He drove home to an empty house and that didn’t bother him anymore. Myra had texted she was at her sister’s house, and all was well. He parked the car inside the garage, secured it, walked in, and threw his keys on the counter. Fishing in his backpack, he pulled out a meal that he ‘liberated’ from an Airbus A330 headed to Beijing. It was ersatz Chinese, but it was better than anything he had in the house.
The next day Michael checked in with his lead, and was told there would be a meeting in ten minutes. Michael shrugged, checked his email, and headed to the meeting. He picked up a cup of coffee, and sat down with the other mechanics, as they bantered back and forth, until the lead showed up.
He had a piece of paper in his hand and a worried look on his face as he said, “I have the letter, but the gist of it is the CEO was pulling the plug on Cali. Basically, they will be shutting down operations in all Cali airports after Christmas. The economic cost is too high, the company is losing money flying the routes, and safety of employees, passengers and equipment is becoming questionable. The company will give everybody until Christmas to find a place in the system.”
Michael slumped as the hubbub around him rose and fell, with shouted questions, gripes, moans and groans. He had suspected this was going to happen, due to the low incoming load factors, and the reduction of flights per day in to LAX and Cali in general.
He remembered Dave telling him that the company was reassigning routes for the pilots and FAs. In a daze, he grabbed his work tablet and sat in the truck, he’d put in a bid for Dulles, but hadn’t heard anything back, and was beginning to worry that he might just have to make a run for it, and hope to find a job with another airline, if it came to that. The nearly deserted ramp, limited activity, and the blowing trash made the place look like a ghost town.
He turned on the radio, only to hear Moonbeam ranting on the radio about the betrayal of United Airlines leaving the great State of Cali, how they had turned it back on fairness and equality for all, betraying the trust of Cali, in their search for social justice for all. Michael turned off the radio with a snort, “What a load of leftist bullcrap, spinning unicorns, and rainbows for his braindead followers. All while they run Cali into the ground.”
Late fall was turning to winter and Michael continued to work the flight line at the airport. He would get cryptic emails from his wife, talking about the treatments that her sister was getting to keep the illusion going that she was there to help her sister out with her illness. He would duly let the watch captain know there were still issues, but Myra hoped to be back by Christmas, that she missed Cali, but her sister was still hanging on. Michael was convinced that the State of Cali was monitoring the internet and emails, so his answers were always about how great things were.
There was one change in mid-December, Michael came home and saw his house was spray-painted with graffiti calling him a traitor to the cause and United Airlines evil for abandoning Cali. Michael shook his head and thought to himself, Screw it, I don’t care. He left it alone, but a couple of nights later several bricks came through his windows with the word “traitor” painted on them. Michael knew that this was directed at him from Moore, the watch captain.
He drove to a local Home Depot, dodging all the illegals looking for work, and giving him the finger as he passed. Michael picked up several sheets of plywood and talked the employees into cutting them in half so he could get them in the car. He did the garage drill, then wrestled the plywood into the back of the garage and used a table saw to cut blanks to cover the broken windows, and the leftovers to go behind the other windows, in case some of them got broken as well.
It was Christmas Eve, and he was checking one of the few 767s that still flew in and out, when his friend Dave came in the cockpit, shedding his overcoat, “So, when you leaving?”
Michael shrugged, “Still waiting for some of the results of the latest bid so I can leave.”
Dave shook his head, “I wish the company would make an offer, you are a damn good mechanic, and I would hate to see you get boned.”
Michael glanced at him, then back to the whooping and hollering from the aft galley, as the barrio bunch found some good stuff, and started throwing food out the door into the platform truck. He shook his head in disgust, “I am so ready to leave! I’m tired of being treated like I don’t belong here, when I have lived here longer than damn near everybody in the neighborhood has, but it don’t matter, because they have protected status and I don’t.”
Dave nodded and put his hand on Michael’s arm, drawing him all the way into the cockpit, ”Some more gossip from the pilots’ underground, You know that United announced their last flight will be on the 31st of December, right?” Michael nodded and Dave continued, “The actual last flight will be on the 27th. There are rumblings from corporate security that Moonbeam is planning on staging a massive protest with the Brownies, shutting down all the Cali airports, and seizing the airplanes on the last day. Security says they will demand reparations for climate damage and other things… Delta and American will be stopping their airplanes at the same time, if not sooner, since none of the carriers want their planes and passengers held hostage.”
Michael smiled, “Worst case scenario, I’ll ride the jump seat on the last flight.”
“I’ll hold it for you. I’m scheduled to fly the last seven six flight on the twenty-seventh, that six a.m. departure.” Michael smiled in appreciation and waved to Emily as he headed out to continue his routine.
It was December 25th, Christmas day, when Michael drove home and saw his front door open. With a sinking feeling, he parked his car in the driveway and walked into his living room. Everything he owned in the living room was either covered in paint, feces, or broken. He dropped to his knees and wept as he picked up what was left of the family portraits and other things that made the house a home for his family.
After calming down, he walked into the bathroom to get a towel and saw that somebody had busted the toilet with a sledgehammer, and thrown everything in the tub. He checked every room in the house, and what wasn’t stolen, was vandalized.
He turned around and walked outside to open the garage to get the car inside and as he was opening the door he heard, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Gringo,” and some raucous laughter from a couple of cars filled with Brownie supporters as they slowly drove by.
Michael keeping his face stoic, just waved back, and said, “Felez Navidad.” in return. He parked the car inside and closed the garage door. After closing and bracing the front door he walked into the bedroom, grabbed a rolling suitcase that was still in the closet and threw several pairs of work uniforms and toiletries in the suitcase. He went into the back yard, found the spot where he had buried his pistols, dug them up, cleaned them and loaded them. The revolvers had belonged to his dad and he wasn’t going to leave them behind. Michael stashed the pistols in his suitcase with his uniforms and toiletries, and threw it in the back of the car. Michael opened the door to the garage and backed the car out and left the car running closed and locked the garage door.
As a parting shot, he went into the kitchen and turned on the gas in the oven, figuring the vermin would return and throw Molotov cocktails into the house. He smiled grimly. He wanted to have a surprise for them. He eased the front door shut and drove slowly back toward the Interstate. He waved at the neighbors, whom he was sure were taking notes to notify the watch captain, and he wanted to make sure they knew he’d left before anything blew up.