Red Thunder

[398] IN THE EVENT, we had no trouble with the government. Is that because of the precautions we took, or do they exist only in the minds of paranoid novelists and screenwriters? The actions of some of the agencies we do know about scare me plenty.

What dealings we had with the government were open and friendly, mostly, though some voices were raised suggesting we ought to turn Jubal’s creation over to the government, if we were patriotic Americans. But the image of the American flag rising over the sand dunes of Mars, spoiling China’s moment of glory, was too firmly fixed in the American imagination for that point of view to last. When we testified before the Joint Committee of Congress there was not a breath of reproach in the air. We were honored guests invited to share our story with the world.

The first year was a whirlwind. In some ways it was more stressful than the trip to Mars, at least to someone like myself, camera shy and not fast with a quip, like Dak and Kelly and Travis. We rode in a ticker tape parade down Wall Street in New York, and in a parade I enjoyed a lot more through the town of Daytona, local kids who had made good. The parade ended at the racetrack, the Holy of Holies in Daytona, where we were given trophies with checkered flags on them. The little stock cars on top of the trophies had been unscrewed and replaced with Red Thunder models.

We could have paraded down the main street of every city and town in America if we’d accepted all the invitations.

If somebody wanted to use our images to sell something, or put us on their product, we researched them carefully… and then charged all the market would bear, which was plenty. Banana Republic sold thousands of Red Thunder leather jackets, and we got a piece of each one. We wore Adidas “Red Thunders” and ate Wheaties, though I only ate the one bowl. Nothing against Wheaties, I just don’t like cereal.

We made a lot of money. More than I ever dreamed possible. I never felt like we degraded ourselves. But it’s odd and not exactly pleasing [399] to see something that resembles your face on the muscle-bulging body of an action figure toy.

One of the things that left a bad taste in my mouth was the movie, which hit the cineplexes a year to the day after our return. It did okay, but not as well as expected. There were several reasons for that, one being that they didn’t wait until they had a good script. The twerp who played me didn’t look a bit like Jimmy Smits, but the girls loved him. The animated television series about us was much better, it ran for seven years.

Then there was the undeniable fact that, in Hollywood terms, the real story of a real pioneer trip just didn’t measure up to the likes of Star Wars, or any of hundreds of outer space adventures full of blazing ray guns and weird aliens.

And the public was just getting tired of us. I was sure getting tired of them. When your face is on magazine covers and television screens as mine was, you can’t go anywhere without being recognized. You never get a moment’s peace.

So after the first a

FAIRY TALES END happily ever after. Real life never does. We came a lot closer than most. It’s just that things don’t always work out the way you had imagined. But sometimes the alternative is just as good.

Things didn’t work out as pla

Dak never recovered from the humiliation he felt as the champion puker aboard Red Thunder. No one ever blamed him for it, but he punished himself. For the first year he made public appearances with the [400] rest of the crew, but when we got tired of the celebrity rat race, Dak was not. So he started touring the sports venues of America, anything from football games to tractor pulls, riding into the arena on Blue Thunder, which had been retrieved and restored to diesel power. It was quite a show. When he tired of it, he donated it to the Smithsonian, to be put in the crystal pyramid with Big Red.

He took up racing, mainly motorcycles and pickups, but he’d drive almost anything that went fast. Kelly says he’s still proving himself, over and over, and she’s probably right. But he seems happy, and that’s all I care about.

He and his father devote much of their time to their speed shop, not only building their own cars but working on and designing others. I always ask Dak if he’s ready to join the NASCAR circuit, and he always scoffs. NASCAR is “the last white good-ol’-boy club left in America,” he says, and stock cars are “the fastest billboards on the planet.”

On Sam’s first birthday after the return, Dak bought him a classic Harley. I bought Travis’s Triumph. Weekends when we can get together, we drive all over Florida with Dak on Green Thunder, his racing bike.

Dak has even made peace with his mother. They still seldom see each other, but now she sends him a present on his birthday, usually something hilariously inappropriate like a train set or a bicycle. He gives them to Toys for Tots. She isn’t really a bad person, she just has no clue about how to be a mother.

Alicia… well, Alicia is still Alicia. She puts all her money into her own foundation, which runs drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers all over the South. She seems sublimely happy, except for one week every year just before her father comes up for a parole hearing. Ironically, without booze in him he’s a model prisoner, so any year now he could get out. And start drinking again…