Full Speed Ahead, Maniac Twins! (Pt. 3)

I must have fallen asleep during the flight, because the next thing I remember happening is a jolt as the plane touched down. The lights inside had been dimmed, and outside the airport was cloaked in a sea of black – impenetrable except for the steady blinking of guidance lights. I grabbed by bag, my jacket, and my briefcase and stepped into the aisle and out of the plane, followed closely by the blonde (whose name I was still unaware of), and Dr. Dagen. Outside, on the black tarmac, a sleek SUV was waiting, its parking lights glowing warmly against the ground. It was a warm night, but windy and as we walked across the empty airport a breeze swept up around us and my back crawled with shivers. Outside of the truck a slight man was waiting. He was wearing a dark suit and looked very professional. I nervously slicked my hair back and extended my hand. Taking it, he called over the still rumbling engines, “Hello! I’m Mr. Shepard, we spoke over the phone.” I nodded and smiled. He continued, “And Ms Weinstein! As lovely as ever.” I turned to see a look of friendly recognition on the blonde’s face as she warmly embraced Mr. Shepard. “Robert,” she said in her wonderfully awful voice, “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jill?” Laughing, he replied, “How many times do I have to tell you to call me Robby?” Turning to Dr. Dagen he extended his hand for a firm handshake and salutations. We are now standing in a semi circle on one side of the truck and the wind was whipping our jackets, and suit tails, and ties, and skirt hems (in the case of the blonde Ms Weinstein) into a furious squall of textiles. Opening the rear passenger door, Robert Shepard motioned for Dr. Dagen and myself to climb into the backseat, which we did. Jill Weinstein circled around the car and piled into the passenger seat and Mr. Shepard took the wheel and we were off.

Turning in her seat to address Dr. Dagen and myself in a style very similar to that of a teacher attempting to educate two difficult boys, she began to explain her connection to Mr. Shepard. She told us of their time working together back in the 90s, when the government was big and bold and she flourished her stories with arm waving and hands and Mr. Shepard punctuated her narratives with polite laughter and precision grunts. Between the two of them I was able to assemble a pretty good picture of the sort of work both Robert Shepard and Jill Weinstein were involved in. You see, they had worked together, many years before in what Jill described as the “second space race – that which we contest with our own inhibitions” and which Robert described as “increasing collaboration between intergovernmental agencies in ascribing new policies regarding the development and utilization of space-flight technology”; I felt that Jill’s description was more exciting but far less instructive, ultimately. After several minutes of narrative I felt the tide of the discussion begin to tug pointedly towards Jill. Again, she dominated in speech. I noticed that Dr. Dagen had fallen asleep in the seat next to me, his head tilted slightly to the side while soft Germanic lilting phrases stumbled out of his sleep-inebriated mouth. Robert Shepard also began to grow silent, and I realized that I was in a car being driven by a man I didn’t know to a destination unclear being lectured by a woman who had talked to me for a very long time, but who I knew very little about, ultimately.

“And what’s more, there are people out there who believe that space is a dead end. That we should cut the funding. Do you realize what our defense budget looks like? I could hide four shuttle programs in the budget for new laser-tracking systems and no one would notice. Mind you, I am not advocating any sort of fraud. But can you believe the sort of ignorance that pervades the upper reaches of our country? To limit the entire scope of our creativity, of our knowledge, our inventiveness to a single point a Galaxy full of information? It’s quite ludicrous.” I was on the verge of overcoming my significant bashfulness and expressing my own similar outrage (albeit on a topic I had until moments ago never before considered), when Robert Shepard interrupted her. “We’re here Ms Weinstein so I would recommend that you stow the conspiracy theory stuff for the time-being.” At that moment, Robert seemed to become very much a military man, and I realized that I was very much unaware of what sort of people I was traveling to meet. It seemed very obvious to me that Dr. Dagen was a university-type, just like myself, and that Ms Weinstein seemed to despise institutions in their entirety, so I began to consider her a free-thinker; a radical who floated between the cracks (a conclusion that I would later reflect upon with a certain degree of irony). I couldn’t seem to place Robert in the mosaic of military-industrial-political complex I seemed to have gotten myself involved in. This was the first step in my journey of understanding the space program. It is a very complicated and confusing world in which many different sorts of people work together. I can only remember at the time being quite struck by Robert’s military undertone.

