbling and rolling in mid-air. It hit the top of the arc and came down with a dull slapping sound into his palm. He deftly flipped it and slammed it onto his wrist, then took another deep breath.

  And then looked at the decision chosen by God.

  (3)

  Come, my friends,

  'Tis not too late to seek a newer world....

  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

  Of all the western stars, until I die.

  —Alfred Lord Tennyson

  July 21, 1970 –John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida

  “You know, it’s really not good for the test results if you engaged in heavy drinking last night,” the doctor admonished David as he drew some blood.

  “What makes you think I’ve been drinking?”

  The doctor paused a moment to stare at David’s red-rimmed eyes, the heavy stubble on his cheeks, and the flakes of dried vomit on the corners of his mouth.

  “Just a hunch,” said the doctor, visibly forcing himself not to roll his eyes.

  “Well, your hunch is wrong,” replied David. “I’m per... perfect... perfectly... uh...”

  “Sober?” offered the doctor, as he jabbed another needle into David’s arm and ignored the hiss of pain that resulted.

  “Yeah,” mumbled David, through clenched teeth. “Why did you ask?”

  “Oh no reason. Say,” the doctor continued, almost cheerfully, “did you know that, as a doctor, if I suspect an astronaut has a drinking problem, I have the full authority to ground him for as long as I wish?” The doctor—with great difficulty—suppressed the urge to smile as he saw the look of fear cross David’s face. Humming softly beneath his breath, the doctor went back to obtaining blood samples. When three vials were filled, he placed them on a nearby tray and made to stand up. “Okay, we’re done here. I’ll need you to come back again tomorrow for the X-rays.”

  “Fine,” said David, standing up and putting his shirt back on. “I mean, it’s not like you haven’t taken a hundred X-rays of me so far this year or anything like that,” he added sarcastically.

  The doctor, true to form, ignored him, as he usually did. His patients may indeed be made of ‘the right stuff’ but within two weeks of joining the staff at NASA the doctor had realized that these patients whined and complained just like everyone else. Indeed, they probably did it more than average, a finding that the doctor had been meaning to spend a bit of time analyzing in more detail, in the hopes of writing a paper on it. He handed David a stack of paperwork. “Give these to the nurse on the way out.”

  A grunt from David—alt
hough whether this was one of acknowledgement or annoyance was unknown—was his only reply as he made to walk out the door.

  “Oh, one last thing.”

  “Yeah, Doc?”

  “Have you decided on the words?”

  David frowned. The doctor was the fifth person this week alone to ask him that. ‘The words’. That’s what everyone was curious about. What were going to be the first words spoken on the Moon?

  Words were important—David as the son of a minister knew all too well just how important words were—and these words were going to be the most important words in history. The entire future of human progress could very well be influenced by a single sentence from him.

  If only he knew the words...

  “I have six weeks to decide,” was David’s response as he walked out the door.

  * * *

  David found himself staring off into space, his chicken salad sandwich and fries untouched. The cafeteria had adequately tasty food, to be sure; he just didn’t feel like eating.

  Today was going to be his last full day of ‘freedom.’

  Standard procedure for some of the early Apollo missions was that during the final 90 days prior to their flight, the astronauts would live on a relatively permanent basis in crew headquarters on the fourth floor of the manned spacecraft operations building. The quarters were, of course, rather nice—consisting of three 3-man apartments, a small gymnasium, a lounge, and a kitchen, as well as a small but fully equipped medical clinic. This period had grown increasingly shorter until Apollo 11, when the astronauts had reported to the flight crew training building only a week before launch. Since the Apollo 11 disaster, however, word had bounced around that the ‘old ways’ should be re-instated. Indeed, there had been some scuttlebutt in the upper levels that 120 days may be necessary instead, ‘just in case,’ but that had quickly been voted down.

  In the end, 40 days had been decided as the ‘magic number.’ David had no clue whatsoever how or why that particular number had been chosen, but a part of his soul was vaguely amused at the Biblical significance of it. During this period of ‘exile’, the astronauts would be poked, prodded, tested, re-tested and examined in every conceivable manner, all the while doing the same to every bit of their equipment and running every scenario and contingency plan that NASA could come up with, no matter how unlikely.

  Apollo 12 must land safely on the Moon.

  David let out a long sigh.

  He was going to be the first man on the Moon.

  And he was, simply and without question, scared out of his mind.

  Well, said an inner voice, you better stop being scared soon, because on September 2nd you’re going up...

  Sighing again, David began to eat his food.

  (4)

  Leave your home, O youth,

  and seek out alien shores.

  A wider range of life has been ordained for you.

  —Petronius

  September 16, 1962 –San Antonio, Texas

  It had been a long summer.

  In the end, precisely 254 applications had been received by the closing date of the first of June.

  A series of often gruelling medical tests had winnowed the names down to 33 finalists. These finalists were then put through another series of medical tests, as well as interviews with Deke Slayton (a member of the original Mercury Seven and now NASA’s coordinator of astronaut activities), as well as Al Shepard himself (now Chief of the Astronaut Office with responsibility for monitoring the coordination, scheduling, and control of all activities involving NASA astronauts). And then one last, final, series of tests, which David had personally found to be just downright evil.

  And then, the choices were made...

  “Hello?” David said. The sound of his voice echoed back from the hanger walls.

