The Grounding

“We almost there yet, or what?” Chuck whined, kicking a rusted can down the sun-bleached ballast. “I’m gettin’ hungry, guys, and my mom said to be home before — ”

“Shut your trap, fat ass,” the boy in front hollered over his shoulder.

“Don’t call him that,” Bobby said, holding his arms out either side to keep himself balanced on the rail.

“Yeah, don’t call me that, dickweed!”

“Whatever.” Mack sighed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It’s right up there, hidden under that old sycamore.”

Bobby hopped off the railroad tie and bolted. “Last one there’s a rotten egg!”

Mack grinned and started after him.

“Aww, guys! No fair!” Chuck cried as he jiggled after his friends. By the time he got there, the other two were gently pulling off some fallen branches Mack had used to hide their prize.

“Be careful!” Mack snapped. “It’s very delicate.”

“I know!”

“Not like that! It’ll tear!”

“Who made you boss, anyway?”

Mack stepped in front of Bobby and spat at his feet. “I did, when I lifted it from my brother’s truck.”

“Stealing from another thief don’t make you the boss, dickweed.” Bobby tried to spit as well, but the loogie clung to a thread of spittle and landed on his chin. He wiped it away and nodded toward the package. “Where’d he get it from, anyway?”

“From Mr. Peterson’s storage.”

“He robbed Mr. Peterson?” Bobby’s mouth fell open.

“My brother said it ain’t a sin to rob a dead man.”

“Yeah, but,” Chuck swallowed hard. “It’s still a crime. That thing’s hot!”

“Shut it, fat ass!”

“Mr. Peterson died?” asked Bobby, his jaw falling lower.

“Yep, two nights ago. Heart attack or maybe drinking. Went peaceful and everything, right in his own bed. Anyway, when Hank got word of it on his police scanner, he and his gang headed right over to the old man’s shop and emptied the storage trailer out. Piece of cake, too. No one even saw. Hank says most of it was worthless junk anyway.” Mack shrugged, then tapped the package lightly. “But not this, huh? This is awesome.”

“This is illegal,” Chuck whispered. “The air restriction applies to anything, including — “

“Shut it!” the other two said in unison.

Bobby swiveled his head to check for any adults. No one was in sight. He shoved Mack lightly and pointed. “Go on, then. If you’re such a badass, then you assemble it.”

Mack slid the parts from their plastic sleeve and put them together with the reverence of a priest handling a holy relic. When he was done, he held the thing up for his friends to see.

“Look at that! Ain’t she a beauty?”

Wide-eyed and trying his best to keep calm, Chuck managed to give a faint nod.

A smile stretched across Bobby’s face. “Where should we try her out?”

“Over in that field.” Mack pointed across the tracks. “No one from town can see us over there.”

The three boys crossed the tracks and sprinted to the clearing. Tall, yellow grass tickled their shins and the air was thick with gnats.

Chuck’s hand went to his mouth and his cheeks turned red.

“Shit! I swallowed a bug!” he cried, hacking and spitting.

“Good,” Mack teased. “That should keep your belly quiet while we fly this thing.”

Lightning surged through their adolescent spines at the word “fly”. Chuck suppressed a cough as the boys exchanged a mischievous look.

Mack set the flat diamond on the ground, checked that the tail ribbons were secured, then grabbed the tightly-wound spool. Bobby and Chuck stepped aside.

With a tilted grin, Mack yanked the spool above his head and ran. The kite lurched into the air, caught the breeze, and began ascending. The other two ran beside him, skipping and hooting and cheering into the cloudless, blue expanse.

Once the kite steadied itself in the breeze, Mack stopped and fed more string into the air. Every few seconds, the orange and red striped diamond dipped slightly, stuck out its chest, then climbed another foot. As it rose above the towering cottonwoods that bordered the clearing, the boys’ hearts raced.

“This is so incredible!” Bobby said, his hand shielding his eyes. “I wish my pa were here to see this! He’d lose his shit!”

“I’m glad mine ain’t here. If he knew what we were up to, he’d whoop my ass,” Chuck said, glancing over his shoulder.

“Shut your pie holes! Look!” Mack pointed. “Nothin’s happening! We’re way above the treeline now! Ain’t no one got this high in ages! We did it! We — ”

He blinked. A split-second beforehand, the kite was basking in the afternoon sun. When his eyes opened, it was gone.

The boys traced the kite string’s descent as it twisted and whipped downward through the air, past a billion gnats, and settled soundlessly on the dry grass.

