“Let’s try another place,” he said, pulling himself away from the peeling poster.
A cardboard box smacked against O’Donnell’s legs, then flew across the parking lot. “There isn’t any other place,” he snapped, already regretting that he had accepted Freddy’s invitation.
Freddy slid down the post until he was eye level with Lance.
“’Scuse us a second, eh, O’Donnell?” he said.
O’Donnell moved out of earshot, which was only a few feet away in the thundering gale. Apparently Freddy knew how to handle this Muncie kid. Freddy spoke earnestly, and some of the hardness drained from Lance’s face. Lance shrugged. Freddy shot a stage wink at O’Donnell and bounced onto his skateboard. Lance held the door as Freddy rolled through.
The bartender was an amiable sort, fat and bearded and looking like he would be more comfortable in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler than behind a bar on Cape Canaveral. The storm had interrupted food delivery, he explained, but he might rustle up some tuna on toast if that suited their fancy. Everyone agreed that would be just fine.
“Where ya’ll stayin’ at?”
Freddy was gawking at the uncensored photos of the dancers taped to the mirror and Lance was staring at his fingernails, so O’Donnell answered, “The New Ramada.”
“That’s where they put up shuttle passengers.” The bartender looked at Freddy. “Say, I know you. You’re that legless guy they’re sending up.”
“Astronaut Fernando Aviles at your service.” Freddy vaulted onto the bar and spun himself on one hand.
“Goddamn,” said the bartender. “You don’t need no micro-gee to be an acrobat.”
Freddy returned to his stool.
“Goin’ to Space Station Freedom, huh?”
“Not Freedom. Trikon.” Freddy mussed Lance Muncie’s hair. “Lance and me, we’re part of the crew.”
“Trikon, huh? That’s the industrial one, ain’t it?” The bartender looked at O’Donnell. “You a scientist or something?”
“Something,” said O’Donnell.
The bartender served tuna sandwiches and poured three glasses of grapefruit juice. Freddy accepted a shot of rum in his; Lance and O’Donnell refused. As the men ate, the bartender made small talk and professed a deep interest in all matters extraterrestrial. As if to prove his dedication, he switched the television to the “Good Morning, World” show. The screen showed a man wearing a crimson flight suit and bobbing effortlessly in what appeared to be a padded room. Nearby, a lanky blond wearing an identical flight suit pedaled a cycle attached to the floor.
“Ever watch this?” asked the bartender. “They do a segment every week, live from Trikon Station. That guy there, he’s Kurt Jaeckle. His that scientist writes all them books about Mars.”
Freddy and Lance grunted in recognition. O’Donnell gnawed on a burnt section of his toast. Seeing that his patrons were less than talkative, the bartender retreated to a well-cushioned stool set up next to the cash register.
Kurt Jaeckle was smiling earnestly into the camera. His face was thin, pallid except for heavy dark eyebrows that shadowed his eyes.
“One of the problems of extended space missions,” said Jaeckle, “is the effect of weightlessness on the muscular system of the human body. In microgravity, objects retain their mass but not their weight. Tasks that require the exertion of muscle power on Earth require virtually no effort in space. Hence, without a planned exercise regimen, a person’s muscles will atrophy.”
The camera pulled back as Jaeckle floated effortlessly toward the blond puffing away on the exercise cycle.
“Ms. Gamble here is demonstrating our stationary cycle, which exercises the leg muscles and, more importantly, the heart as well. The heart, remember, is nothing more than a muscle. On Earth it pumps blood against the force of gravity, but here in space there is no such resistance. Therefore, the heart can atrophy just like any other muscle.”
At a nod from Jaeckle the blond stopped pedaling and tried to smile prettily into the camera.
“I require each member of the Mars training mission to spend a minimum of eight hours on the cycle each week. The station commander has a separate set of exercise requirements for his crew, and the teams of research scientists on board are advised by the station’s medical officer to exercise on a regular basis.”
“Ho boy, I’m in trouble,” said Freddy.
“You can pedal with your hands,” said Lance.
“Where do I sit?”
“You don’t need to sit.”
“Tha’s right,” said Freddy. “Maybe we can pedal with her, eh?”
“She’s a local girl,” the bartender piped up. “First name’s Carla Sue. She was a beauty queen at the University of Florida a few years back, though you wouldn’t know it to look at her on that cycle. Space travel don’t agree with her. Professor Jaeckle talked about it last week. Somethin’ about the body fluids rising from the legs to the chest and face in micro-gee. Carla Sue was prettier’n a movie star down here. But up there her face kinda looks like one of them big all-day lollipops, don’t it? Not that I still wouldn’t give her a lick.”
Freddy giggled; Lance’s face reddened. O’Donnell didn’t know whether the kid was embarrassed or angry.
“Don’t none of you guys get any ideas about Carla Sue,” said the bartender. “She’s Jaeckle’s.”
“She hasn’t met us yet,” said Freddy.
“I oughtta know,” the bartender went on. “The two of them were in here makin’ kissy-face enough before goin’ up.”
No one picked up on this morsel of gossip, so he folded his arms across his gut and swiveled his head back to the television. Jaeckle was in the midst of explaining that the stationary cycle, for all its virtues, did not provide enough exercise for the calf muscles. To demonstrate, Carla Sue unzipped the bottom of her pants leg. Her calf was as straight as a rail and so thin that Jaeckle was nearly able to encircle it with one hand.
“And, as you can see, it is quite flabby, too.” Jaeckle rubbed his hand up Carla Sue’s calf. A ripple of flesh preceded his fingers toward her knee.
“In order to exercise these muscles, we have a treadmill,” continued Jaeckle. “Now Ms. Gamble apparently has not been spending the required amount of time on the treadmill.” He smacked her calf sharply. “Better work on these.”
Lance tapped O’Donnell’s wrist.
“Did I ever show you the picture of my girl?”
O’Donnell grunted noncommittally. He had tried talking to Lance Muncie during preflight instruction and had received nothing but a hard stare in return. His initial impression was that Muncie somehow knew of his past and disapproved on a deeply moral level. Later, from talking to Freddy, he learned that Lance came from a Pentecostal community in the Oklahoma panhandle. Just what we need, he had thought, a fundamentalist aboard the space station.
Yet the kid didn’t seem too bad. Uptight, of course, but not a fanatic. O’Donnell thought of his own father, sneaking booze even into the hospital room where they tried to save him from cirrhosis. There are all kinds of fanatics in the world; maybe the son of a Bible-thumper will work out better up there than the son of an alcoholic.
O’Donnell did not want to see the picture, but Lance opened his wallet and flipped through its plastic folders until he finally came to a photo that looked like a high school graduation picture.
“Here she is,” he said, wiping away a stray piece of thread stuck to the plastic cover. The girl had blond hair in a conservative midwestern-style flip and a smile full of milk-white teeth.
“Her name is Becky. That’s short for Rebecca. What do you think?”
“She’s nice, Lance,” said O’Donnell, although his own taste ran to women with a hint of the lowlife about them.