|
Whenever I meet someone
who’s heard of me, they always want to know about the secret first moon
landing- the one where we cleaned out the Martians prior to Armstrong and
the rest showing up a couple years later. People always want to
talk about the moon. No one ever asks about all the other stuff I
did. No one asks me
about inventing the appletini, or smoked cheddar cheese or the smoked
cheestini. No one ever asks about my affair with Eleanor Roosevelt or
the time I crippled Franklin Roosevelt with a croquet mallet.
They all want to know about Moon War 1. Well, I’m tired of
talking about it.
I don’t see what the big deal about the moon is anyway. You
wouldn’t be so excited about it if you went there. It’s just rock
and pointy dust. It’s like walking around in the middle of the
night on finely ground glass. There’s no place to get a drink and the
hookers are hideous.
Sure, there’s the Martian caverns to look at, but they’re pumped full
of carbon dioxide and their chairs are all wobbly and uncomfortable for
anyone with a reasonable number of legs. On top of all that, the
floors are still slick with that weird orange Martian blood that never
dries.
A lot of good boys died to get the moon for humanity, and what’d we get
in return? None of the glory and all of the heat-ray burns. Hell,
humanity didn’t really get anything out of the moon, aside from a place
to keep our tide control machines and kinetic-kill superweapons. (Well,
that and the Martian ‘Compact Disc’ technology, but that’s done more
harm than good, I say.)
I’ve been in piles of wars right here on earth and every damn one of
them was much more interesting that shooting those squeaking
five-legged, bug-eyed purple bastards on the moon. Does anyone
ever ask me about Korea? Vietnam II: The Revenge? No, everyone wants to
know about the Moon War.
 Well, fuck
you. It’s in here someplace. You’ve bought my book you can
read all about Moon War 1 and stop asking me about the damned thing,
but I’m not going to make it easy on you. I left it out of the
index and I left it out of the table of contents. If you want to
find the story of Moon War 1 by the only guy to come home, you’ve got
to read the whole damned book to find it.
This is my memoir, so if you want to get the meal you paid for, you’re
going to have to eat your way through all the parsley, cole slaw and
pepper from the pimply kid’s giant grinder to get to that bland club
sandwich. It will, however, be the best damn gourmet cole slaw you’ve
ever had. Better than the fucking moon-club sandwich you’re so excited
about.
|
|
