rendered trivial by the retelling.
Hell, but I’m a long way from the Moon now. And with all these damn cuts I’m never going back. All I can do is talk about it. Damn, damn
.
When he’d done, the Nepalese schoolkids had started to ask questions. The questions seemed strange to Muldoon.
‘Who did you see?’
‘Where?’
‘On the Moon. Who did you see?’
‘Nobody. There’s no one there.’
‘But
what
did you see?’
Muldoon started to understand, he thought. Maybe his American-flavored images of beach balls and sand were too foreign for these kids, their level of education not what he’d been prepared for. He needed to be more basic. ‘There’s nothing there. No people, no plants or trees, no animals. Not even air, no wind. Nothing.’
The children looked at each other, apparently confused.
The rest of the talk, the questions, rambled into nothing.
At the prompting of the teacher – a slim girl – there was some polite applause for him, and he gave out little American flags and copies of the mission patch.
As he left the little school house, he heard the teacher say, ‘Now, you mustn’t listen to him. He’s wrong …’
Back in his hotel room, he’d started working his way through the mini bar.
It turned out that the Nepalese believed that when you died, you went to the Moon. Those kids had thought the spirits of their ancestors,their grandparents, lived up on the Moon, and Muldoon should have seen them when he was there. He’d been telling them there was no heaven. No wonder they had been confused.
He’d walked on the Moon. And now, in that corner of his own Earth, he’d been confronted by rows of kids in a wooden shack who were still being taught – despite his actual presence, despite his eye-witness account from the Moon itself – superstitious fairy tales.
It made the whole damn enterprise seem futile.
Just before coming over to JSC to do his capcom shift today, he’d gotten a package in the post. It was a script for a credit card commercial.
Do you know me? Last year I walked on the Moon. That doesn’t help me though when I want to reserve an airline seat
… Goddamn garbage.
It was for more money than he’d make in five years. He could only do it if he retired from the Agency.
Jill would surely welcome it. Jill wasn’t like some of the other wives. She didn’t have a military background; Jill had never gotten used to the flights, the dangers, the dilute bullshit that NASA doled out during a mission …
And the fact was, NASA was never going to let him go back to the Moon.
What if he did retire?
Maybe the moonwalker tag wouldn’t endure; maybe he wouldn’t be seen as a hero for much longer. The mood seemed to have turned even more against the program. There had even been criticism, in the press, about his and Armstrong’s conduct on the Moon. They’d spent too long on the ceremonials. They’d collected fewer rocks than hoped for. Most of the samples weren’t properly documented. They’d used the wrong camera to photograph their footprints, so they’d lost time and come home with less interesting photographs. They’d had to cut short the 3-D photography. Even the shots they’d taken in orbit were criticized, as being tourist shots of Earthrise, while the unexplored Moon whipped by beneath them.
Hell, it was hardly our fault. Nixon called us, not the other way around. And what the hell can you do with all that science stuff? It was hardly idiot-proof: too damn easy to make mistakes, when you only have a couple of hours, out of your entire life, to walk on the Moon …
He was already drinking too much, fighting off the depression, the deflation, with alcohol. He’d been just the same after his Gemini flight. A few years of this and he’d turn into some sad, paunchyslob telling war stories to anyone who’d listen, to increasingly blank faces.
He remembered, that day in Nepal, that he’d taken a nap. When he woke up, he needed the bathroom. He tried to float
Hell, but I’m a long way from the Moon now. And with all these damn cuts I’m never going back. All I can do is talk about it. Damn, damn
.
When he’d done, the Nepalese schoolkids had started to ask questions. The questions seemed strange to Muldoon.
‘Who did you see?’
‘Where?’
‘On the Moon. Who did you see?’
‘Nobody. There’s no one there.’
‘But
what
did you see?’
Muldoon started to understand, he thought. Maybe his American-flavored images of beach balls and sand were too foreign for these kids, their level of education not what he’d been prepared for. He needed to be more basic. ‘There’s nothing there. No people, no plants or trees, no animals. Not even air, no wind. Nothing.’
The children looked at each other, apparently confused.
The rest of the talk, the questions, rambled into nothing.
At the prompting of the teacher – a slim girl – there was some polite applause for him, and he gave out little American flags and copies of the mission patch.
As he left the little school house, he heard the teacher say, ‘Now, you mustn’t listen to him. He’s wrong …’
Back in his hotel room, he’d started working his way through the mini bar.
It turned out that the Nepalese believed that when you died, you went to the Moon. Those kids had thought the spirits of their ancestors,their grandparents, lived up on the Moon, and Muldoon should have seen them when he was there. He’d been telling them there was no heaven. No wonder they had been confused.
He’d walked on the Moon. And now, in that corner of his own Earth, he’d been confronted by rows of kids in a wooden shack who were still being taught – despite his actual presence, despite his eye-witness account from the Moon itself – superstitious fairy tales.
It made the whole damn enterprise seem futile.
Just before coming over to JSC to do his capcom shift today, he’d gotten a package in the post. It was a script for a credit card commercial.
Do you know me? Last year I walked on the Moon. That doesn’t help me though when I want to reserve an airline seat
… Goddamn garbage.
It was for more money than he’d make in five years. He could only do it if he retired from the Agency.
Jill would surely welcome it. Jill wasn’t like some of the other wives. She didn’t have a military background; Jill had never gotten used to the flights, the dangers, the dilute bullshit that NASA doled out during a mission …
And the fact was, NASA was never going to let him go back to the Moon.
What if he did retire?
Maybe the moonwalker tag wouldn’t endure; maybe he wouldn’t be seen as a hero for much longer. The mood seemed to have turned even more against the program. There had even been criticism, in the press, about his and Armstrong’s conduct on the Moon. They’d spent too long on the ceremonials. They’d collected fewer rocks than hoped for. Most of the samples weren’t properly documented. They’d used the wrong camera to photograph their footprints, so they’d lost time and come home with less interesting photographs. They’d had to cut short the 3-D photography. Even the shots they’d taken in orbit were criticized, as being tourist shots of Earthrise, while the unexplored Moon whipped by beneath them.
Hell, it was hardly our fault. Nixon called us, not the other way around. And what the hell can you do with all that science stuff? It was hardly idiot-proof: too damn easy to make mistakes, when you only have a couple of hours, out of your entire life, to walk on the Moon …
He was already drinking too much, fighting off the depression, the deflation, with alcohol. He’d been just the same after his Gemini flight. A few years of this and he’d turn into some sad, paunchyslob telling war stories to anyone who’d listen, to increasingly blank faces.
He remembered, that day in Nepal, that he’d taken a nap. When he woke up, he needed the bathroom. He tried to float
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