Barnes. Pdf

damn day had 
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he mentioned her outfit, and didn't he know how uncertain shy was whether primrose yellow was really her color. But this 
failed to work, and so Betty, who could never get to sleep unless things were out in the open, asked him if he wanted a drink 
and why had he gone all funny on them just before the ceremony, and if he wanted her frank opinion the soonest way to foul 
up the future career they'd both agreed on was for him to start asking State Governors whether or not they believed in God, for 
Christ's sake. Who did he think he was? 
`My life has changed,' said Spike. 
'Are you trying to tell me something?' Betty was normally suspicious and couldn't help noticing how many letters a famous 
man is liable to receive from women who didn't know him, from the Mary-Beths and all the potential Mary-Beths of the world. 
`Yes,' he replied. `You come back to where you started from. I went 240,000 miles to see the moon - and it was the earth 
that was really worth looking at.' 
`You do need a drink.' She paused, half-way across the room to the frigobar, but he hadn't spoken, or moved, or gestured. 
`Heck, I need a drink.' She sat down beside her husband with a sour mash and waited. 
`When I was a kid my Pa took me to Kitty Hawk. I was twelve, thirteen. It made me into an aviator. That's all I wanted to 
do from that day.' 
`I know, honey.' She took his hand. 
`I joined the Navy. I was a good aviator. I transferred to Pax River. I volunteered for Project Mercury. I didn't get accepted 
at first but I kept on and they accepted me in the end. I was listed for Project Apollo. I did all the training. I landed on the moon 
...' 
`I know, honey.' 
`... and there ... there,' he went on, squeezing Betty's hand as he prepared to tell her for the first time, `God told me to find 
Noah's Ark.' 

---

J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½
 
Chapters 
82
`Uh-huh.'
`I'd just thrown the football. I'd just thrown the football and 
[p. 260]
found it and kicked it into a little crater and was wondering if I was out of range of the camera and if they'd call a foul if they 
spotted it, when God speaks to me. Find Noah's Ark.' He looked across at his wife. `It was like, here you are a grown man and 
you make it to the moon and what do you want to do? Throw footballs. Time to start putting away childish things, that's what 
God was telling me.' 
`How you sure it was God, honey?' 
Spike ignored the question. `I didn't tell anyone. I know I'm not hallucinating, I know I've heard what I've heard, but I don't 
tell. Maybe I'm not quite sure, maybe I want to forget it. And what happens? The very day I go back to Kitty Hawk, where it 
all started all those years ago, the very day I go back I see the God-damn Ark. Don't forget what I said - that's His message, 
isn't it? Loud and clear. That's what it means. Go ahead and get your medal, but don't forget what 1 said.' 
Betty took a sip of her whisky. `So what you gonna do, Spike?' Normally, when discussing his career, she said we rather 
than you; this time he was out on his own. 
`I don't know yet. I don't know yet.' 
The NASA psychiatrist that Betty consulted had a good line in nodding, as if to suggest that she'd have to tell him 
something far more outrageous before he'd throw down his pen and admit the fellow was minus some buttons, crazier than a 
bedbug. He nodded, and said how he and his colleagues had been anticipating a few adjustment problems, after all someone 
who went to the moon and looked back at the earth must be a bit like the first guy who ever stood on his head and took in the 
view from that direction, which might affect your behavioral pattern, and what with the stress of the flight and the enormous 
publicity attending the missions, it wasn't altogether surprising that one or two reality shifts might have taken place, but there 
was no reason to believe that their effects might be either serious or long-lasting. 
`You're not answering my question.' 
`What is your question?' The psychiatrist was not aware that she'd asked one. 
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`Is my husband - I don't know what technical term you might use, doctor - is my husband a fruitcake?' 
There was a lot more nodding, this time in a horizontal rather than vertical plane, and examples of perceptual