23
Deus Ex Machina
The Sky Priestess first appeared in 1944 on the nose of a B-26 bomber. Conjured out of cans of enamel by a young aviator named Jack Moses, she lay cool and naked across the aluminum skin, a red pump dangling from a dainty toe, a smile that promised pleasure that no mortal woman could offer. As soon as Moses laid the final brushstroke on her black-seamed stocking, he knew there was something special about this one, something electric and alive that would break his heart when they flew her off to the Pacific. He caught a kiss in his palm and placed it gently on her bottom, then backed down the ladder to survey his work.
He stood on the tarmac for perhaps half an hour, just looking at her, charmed, wishing that he could take her home, or to a museum, or lift her off the skin of the bomber and put her on the ceiling of a cathedral.
Jack Moses didn’t notice the major standing at his side until the older man spoke.
“She’s something,” the major said. And although he wasn’t sure why, he removed his hat.
“Ain’t she,” Moses said. “She’s off to Tinian tomorrow. Wish I was going with her.”
The major reached out and squeezed Moses’s shoulder; he was a little short of breath and the Sky Priestess had set off a stag film in his head. “Put some clothes on her, son. We can’t have muffin showing up on a newsreel.”
“Yes, sir. I don’t have to put a top on her, do I?”
The major smiled. “Son, you put a top on her, I’ll have you court-marshaled.”
“Yes, sir.”
Moses saluted the major and scampered back up the ladder with his brushes and his red enamel and painted a serpentine scarf between her legs.
A week later, as a young pilot named Vincent Bennidetti was leading his crew across the runway to take the Sky Priestess on her first mission, he turned to his navigator and said, “I’d give a year’s pay to be that scarf.”
A half century away, Beth Curtis pinned a big red bow into her hair, then, one at a time, worked sheer black-seamed stockings up her legs. She stood in front of the mirror and tied the red scarf around her waist, letting the ends trail long between her legs. She stepped into the red pumps, did a quick turnaround in the mirror, and emerged from her bungalow to the sound of the Shark People’s drums welcoming her, the Sky Priestess.
Vincent Bennidetti and his crew flew the Sky Priestess on twelve missions and sank six Japanese ships before a fusillade from a Japanese destroyer punctured her wing tanks and took out her right engine. But even as they were limping back toward Tinian, trailing smoke and fuel, the crew of the Sky Priestess knew she watched over them. They were, after all, charmed. For the price of a blown kiss or a pat on the bottom, the Sky Priestess had ushered them into battle like a vicious guardian angel, shielding them even as the other bombers in their squadron flamed into the sea around them. She had shown them where to drop their bombs, then led them through the smoke and the flak back to Valhalla. Home. Safe.
The copilot chattered over the intercom to the navigator, airspeed, fuel consumption, and now descent rate. If they lost any more airspeed, the B-26 would stall, so Captain Vinnie was bringing her down into sweet, thick lower air at the rate of a hundred feet per minute. But the lower they flew, the faster the fuel would burn.
“I’m going to level her off at two thousand,” Captain Vinnie said.
The navigator did some quick calculations and came back with: “At two thousand we’ll be short of base by three hundred miles,
Captain. I recommend we level at three thousand for a safer bailout.”
“Oh ye of little fucking faith,” Vincent said. “Check your charts for somewhere we can ditch her.”
The navigator checked their position on the charts. There was a flyspeck atoll named Alualu about forty nautical miles to the south. And it showed that it was now in American hands. He relayed the information to the captain.
“The chart shows an uncompleted airstrip. We must have chased the Japs out before they finished it.”
“Give me a course.”
“Sir, there might not be anything there.”
“Ya fuckin’ mook, look out the window. You see anything but water?”
The navigator gave him the course.
Vincent patted the throttles and said, “Come on, sweetheart. You get us there safe and I’ll build you a shrine.”
Sarapul was heading for the beach and the men’s drinking circle when he heard the drums welcoming the Sky Priestess. That white bitch was stealing his fire again. He’d been thinking all afternoon about what he would say at the drinking circle: how the Shark People needed to return to the old ways and how he had just the ritual to get everyone started. Nothing like a little cannibalism to get people thinking right. But now that was all ruined. Everyone would be out on the airstrip, drumming and chanting and marching around like a bunch of idiots, and when the Sky Priestess finally left and the men finally did show up at the drinking circle, all they would talk about was the wonderful words of Vincent. Sarapul wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise. He took the path that led away from the village and made his way toward the runway. After all, the Sky Priestess might pass out some good cargo and he didn’t want to miss out on his share.
Sarapul had been permanently banished from the village of the Shark People ever since one of the chief’s grandchildren had mysteriously disap-peared and was later found in the jungle with Sarapul, who was building a child-sized earthen oven (an oom) and gathering various fragrant fire woods. Oh, the men tolerated him at the nightly drinking circle, and he was allowed to share in the village’s take of shark meat, and the members of his clan saw to it that
he got part of the wonderful cargo passed out by the Sorcerer and the Sky Priestess, but he was forbidden to enter the village when women and chil-dren were present. He lived alone in his little hut on the far side of the island and was regarded by the Shark People as little more than a monster to frighten children into behaving: “You stay inside the reef or old Sarapul will catch you and eat you.” Actually, scaring children was the only real joy Sarapul had left in life.
As he emerged from the jungle, the old cannibal saw the torches where the Shark People waited in a semicircle around a raised platform. He stopped in a grove of betel nut palms, sat on the ground, and watched. He heard a click from the PA speakers mounted on the gate across the runway and the Shark People stopped drumming. Two of the Japanese guards ap-peared out of the compound and Sarapul felt the hair rise on his neck as they rolled back the gate and fifty years of residual hatred rose in his throat like acid. The Japanese had killed his wife and children, and if there was any single reason to return to the old ways of the warrior, it was to take revenge on the guards.
Music blared out of the PA speakers: Glenn Miller’s “String of Pearls.” The Shark People turned toward the gate and dropped to their knees. Pillars of red smoke rose from either side of the gate and wafted across the runway like sulfurous serpents. The distant whine of airplane propellers replaced the big band sound from the PA and grew into a roar that ended with a flash and explosion that sent a mushroom cloud of smoke a hundred feet into the night sky.
And half-naked, the Sky Priestess walked out of the smoke into the moonlight.
Chief Malink turned to his friend Favo and said, “Excellent boom.”
“Very excellent boom,” Favo said.
“There it is,” the copilot said.
The B-26 was sputtering on her last few drops of fuel. Vincent nosed her over and started his descent. “There’s a strip cut right across the center of the island. Let’s hope we didn’t bomb the shit out of it when the Japs had it.”
His last few words seemed unusually loud as the engine cut out.
“No go-around, boys. We’re going down. Rig for a rough one and be ready for extreme dampness if we come in short.”