Riding Rockets - Mike Mullane [4]
Finally, I was excused to Psych Two. I walked slump-shouldered to another door, certain my astronaut dream was stillborn on the report that Yoda was finishing…Candidate Mullane unable to count backward by 7s.
Psych Two was the good cop in the good-cop/bad-cop routine. Dr. Terry McGuire welcomed me with a robust handshake and an expansive smile. I’ve seen that same smile on the faces of used car dealers. I looked for the diamond ring on McGuire’s pinky but it was absent.
Dr. McGuire was outgoing and talkative. He didn’t have a pencil and pad in hand. “Come in. Take a load off. Have a seat.” Another chair, thank God. Everything about his voice and mannerisms said, “I apologize for that other bozo you had to contend with. He’s got the skills of a chiropractor. I’m different. I’m here to help you.” Just as it is on the car dealer’s lot, I was certain it was all an act. He wasn’t after my wallet. He sought my essence. He wanted to know what made me tick, and, like Captain Kirk facing a Klingon battle cruiser, I was ordering, “Shields up!” My astronaut chances might already be headed down in flames but I was going to continue to give it my best shot until the rejection letter arrived.
After some small talk about the weather and how my visit was going (fine, I lied), the good doctor finally began his assault on those shields. He asked just one question. “Mike, why do you want to be an astronaut?”
I had always assumed I would be asked this question somewhere in the selection process, so I was prepared. “I love flying. Flying in space would be the ultimate flight experience.” Then, I added some bullshit to make it sound like love of country was a motivator. “I also think I could best serve the United States Air Force and the United States of America as an astronaut.”
Boy, did I slam-dunk that question,was my thought. The only way I could have done better was if I’d brought in Dionne Warwick to sing the national anthem in the background.
But I was wrong. My slam dunk was rejected. I couldn’t blow off Dr. McGuire with that rehearsed dribble. He looked at me with an all-knowing smirk and replied, “Mike, at the most fundamental level, we’re all motivated by things that occurred in our youth. Tell me about your childhood, your family.”
God, how I hated essay questions.
Chapter 2
Adventure
I was born a week after the end of World War II, September 10, 1945, in Wichita Falls, Texas. “He looks like a monkey” was my grandfather’s first impression. I had a mop of shaggy black hair and, just like a chimp, outward-deployed adult-size ears. Through my early childhood, my mom fought to correct this defect. At bedtime she would adhesive-tape the billboards to the sides of my head, hoping they would grow backward. But it was a lost cause. Somewhere in the night, nature would overcome adhesive and my ears would sprong outward like speed brakes on a fighter jet.
As I had told Psych One, I was the second child in a Catholic family that would ultimately include six children—five boys and a girl. When I was born my dad was serving as a flight engineer aboard B-17s in the Pacific, so it was left to my mom to name me. She picked Richard. I was only a few hours out of the womb and already burdened for life with wing-nut ears and the handle Dick. It was no wonder when my dad returned home he began to call me by my middle name, Mike.Christ, give the kid a break, I imagine him thinking.
Though the war had ended, my dad remained in the service. My earliest memories are of weekend visits to air-base flight lines and sitting in the cockpits of C-124s and C-97s and C-47s and other cargo planes, where Dad allowed me to grab the control yokes and “steer” the parked monsters. He also took me to base operations, where aircrews were arriving from all corners of the globe. They would give me silver wings right off their chests, brightly colored patches, and strange coins from faraway