Filed under Times that are Good, to see them again and to drive them back to the flight line at El Toro. And there, surrounded by Marine airplanes, two silver Air Guard F-86’s parked together.
“Kinda sad to leave the 84’s in France, but the 86 is a good airplane too, and before long the squadron will be getting 105’s. Don’t you wish you were back with us?”
“Back with you characters? I had to go clear across the country to get away from you guys, and now you follow me out here, even. Good old 86. Mind if I look in your cockpit, Lou, if I promise not to touch any switches? Boy, there aren’t enough wild horses left in this world to drive me back into the 141st Tac Fighter Squadron.”
Look at that cockpit. Everything there, the way it used to be: armament panel, throttle, speed brake switch, flight instruments, the long-handled landing-gear switch, circuit breaker panels, the pins in the ejection seat. You guys never learn anything, a dangerous bunch to be with. “Lou, you left your checklist up here! How can you run a proper Preflight inspection without that checklist in your hand?” Never obey regulations. A hopeless bunch.
And the time is come for a last handshake in the dusk as they climb up the kicksteps to their cockpits, and strap in. The strange uncomfortable feeling that I’ve got to hurry to get into my airplane, or they’ll take off without me. Where’s my airplane? I’ve never had to stay on the ground while the rest of my flight makes ready to go. His helmet and oxygen mask fitted now, Pat talks for a moment on the radio, copying the instrument departure clearance in his high cockpit, reading it back to the control tower. Hey, Pat! Remember the time when Roj Schmitt was on your wing, his first time up in the weather? And he said, “Don’t worry about me, just fly it like you’re alone. ” Do you remember, Pat?
Hey, Lou! Remember back in Chaumont when you bet that the shock of a parachute landing was no more than you’d get if you jumped out a two-story window? Remember?
And Pat draws the start-engine circle in the air to Lou, and, darn it, he draws it to me too, standing on the ramp, in a civilian business suit. Why did you do that, Flanagan? You hoop, you darn silly hoop. And FOOM-FOOM! the two engines burst together into life, the rising whine of the compressors sucking air in the intake and the rumble of the combustion chambers turning it into fire and pushing it through the turbine. I can shout now and they’ll only see my mouth moving. There the wheels start to roll, and they turn to taxi by me on the way to the runway. Hidden dust sprays out of the concrete where the jetblast catches it in a scorching storm. Pat taxies by, way up in his cockpit, looking down at me, tossing a little salute. See ya, Pat. See ya round, boy. His wingtip grazes my suit coat, the high-swept rudder sails proudly by. And twenty feet behind comes Lou, breaking regulations. You’re supposed to have a hundred feet separation when you taxi, Pisane. Think you’re at some kind of an air show, ace?
A salute from the cockpit, returned from a civilian in a business suit, standing on the concrete. Give the general hell for me, Lou. Not that you wouldn’t, anyway.
And they’re gone down the taxiway, as the blue taxilights come on in the evening. Way down at the end of the runway there’s a thunderstorm of two airplanes running up their engines. What are you doing right now, Pat? Emergency fuel check? Stomp on those brakes, run the throttle up to 95 percent rpm, reach over and throw in the emergency fuel switch, let the rpm stabilize, run it on up to full throttle, cut the power back and switch over to normal fuel. And Lou? Checks done, run her up to 98 percent, hold the brakes, nod across to Pat when you’re ready to roll.
The tiny little fighters at the end of the runway begin to move, trailing thin black smoke of full throttle. Together they grow, lift from the ground, together gear doors drop open, landing gear sucks back into two smooth fuselages, gear doors close, stiff and robotlike. Faster and faster they move, flying low in the air.
Locked in tight formation, they’re suddenly fire-eating arrows overhead, trying to blast the air loose with sheer sound and fury, and send it in avalanche to the runway. For one long proud moment they’re in side silhouette, and from the ground I can see the dots of the pilots in the cockpits. Then I see wings only, and rudders and elevators and two trails of thin black smoke.
They grow smaller and smaller toward the mountains in the east, climbing now, swiftly. and smaller. goodbye, Pat. and smaller. tuck it in there, Lou-babe. and gone.
Two trails of smoke in the air, twisting now in the wind.
I look down in the dead quiet to see my civilian shoes standing on the damned concrete and I can’t see shoes or concrete very clearly and it’s just as damn well because even with the damn floodlights on, the night comes in and blurs things. Why did you have to come back, you guys? Why’d you follow me, then leave without me, you blockheads? You hoops couldn’t get me back in that damn squadron for all the damn tea in China.
Lots of times filed away, in that box, lots of incidents.
Shadows on the ground. Not long ones. Indicators only that the sun is passing me by. Inevitable, I guess. If the sun moved eighty miles an hour around the earth we’d have a pretty long day. Go on ahead, sun. About time for me to land, anyway. I can get one more hop in today; might make it to the Mississippi, with luck.
The clean clipped pastures of Oz have given way to a swampy land, and still lakes lying warm. The biplane pulls her shadow steadily along, driving it down the road to slowly slowly pass an occasional automobile. Thank heaven we’re still passing the cars. There’s the cutoff point between Fast and Slow. As long as you can pass the cars, you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Ahead, what is a thin blue circle on the map becomes Demopolis, Alabama. Not far from a river (squiggly blue on the map), ground covered nearby with reeds. A great big giant airport, in the precise and geometrical center of Nowhere. Even the town of Demopolis is a long drive down the road. During the war, the airport must have trained some kind of aviator, but now it is nearly deserted, with one tiny gasoline pump, one solitary windsock, a weathered building nearby. Down again on the grass, airplane, and into the wind, to see what we shall find.
We shall find, strangely, a little crowd of people, appearing from hidden nowhere to see the biplane. She is an Event at Demopolis, where there is only one other airplane parked in sight, on fifty acres of concrete and two hundred acres of airport surrounding. Questions in the sun, while the fuel hoses softly into the tank.
“Where you from?”
“North Carolina.”
“Where you goin’?”
“Los Angeles.”
A pause. A look inside the cockpit, at the little black instrument panel. “That’s a long way.”
“It does seem a long way.” And I think of the gallons of gasoline I still have to pump into this tank, and of the hours yet to peer around the oilsmeared windscreen, of the sun at my back in the mornings to come, and in my eyes in the evenings. It does seem a long way to go.
Inside the flight office, and time enough for a bottle of eternal Pepsi-Cola. I know that it must be very quiet here, but the engine is still firing 1-3-5-2-4 in my ears. One more flight today. Stretch one long flight, fly till the sun goes down. Perhaps the Mississippi tonight. Good to stand up, to be able to walk around. Been in the cockpit a long time today. Be nice just to stretch out on the grass and go to sleep. One more hop and I’ll do it.
8
IT’S ALL BEGINNING TO FADE, and run together. I catch myself seeking to hurry. Trees growing back and crowding in about the road and as far as I can see there are treetops greening in the afternoon. There have been many hours spent this day in this cockpit, and I am tired.