We arrived at a place called Camp Daisy at around 1 o’clock in the morning. It was very dark and I couldn’t see much of it, but I remember that there were a lot of dirt roads and very bland looking buildings and security checkpoints. We drove straight through the compound to a building with glowing lights and windows and it looked much more homely than the other buildings. It even had a small patch of flowers outside which helped to make it look less administrative. As we were parking Robert explained again how Mr. Bento was sorry he couldn’t meet us earlier that day, but that he himself was on a transatlantic flight from a European conference and that he wouldn’t be arriving until late that night himself. I was prepared for a few nights stay, and was very proud of myself for packing so lightly. It seemed that Dr. Dagen had a similar packing setup with just one bag and a briefcase and I was pleased with the succinctness that us “university-types” employed in getting ready for a short trip. Jill Weinstein was a completely different matter: she had brought several bags and pieces of luggage and we helped her to unload her bags and move them inside to a room that was marked with a polite sign: Dr. Jillian Weinstein, Consultant. I found a similar room for me and also one for Dr. Dagen. After I had settled in and took a stroll outside of the building, to soak in the place and get a feel for it. It was very late at night, and the birds and cicadas were causing a lot of noise in the bushes and trees that surrounded the area. I stayed outside for a while to admire the pleasant weather and to reflect on the trip so far. After a bit, I stepped back inside, removed my shoes and collapsed into the bed in a heap of tired eyes and exhausted limbs.

Full Speed Ahead, Maniac Twins! (Pt.2)

I suppose I should note, at this time, that I am not what you would call “traditionally handsome”. I wasn’t clean-cut, and fit like the officers who had escorted me from the public airport to the military airport (and who ultimately ended up being pilot and co-pilot on the plane I had just boarded), nor was I worn-out and weathered like Jack. I was thin and lean, and had always been a little too tall for practical purposes. My knees had a tendency to knock into desks and drawers and my shirts never seemed to fit very well. In addition, I had never acquired the skill for taming my hair. It stuck out in all directions, and on a windy day like this, tended to aggregate toward the back and slightly off to the side of my head.

So you can see why I was a bit nervous when I cleared my throat and said, “Hello! This is some strange trip, eh?” I firmly believe that it would been a smooth line, had it not been for the fact that right in the middle the pilot cut in with the two engines, and my words were lost in a whirlwind of howling intakes and screaming blades. This was not to be the last time I wasn’t able to successfully engage this beautiful woman in conversation, but I will touch on some of those other times where they are more relevant to the story.

The plane was crowded. There were only the three of us, plus the two officers in the cabin, and there was also a dog who had curled up on the floor and fallen asleep as soon as the plane had taken off. However, the majority of the space was taken up by a big pile of tarped and pinioned packaged machinery. My trained eye could see the outlines of manifolds, metal heat sinks, and tubes that indicated it was some sort of engine, perhaps a generator of some type, beneath the miles of gray military tarping stretched across the bulky surface. I had just spent the better part of six years and more money that I wanted to think about focusing on machines exactly like the one that sat in front of me, and so you’ll understand if I went out of my way to avoid thinking about it too much. Instead, I decided to stare out the window and watch the planet drop away as we took to the skies.

It was all very mysterious and brand new, and I had been caught up in the heat of the moment and not stopped to think very much about all that was happening around me. It was getting late at that point, and as we flew towards the east, the sun sank into the horizon behind us and the sky and clouds towering over the Gulf turned beautiful shades of gold and red. I thought about my apartment, and I thought about the lab in which I was working and also about the classes I was helping with, some lower level stuff. As the sky outside turned from honey to a bloody purple I couldn’t help but let my attention creep slowly away from the window, across the seats and the aisle and over to that blonde sitting across the way.

She was wearing a light gray leather jacket over a dark blue turtleneck, and her hair fell in curls around the neck. She had a book open on her lap, but was looking out the window, admiring the tremendous display of colors as the planet slunk away from the sun. The air conditioning cycled softly and the plane bumped and swayed with the light turbulence. I was very happy at that point because I was doing something new and exciting. I leaned over slightly in my chair and said, “Hello. Beautiful night, isn’t it?” She replied without turning around, “Very much so! We never had nights like this in Michigan.” Her voice was not lyrical or beautiful in any way. I’m not trying to say that she had an unpleasant voice – quite the opposite in fact – but it seemed to me that she talked as if she didn’t think before hand. Her words didn’t seem pre-planned, but spilled out of her with unapologetic honesty. After being surrounded for six years by people who spoke in sentences as carefully calibrated as the machines they worked on, it was very refreshing to speak to someone who spoke at the same rate that they thought.

