meetings that couldn’t be rescheduled.” He gestured toward his colleague before shaking the hands of all six cast members. “I’m pleased to see y’all again and hope that you enjoy learning more about us over the next few days. NASA is a, well; it’s a heck of a place. But I’ll let Jason get to the rest of that, and you give me a holler if ya’ll need anything.” The savvy executive finished their abrupt meet and greet with a wink, taking the time to smile at everyone before retreating to his office in a brisk manner.
“Well, why don’t we get started?” Jason asked as he opened his hands in an awkward fashion and let them drop to his sides. “Oh hey, food fight, how are you doing?” The astronaut addressed Litz in a tone that sounded too happy for the New Yorkers after their long flight.
“Yeah, lead the way, Buzz Lightyear,” Litz quipped with apprehension as his lack of tact once again ruined her appetite for man candy.
CKB noticed the tension between the astronaut and Litz, which prompted him to lean forward and whisper into Jazzy’s ear.
“Oh totally!” Jazzy agreed with a delicious grin as she winked at the career criminal.
The comedian bent forward and whispered into Fassim’s ear, and the moderate Muslim giggled as she walked through the offices with the group. Fassim then whispered into Litz’s ear, and the plumber opened her mouth in silent, hearty laughter.
“Wow, Jason, that navy blue suit is really doing it for me today,” Jazzy expressed with a naughty wink as the man led them through the office complex toward the space center.
“Yeowwww, boy,” Fassim half-shouted an aggressive cat call at the astronaut, “I’d like to get into some deep spaces with you.”
“Hey there, Mr. Astronaut,” Litz began with a seductive voice of ownership, “my engines are hot, and you still haven’t boarded me yet.”
CKB and the other two men started to chuckle at Jason as the women taunted him like sex-starved construction workers. The criminal made a fist over his mouth and enjoyed their retribution on the astronaut after absently calling Litz ‘food fight.’
Jason showed some discomfort but regained his composure in a prudent display of confidence, which silenced the laughter of the three men. He straightened the jacket of his navy blue suit and checked his black tie for stains.
“Okay, the first thing I want to show you-” the astronaut began, only to be interrupted by Fassim.
“Yessss, what would you like to – show us?” Fassim teased in a tawdry manner with hungry eyes.
“Jason, do you know where our luggage went?” Jazzy prodded with an innocent smile.
“Your luggage should have been delivered to the hotel,” the astronaut reassured her. “It will be in your room when you get back tonight.”
“Oh, geez,” the comedian answered in a plastic manner with a snap of her fingers, “and I was hoping to put on a bra and panties – just in the event that we have to climb any ladders. Well, I guess it’s okay if you guys see my girl. We do it all the time in New York anyway.”
“Oh yeah, we love to just leave our stuff hanging out,” Litz added with a clever smile, twisting her head to gaze into Jason’s eyes. “I mean, New Yorkers in spring have the tannest genitals in the wild kingdom. It’s like going to the deli and seeing all of the meat on dis-” she stopped speaking when their guide interrupted her.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Jason asked the group as he placed his hands on his hips and stood up straight to confront them.
“CKB offered us a hundred dollars to see who could embarrass you the most with innuendo,” Jazzy replied with a sheepish smile, looking away from Jason as she finished her sentence.
“You snitch,” CKB said with a playful grin as he moved his right arm over his stomach and rested his left hand under his chin.
“It was her,” the astronaut confirmed as he pointed at Litz. “Now, let’s head this way, I want to show you the chest… I mean, the water tanks,” the man corrected himself in a helpless show of frustration. “Follow me.”
Litz stopped and snapped her fingers at CKB in a silent demand for payment on their wager. The rest of the group moved on as she and the career criminal settled their debt.
After a long walk across the concourse, the television stars found themselves standing above a large water tank. There was an astronaut in a suit submerged in the water, and Jason explained how the tank was used to simulate weightlessness. The New Yorkers looked at one another with cynicism and raised eyebrows, as though they wanted to ask if the tour was for eight-year-old children. Most attractions within the space station gave off this level of excitement, and after their first four exhibits, CKB and Litz began to say ‘wow’ with little emotion at everything they saw.
