How Buzz Alldrin got into soft pornography

How Buzz Alldrin got into soft pornography.

His spew looked like a Russian Salad. He'd made it to the toilet away
from the white coats and military brass, but only just. The centrifuge
sessions always spun Buzz out. The little spirit level in his middle
ear was faulty. Nothing else was a problem but it took only one or two
technicolour yawns in front of the wrong people and that would be
that.

The toothpaste tubed food, the confined spaces, and weightlessness were
a piece of piss. It was just the spinning that got to Buzz. He'd be
damned if his thunder would be snatched away by some glorified NASA
fairground attraction. Only his Mother knew the crux.

One Air Force Colonel in particular had it in for Buzz. He had blacked
him out during a training flight where too many G's were pulled and the
Colonel's head had come very close to disappearing up his own bum. He'd
been shitty ever since and looking for an excuse to nail the trainee.
Vomit in front of him and the trip to the moon was off.

It never happened. He always made it to the toilet. After the last spin
cycle the scrutineering Colonel received a bag of still steaming
"Russian Salad" set on fire outside his office. It made quite a mess
when he went to stamp it out with his foot.

Buzz got through his training and had only two weeks to wait until he
was hurled at the moon with the others. He'd live for the fourteen days
on an Air Force base just down the road from the Cape. He could see the
giant white gantries from his verandah. The Saturn rocket still hadn't
made it to the launch pad. Buzz knew it was moving but only noticed
after eight hours asleep that it was going any-where at all.

The Colonel with the sour milk shoe and singed shin came by one morning
for a talk with the astronaut. The hush-hush of his tone and the fact
that he wanted to speak in the bathroom with the radio turned way up
made for raised eyebrows. This was no ordinary visit. Something more
than his shoe stank. Buzz braced.

It was hard to hear anything above the radio. The Colonel was still
dulcet and low with his secreted words. Buzz was neither heads nor
tails with a lot of it but he got the general gist. Just as the Beach
Boys faded out and before the DJ chipped in, the words "faking it"
sounded loud and clear. The astronaut's chin dropped and he made a
fist. The sound of a heart sinking and blood pressure rising rung in
his ears. The Colonel took off leaving a faint hint of bile in the
heavy, heavy air.

After Buzz and the others had been seen boarding their rocket they
straightaway crawled back out through a dummy fuel line. They were
whisked to a waiting plane and were in the Nevada desert in two hours.
It was here that the scam would unfold. The golf, the flag, the walk,
the speech, all of it.

A huge makeshift hangar had been built over the rock and sand. There
were picture perfect props and backdrops, even make-up artists and some
Hollywood folk. A Mr. Polanski moved in the shadows calling shots and
waving his hands like he ran the show. He toted a small megaphone that
Buzz wanted to stuff fair up his coit. The million dollars in unmarked
bills had not changed Buzz's disgust for his government. He was in a
very lonely place, a long way from happy.

After a while shooting stills and standing around a lot it was nearly
time for the "live" broadcast of the landing. The astronauts were given
directions on how to move around and some different cues. From their
training they already knew what tasks to perform and what to say. Even
so it took ten hours to shoot just thirty minutes of footage. Finally,
after all the big wigs on set were happy with the shadows and light and
reflections and the astronauts themselves they gave the thumbs up. The
landing film would be aired in a few hours. Neil Armstrong went off
with a pad and a ghostwriter to jot down a speech for the voiceover.
The rest of the men went and laid down, shot to pieces after a long
day.

Buzz stared at the roof of the trailer. He felt the unbearable weight
of shame tugging at the patriot strings to his heart. Not going to the
moon hurt. Being part of the biggest faked fantastic of all times was
like having a kidney removed with an axe. A deep, infintrinsic pain on
an atomic level. Every molecule in his body vibrated and rubbed outrage
into one another.

It was nearly time. The broadcast was minutes away and every sorry
bastard involved with duping the world gathered around the monitors for
a look. Buzz was there and Neil. Mr. Polanski sat at the back stroking
his chin. The TV channel had been showing hours of preliminary,
build-up type hype. Now they were crossing live to the moon to see it
all unfold. There it was, the footage already hours old flickering away
on the screens. Somehow they had made it look like it really was coming
from a long way. A grainy, not quite right quality had been added. It
was all very believable. The flag got planted. The guys bounced around
a bit and Neil made his speech. With around thirty seconds to go the
people at the top had that home and hosed feeling. There were no
hitches, no glitches or gremlins.

For a cool million bucks though Tony Revere in the editing room had
been swayed to fiddle a couple of things. Right near the end of the
broadcast, footage that should have been on the cutting room floor had
been spliced back in. It was only three seconds worth but that would be
plenty.

In the distance, up against the leg of the Lunar Module, Buzz Alldrin,
astronaut and All-American became the first man to take a piss on the
moon. Immediately after that Neil Armstrong flashed a "brown-eye". At
least five hundred million people saw it. A fair whack of them knew
taking a leak in space was unlikely. And getting your bum out? Well
that was just stupid. He looked around the room full of phonies. His
smile was of the ear to ear variety. Without overcooking it and with a
beaming countenance he simply said, "Oops", middle fingered the lot of
them and wandered out of the hangar towards Reno.