In an attempt to continue this trend, I immediately said the first things that came into my head. “I hear Michigan is an incredibly awful place. Very cold, I mean.” She turned in her chair and looked at me for the first time. She had green eyes. She laughed. “In the winter it can get pretty nasty. However, I recommend you visit us in the early summer before forming any permanent conclusions.” I smiled and mumbled my agreeance, greatly relieved that she had not been turned off by my hasty response. She spoke again. “Where are you from anyway? You’re not from Texas are you? I can’t stand Texan men. They all think that they are cowboys. Unless of course you are simply living in Texas. Do you study? You seem like an academic type, very rangy. Or are you a career man? I hear Mark is picking up people from both sides of the fence so-to-speak. That’s the way it is with the government. They hire people who can think, and then they hire people who can run things and keep those thinker-people in line and on-topic. I’ve always had the distinct impression that university-types don’t need much guidance when they’re set loose on a project. They’re a little mindless to begin with, so as long as you tell them what you need and keep them well fed, they’ll keep working until they get the job done. What do you think about that? Do you think I’m too harsh on them?” Realizing that this woman enjoyed talking, and that I would be run-over by her in straight conversation, I tried to halt the flow of questions, by asking one of my own. “So are you a career woman or a scientist?” She did not seem bothered by my attempt to evade her questions, but smiled slightly, and turned back around in her chair to study the sky through her frost-encompassed window before replying. “I don’t believe that we should be limited by careers, and I feel very strongly that science is dead.” That was all she said, and I couldn’t think of a good way to respond, so I rested my head against the seat and faced the window, my head full of questions and thoughts.

Long Live the King

The high dressed high bred highlights
run high rises from the drawing rooms of estates
the puppet strings strain under the tension of a thousand fingers
reaching forward, they stand like tombstones, impassable.

Here comes the revolution, a revolution of minds
Lets tear down these walls
Lets inspire the lonely loves, and lust for lost languages
Be prepared, we guarantee perfect anguish

The lowlands run red with the sanguine silence of the white collars and city brokers
Up above, the castle is without a door, without a throne
We thrust upon the mantle of holiness, the mantle of empires and civilizations
Laughing and shaking, the rafters rain down, Long Live the King!

Full Speed Ahead, Maniac Twins! (Pt. 1)

CHAPTER 1: A Meeting

The first time I saw Jack Faust I knew for sure he was a pilot. He stepped out of his truck right in front of the main entrance of one of the test sites on the tip of Florida, the farthest eastern tip; right on the Keys. It was a bright day, and a swift breeze from the south blew dust past the strips of lights scattered for miles on the ground. This was back when I still carried a leather brief case around, and at that point I was still very fond of it, so as I walked to meet him I turned slightly and hobbled against the wind, trying to protect my leather brief case from the whipping wind and sand. “Hello!” He cried out, very cheerful. That is the way it is with pilots; they don’t say very much, but when they do talk it is very cheerful and short and to the point. His manner of speaking was very crisp, and I felt a little like an idiot when I responded, “How are you?” It seemed as if my words got lost in the miniature dust storm that had whipped up around us.

I could tell a lot about Jack from the truck he drove. It was very old, but not in a nice antique way. It was just old, like the men you meet outside of barbershops waiting to get their weekly haircut, despite the fact that their hair is very white and thin around the edges. Some cars and trucks are old in the way that old people on television are. Polished old. Jack’s truck was ancient, and it seemed to be falling apart slightly. When he exited the driver’s door, the suspension creaked and groaned and small avalanches of rust cascades off the bottom and the sides by the wheels.

He was wearing a black leather jacket over a worn gray t-shirt. You could tell it was a shirt that he worked with; it was thin in places where vigorous washing and bleach had been utilized in a constant war waged against drops of machine oil, grease, and dirt. That was the way it was in general with Jack. He was very clean, very neat, but thin in certain places. He was worn, well used, and his personality reflected that. He acted like a man that had seen a lot of the world, and met a lot of people, and made his conclusions and was confident that nothing he would experience stood a chance of changing those opinions that he had worked so hard to make. I don’t mean to say that he was stubborn in his ways, or negative in his intolerance. He was just well worn, like a belt that bends at the notch where you have tied it every day for 20 years.

I was a bit more of a mess than Jack. I had just gotten out of college at that point and was still reeling from the tremendous influx of knowledge that had poured through my brain. That is the way it is with college; they pour knowledge over your brain and you try to suck up as much as you can like a thirsty plant. At the end of it all, they wring you out and see how much you have absorbed. If you’re lucky, they slap you on the back and hand you a diploma and leave you lying on the side of the road trying to reabsorb as much learning as you can from the dirt before the sun evaporates it up. My friends say that my narcissistic attitude about college was in fact just one small part of my larger cynical nature, but I can assure you that I am overall quite an optimistic guy, and that the events of this story will prove that to be the case. I just don’t much like college, that’s all.