Jason detected the group’s apathy toward the more pedestrian areas of the tour and decided to cut it short with a rocket propulsion demonstration. He guided the television stars to a large concrete launch pad at the far end of the complex. They walked up a flight of stairs to an observation catwalk in front of a massive rocket exhaust port. The New Yorkers seemed to show respect for this monstrosity of engineering as Jason led them and their camera crew toward a control panel for the test.
The rocket was at least as wide as a small house, and it would have taken several seconds to walk up the exhaust port and into the unit. Richard gazed down the length of the rocket to its tip, noting that it ended fifty yards to their right in a steep point. The white surface was made up of tempered steel and had all manner of safety stickers on its outer layer.
“Okay, so I need you all to step back to the edge of the observation deck as we get ready to ignite this unit,” Jason instructed as he started to flip switches on the control panel at the front of the platform. “This is a special demonstration that we’re staging for you and the television show. So, since it’s not part of the regular tour, I need to take a few extra safety precautions. First, the blast is going to blow off at our left, so if you stay at the right side of the platform, you’ll be more insulated from the heat. Second, I want you to avoid staring at the flames for too long in case I need to signal you to evacuate the platform. We’ll have a hard time hearing when the rocket ignites, but you don’t need hearing protection. Does everyone understand?”
Every member of the cast nodded and shifted to the rear right of the platform except for Stoney. The police officer was preoccupied with the control panel and rocket exhaust port in the background. ‘I don’t want to do this, Mike,’ he thought to himself as his stomach began to burn with anxiety.
“Okay, I’m going to begin a countdown, and we’ll ignite the rocket when I get to zero,” the astronaut instructed with a confident smile, knowing that this test would likely shock even the strongest among them. “If I signal with both hands in an urgent manner; that means you need to evacuate the platform. Okay, is everyone ready?”
‘It’s your time, Stoney,’ the Japanese officer coaxed himself as he exhaled through his nostrils, ‘you need to make it happen now.’
“Okay, counting down,” Jason informed everyone and flipped a switch to begin the ignition sequence after confirming that the observers were ready. “Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five-” He stopped the count as one of the cast members stepped up behind him.
“Hello, my name is Stoney Akuda,” the law enforcement officer began as he stepped between the astronaut and his co-stars to face the television cameras. “I’m a New York City police officer and a gay man.”
The oxygen seemed to get sucked out of the area in a rush as the rocket ignited with a brilliant and sustained wall of yellow and orange fire. Jason was trying to say something to everyone, but the sound of the blast drowned out everything else. Stoney looked at the faces of his colleagues after the announcement, trying to detect any negative reactions. Litz gave him a thumbs-up and smiled, and Jazzy soon followed with the same reaction. CKB also smiled and winked, but the two conservative cast members folded their arms in silence. Fassim and Ri
chard looked like they wanted to ask a few questions; however, the sound of the rocket was too overpowering.
Stoney looked dismayed but tried to appear positive for his lover that was watching at home. He had hoped to use the reactions of his co-stars to determine how the officers at his precinct would respond. Since forty percent of his colleagues from the show seemed to harbor some reservations, it made the battle at his day job seem more daunting. He glared at the cameras with the wall of fire glowing behind him and hoped that Mike was watching. This fiasco was not how he wanted to come out to the world, regardless of what his contract required.
VII. Headfirst Feedback
The Wednesday afternoon crowd in the bar at The Hilton Hotel was subdued. A few travelers were seated in the serving area watching a baseball game on a sixty-inch 3D hologram television while a young couple played pool in the far corner of the room. A heavyset man hovered over a jukebox in the corner opposite the couple but seemed too drunk to make a selection, and had been there for over ten minutes.
Every cast member of Shots Fired in the Melting Pot was seated at a wide rectangular table, sans the camera crew and executive staff. Stoney glanced down at the glossy surface of the white oak table. He felt as though his stomach had been opened with a scalpel, and those gathered