  “Over here!” came a reply from his left. Slayton came out from behind a pile of boxes and walked towards David, his hand stretched out and a smile on his lips. “What kept you? The others have been waiting.”

  “Sorry. Lost track of the time.”

  “Well,” replied Slayton, a slight twinkle in his eye, “I hope you don’t make that a habit over the next few years in your new career here.” Again the smile appeared.

  David blinked in shock. “I... I... I got selected?” he asked, hesitantly, as if he were in a pleasant dream that would end at any moment if he said the wrong words. “Really?”

  A nod. “I have to be honest, David. Yours was the toughest choice.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  Slayton sighed, just for an instant. “There can only be nine—but how does one decide between two candidates that both equally deserve to be in ninth spot?”

  “To be honest, sir, I wouldn’t know how to make that choice either.”

  Slayton shrugged. “Fortunately that wasn’t your choice to make.” He let out another sigh. “Shepard feels a bit bad, though.”

  “Oh? Why? Was it... was it something I did?”

  “Oh, no, not at all!” replied Slayton. “It’s just that he had to be the one to give the bad news to his friend, Pete Conrad—old friend of his from their test pilot days.” Slayton shook his head. “Just missed getting into the Mercury Seven and the New Nine, poor bastard.” Slayton shook his head once more. “So, shall we meet the other eight?”

  In all the tests and experiments and interviews and whatnot that he had gone through in the last few months, David had never met more than three of his ‘competitors’ at any one time. Aside from a few acknowledging grunts as they’d passed one another in the hallways or a few minutes mindless chit-chat during meal breaks or sitting in embarrassed silence in a doctor’s office with a fresh stool sample in a bag on their lap, there’d been little or no interaction between the applicants.

  As a result, when David walked into the room with the other eight astronauts, he realized nervously that he didn’t recognize any of them.

  “David—let me introduce you to the guys.” He quickly pointed to each man and just as quickly rattled off their names. “Frank Borman. John Young. Elliott See. James McDivitt. James Lovell. Edward White. Thomas Stafford. This here is David Patton.”

  There were a round of handshakes and ‘hey there’ and ‘hello.’

  “Uh... where’s the last one?” David asked.

  “He can count!” said Lovell, to a chorus of laughs.

  “Easy on the kid, James,” replied Slayton. “Yeah, we’re missing one. The quiet shy Ice Man in the corner who doesn’t talk much. Better get used to that.”

  A man came out of a shadowed corner and approached David, his right hand outstretched.

  “Hello,” David greeted. “The name’s David Patton.”

  “Armstrong,” replied the man. “Neil Armstrong.”

  The two men shook hands.

  And then there were nine…

  (5)

  It is the very error of the moon;

  She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,

  And makes men mad.

  —Othello, Othello. Act 5, scene 2.

  August 19, 1970 -John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida

  “Visitor for you, Mr. Patton,” said the guard.

  Richard Gordon and Alan Bean glanced up from the files sitting on their laps and turned to look at David.

  “Another person wishing you a happy forty-second birthday?” asked Gordon.

  “Guess so,” replied David. “Who is it?” he asked the guard.

  “No idea, sir; I’m just the messenger.”

  With a shrug of his shoulders, David got up from the chair and walked towards the door, following the guard out to see who was waiting for him.

  David recognized the visitor the moment he walked into the room. Everyone on Earth would recognize the man.

  He had aged drastically in the last thirteen months—despite the fact that he wasn’t going to turn forty for a few more months, he looked at least fifty years old, if not more so.

  But it was the eyes that got David—t
he eyes of a man that had seen Hell itself and barely come back with his senses intact.

  This man, after all, did have to hear two of his closest friends die and be in absolutely no position to help—and unlike the other 500 million souls on Earth that had witnessed it, this man had had no shoulder to cry on when it had happened. The nearest shoulder had been a quarter of a million miles away.

  The man took a step forward, and extended his hand to David. “Long time no see,” said Michael Collins.

  “Long time no see, indeed.”

  Collins smiled—just for an instant—and gestured at a table. David waited for Collins to sit first before joining him.

  “I have something for you, David,” Collins told him, reaching into his pocket. “Your father contacted me.”

  “Dad? Contacted you?”

  Collins nodded as he pulled something from his pocket. “He sends his best and wanted you to know that, if it wasn’t for the accident, he would be here himself today.”

  “I know that, sir,” David said. “Mom said that he might still be stuck in the hospital when we launch.”

  Collins nodded his head. “I have a sneaking suspicion that, come hell or high water, your father is going to make sure that he sees you launch, even if it involves having a nurse sneak a TV into his room.”

  “I have no illusions whatsoever that that will happen, sir,” replied David, smiling. “I am, in fact, willing to lay odds that he’ll get himself out of the hospital and be sitting on his favorite easy chair on that day.”

  That got a smile from Collins as well. “Having met the man, I have to concur with your assessment.” Collins extended his closed hand towards David. “That being said, he thought you should have this.”

  With that, Collins opened his hand. Resting in his palm was a 1928 Peace Dollar coin. David’s coin.

  “You hadn’t asked for it,” Collins explained, “but he said he had a feeling that you needed it.”

  David continued to stare at the coin, too stunned to react. After a moment, he silently nodded his head and looked up at Collins’ eyes. “The man knows me better than I know myself, I think.”