So, like I said, I had just gotten out of college when I first met Jack. I had studied aeronautics and engineering, and I could recite equations in my sleep. During my final year in school, I had in fact become a bit of a robot, and like a machine I would process variables and situations like a lightning bolt, quick and fast. Of course, in the process of all of this education, my social skills became slightly degraded, and so I will be the first one to admit that I wasn’t the coolest cat for the first couple years after I had gotten out. I had, only a few months earlier, published my first paper. I had been working with an old professor, Dr. Michael Iota, in developing a brand new way of cooling engines. It involved a lot of magnets, and rotating ion channels, and a lot of subatomic particles that whizzed by a series of conical convections tunnels made out of some really great brand new carbon material. It was fantastic and brand new, and the entire experience of developing it and testing it was very fun and exciting for me, considering at the time I figured I could get my name out there and secure myself in the scientific community.

A few weeks after we published, I got a call from someone named Mr. Shepard who said he represented a Mr. Bento who worked in the military, but firmly insisted I call him Mr. Bento, and not Major Bento or Colonel Bento or whatever rank he was. I can’t remember for the life of me. He may have even been a General for all I know, but I finally got the chance to meet with Mr. Bento approximately ten minutes before I met Jack Faust. Apparently, by some fluke of chance, my paper had landed on the desk of some bigwig, and they wanted to see me in person to discuss an issue of material science that was relevant to some new program or project. They flew me down to San Antonio from Dallas, where I was met at the airport by a couple of Air Force officers who carried my bags for me and addressed me as Doctor. This was an extremely exciting experience for me, as I had only two months before earned my doctorate and still was having trouble adjusting to the new title. Anyway, they drove me down to another smaller airport. I could tell that this was a military airport because there were no children anywhere, and the only people in civilian clothes either looked very angry or very sad. My two officer-chauffeurs brought me to a dusty tarmac where a small two-engined plane was waiting. Inside there was a small man dressed in a very neat suit who kept talking to me and asking me how I was. I eventually learned that this man was a Mr. Karl Dagen and that he was one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of all time. At the time though, all I could pay attention to was the brilliant blonde sitting across the copious aisle from me.

To be continued

Thoughts on Cold Weather

If there is one thing that should be known about life, it is this: one can never appreciate the tremendous discomfort caused by the cold. As humans, we have an inherent tendency to forget that which has caused us pain in the past. This fact, along with many other things (some of which I hope to discuss later) has led me to my current belief that we, as humans, are tremendously versatile and persistent creatures. Surely, the many monuments of our civilization, the books and poetry and artwork that marks the progression of our culture, like waterlines on a porcelain tub, are indicators of our ability to succeed and flourish in places and in manners that would be otherwise considered impractical or impossible. This progression, these advancements, are all due to the fact that we cannot remember that which has before caused us great pain. Instead, we store our knowledge of past failings, of past goals unmet, in some dark dusty, back closet in our mind. These memories sit there, quietly and perpetually contributing to our conscious process. The ragged edge of pain is dulled by this seclusion; we force unpleasantness to the back of our mind where it must push through countless layers of neural mush in order to reach the front of our mind, and in the process the sharp edge, the painful qualities are lost. So it is with the cold. We remember that cold has the potential to be and indeed often is unpleasant. We know all of this to be true; the intricacies and details that surround and define the interaction of cold temperature and our biological functions; the specific ways in which a dramatic decrease in heat and light can severely inhibit our body's natural ability to perform mundane functions like walking, tying your shoes, or breathing. We even remember how the cold air can invade our minds, freeze everything but the inner parts, the parts that tell us frantically to find shelter, to find warmth. And yet, despite these recollections, despite the fact that we, as humans, seem to be imbued not only with a sense of memory, an sentient awareness of the continuity of time and our place in it, but also with a recognition of the powers and weaknesses of our own recollection machinery; we still manage to find ourselves completely surprised by the cold.

It's cold now, and we had our first significant snowfall last night. I use the word significant to indicate a level of snow that is quantifiable, and which does not turn immediately to an awful slush upon hitting the wet ground. Soon, the ground we'll freeze, and stay frozen for several months, and any snow that falls will stay here, glued to the ground, slowly subliming into the atmosphere on sunny days.