TASS quoted von Braun as comparing the failure to those of the World War II V-2 ...
(From the notebooks of Edgar Thayer)
We got the news of the Soviet failure at Muroc the same way everybody else did ... from the radio. For everyone's convenience they had moved me from the motel in Rosamond to the Tomlin visiting officer's quarters - logically enough, seeing as how I would only be around for a month - which left me twenty miles closer to the action. Which on that particular night was at Pancho's Happy Bottom Riding Club, just west of the base.
I had spent the rest of the test day in debriefing and can't remember who suggested that we have a Soviet Watch at the bar. It might have been Al Dearborn, who, it was said, had run up such a tab that Pancho herself had had to make him a part owner in the joint. I do remember asking if Dr. Rowe would join us, only to told that Rowe probably didn't know where Pancho's was.
Anyway, we were there early, before six, ostensibly for steaks: Dearborn, Sampson, Grissom, Meadows, Ridley, a brace of test engineers, and me. Enloe and Guinan showed up soon after. It was the single wildest evening I have ever spent, though it began innocently enough, just beers with Dearborn.
Midway through the third Budweiser, I got the nerve to ask him how he managed to handle the pressure ... not knowing who was going to make the first flight.
"Listen, buddy, I do know."
"Don't keep me in suspense."
"You're looking at him."" He saw my amused disbelief. "Look, I'll prove it to you. Give me a quarter." I produced a half-dollar. He took it and flipped it. "Call it."
"Heads."
Heads of it was. In fact, Dearborn got it right fourteen times in a row. "Pure luck," I said.
He winked. "Bingo. That's me: Mr. Lucky. Fall in shit, come up smelling like roses. It might not be pretty, but it got me where I am today. Another beer?"
Through the haze of my growing intoxication, I realized that Dearborn, too, was an ace. I didn't know whether to be shocked, or just amused. In those days, to use a term from another circumstance, aces were largely in the closet. Yet, just like people in those other circumstances, they were everywhere you looked ... if you looked closely.
At Muroc, however, it seemed that no one cared. Or that none of the aces cared if anyone cared. As if the rules had been suspended.
(I just wondered what Sampson's wild card talent was.)
True to his reputation, five minutes later Dearborn caused some local talent to materialize, two blondes and a brunette, who made themselves right at home on various laps. One of them had brought a camera, an Argus, I recall, and they were posing for photos with the famous pilot.
By seven I was so drunk I was necking with blonde number one on the pool table, to the raucous cheers of Sampson and Meadows. Even Enloe cracked what I hoped was an approving smile.
I was still a deux with the blonde when I realized that Margaret had come in. She gave me a wink as she squeezed past us, murmuring, "Pretty fast work for an engineer," and took a place at the bar between Guinan and Meadows. Soon Enloe and Dearborn had joined them.
Everyone seemed to be having a good time, particularly the three 11A pilots. At some point Meadows called over to Mike Sampson, and with some reluctance he joined the group. Meadows had picked up the camera and was trying to take a snap of the pilots with Margaret. He was too drunk to make it work. Equally drunk, I disengaged myself from my blonde and rolled off the pool table long enough to point out that he wasn't advancing the film. Without a word he just handed the camera to me, so I took the photo ... Margaret in the middle, Enloe and Dearborn to her right, Guinan and Sampson to her left.
I'm not sure exactly what happened after that. Sampson's voice suddenly got very loud: "If I wouldn't fly in formation with him, I sure as hell wouldn't get close enough to fuck him." Followed by Margaret: "Shut up, Mike." Guinan added: "If she wanted to be with you, buddy, she'd still be with you."
Sampson leered. "I never heard any complaints."
Margaret shot back, "You were too busy watching yourself perform."
The next thing I remember is Sampson tapping my blonde on the shoulder. "Let's go, baby." Her lipstick smeared, the blonde straightened like she was on a string. She actually followed him out.
Now, a juicy scene like that would have silenced any ordinary bar, but the general din and jukebox wail never diminished. I'm not sure anybody but me actually heard the three-way love fest.
I staggered to the bar, where Pancho thoughtfully had a cup of coffee waiting for me. Then Enloe summoned Guinan over to the table where he was sitting with Grissom and Meadows, leaving me alone with Margaret.
"Well, go ahead," she said. "Say it."
"Say what?"
"Call me a tramp, or whatever it is boys from Minnesota say. You're just radiating disapproval."
"I think it's the beer. Honest."
She stabbed out her cigarette and swung around on her stool. "They're awfully fun," she said, nodding toward what had become the pilots-only table. "A bunch of eighteen-year-olds with their first hot rods." She turned back to me. "How old are you, Thayer?"
"Twenty-eight."
"That means you're still fourteen. In boy years."
"Boy years?"
"Like dog years. A boy's real age is only half his chronological age. Believe me, I've done all the research." She took out another cigarette. "There are girl years, too."
"I can't wait."
"They're a little trickier. The conversion factor is one-point-five. When I was thirteen -"
"- You were actually twenty."
"Of course, that's only good up to twenty-one. Then the conversion factor begins to diminish until you're twenty-nine when you're twenty-nine."
"And twenty-nine when you're thirty-three."
"My. A college graduate." There was that smile again. She looked over at the table in the corner, where Enloe, Guinan and the others had their heads together. "Do you suppose Casey's ever going to come back?"
I glanced at the clock. "He's probably waiting for the eight P.M. news."
"You're probably right. Damn you and that stupid Russian rocket. I hope it blows up."
"It might do just that." My head was clearing.
Then Dr. Rowe walked in.
He was dressed as he always dressed, except for the fact that his tie had been slightly loosened. For the first time, there was relative quiet in Pancho's. Rowe seemed amused. "Anybody know what happened with the Russians?"
"Pancho, what's the matter with you! Turn the damn radio on!" Dearborn shouted from the table.
Rowe stepped up to the bar and ordered a beer. As he waited, he glanced at Margaret and me. "Margaret. Ed, what do you think?"
"I don't think they've had enough test flights."
He got his beer and stared into it for a moment. "I hope you're right." He looked up. "And I hate myself for it."
Three minutes to eight. Rowe went to a table - alone. Margaret slid off the stool and took my arm. "Let's go," she whispered.
"Don't you want to know?"
"No."
We found her car. She slid behind the wheel and I got in beside her. Then we just sat in silence. Finally I said, "What was the big rush?"
"I just wanted to get out of there." She pulled up her knees, dropping her shoes. Through the car window came a hot breeze that rippled her hair and blouse. Suddenly I pulled her toward me. After a moment, she pushed me away. "Something wrong?"
She smiled, and unbuttoned her blouse. "I've just decided we're perfect for each other."
(A handwritten note:)
I can still remember each time we made love ... each move within each time. On the couch in her office one Friday when everyone had gone. (Sliding my hand under her skirt to her moist center. We didn't even take our clothes off.) In the car outside a motel in Rosamond, where Deb and the kids had come to visit me. (Her head in my lap ... hair caught in the steering wheel ... stains on my jacket.) The motel in Lancaster on a hot afternoon. (The shades drawn against the heat if not the light, her riding me, drowning me in her breasts....)