“I told you dumbasses this was a stupid idea.” Mack dropped the spool and stomped back toward the railroad tracks. Chuck hurried behind him. He tried to put an arm around his friend, but Mack shrugged it off and grunted.

Bobby picked up the spool and began winding the string. Once he got to the end, he held it up to his eyes. No burn marks. No frayed threads. No nothing. It didn’t even look like the string was cut. It just ended, like it was erased from existence.

He raised his middle finger to the sky, pocketed the spool, and sprinted to catch up to the others.

“Hey guys, did I ever tell you the joke about the nun and the cucumber?”

Mike traced his jawline with the disposable razor, then flicked a wad of hair-speckled shaving cream into the sink. Steam clung to the mirror and obscured his view, so he wiped it away with a hand towel. Normally, he’d crack the bathroom door to let the hot cloud of moisture out. But today he kept it shut and locked. It was the only way to make sure she didn’t barge in and start wailing on him again.

After a few more careful scrapes around his chin, the shaving was done. As he cupped water in his hands, ready to splash it against his face, he locked eyes with himself in the mirror.

It’d been years since he looked so fresh, so together. Before everything changed, he’d been at the top of his game: the ace, the patriot, the hero. Mike felt a surge of his younger self rising up, ready to take on the world once again. He even managed to smile — a real smile, too, not one of the dusty, fake smiles he’d bring out for birthdays and special occasions. Real smiles were another thing The Grounding has taken away. Until today.

He finished up and pulled on his old flight suit. There wasn’t much time, and he knew it wouldn’t matter what clothes he wore, but he wanted to look the part.

When he got downstairs, Sadie was sitting by herself at the kitchen table, staring out the window. A cigarette burned in one hand while the other fiddled with a crumpled tissue. Two plates of congealed eggs and blackened bacon sat untouched. He could tell by the red streaks running down on her cheeks that she’d done more crying, although they looked perfectly dry now.

“Good morning,” he said, sitting across from her and pulling one of the plates closer. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Fuck you,” she said without looking away from the window.

He cut some egg, stabbed it with his fork, and shoved it in his mouth, ignoring that it was cold and rubbery. Rather than killing his appetite, anticipation had always made him ravenous, just like it had during his years at the flight academy. Again, he felt the memory of his youth embrace him, letting him know everything would be okay. Everything would be back to normal — he’d finally be back to normal — once he got off the ground.

Mike sipped some lukewarm coffee and looked at his wife in a way he hadn’t since the world went to shit. He studied her features: her slender neck, her dark curls, her smooth, olive skin. In the fifteen years he’d known her she just kept getting more and more beautiful.

She was the one person in the world he hoped would understand, yet she’d spent the last seventy-two hours trying to talk him out of it. She’d cried. She’d screamed. She’d threatened. She’d even begged him to stay, her face tensed with more vulnerability and pain than it had when she gave birth to Bobby. Now, in their final moments together, she was colder than a clam in an ice bucket.

The mid-morning light sparkled off her eyes and found his. He felt his heart waver, so he looked away and summoned the exhilaration of being twenty thousand feet in the air. Once it steadied, he sipped more coffee and lifted his eyes across the table.

“Look, I can imagine how you must feel. If I were you, I’d have a hard time accepting — ”

“A hard time?” She snickered and exhaled a cloud of grey smoke. “Living with you for the past nine years was the hard time. Once you walk out that door, things’ll get a whole like easier for me and Bobby.” She stubbed out her cigarette on her eggs, grabbed another from the pack, and popped it between her lips. She sparked it up and sucked in deeply, like someone coming up for air. “Let’s not bullshit each other anymore, okay? I know you’re in a hurry. So am I. So eat up and get out of here.”

Mike sighed and chewed some bacon. “Bobby still asleep?”

“Mack stopped by while you were in the shower. They took off into the woods.”

“You let him leave?” Mike set his fork down hard. “I wanted to say goodbye to him before I left.”

“Yeah? Well, too bad.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you? He’s my son! And you’re my wife, goddammit! Can’t I get a little support here?”

Sadie took another puff from her cigarette and turned back to the window.

“This is what I was born to do, Sadie. I’m a goddamn fighter pilot. I was born to fly and fight, which is what I intend to do in a couple hours. Why can’t you understand that? Why can’t you have my back, like you used to?”

“The man I fell in love with was a brave, cocky cadet. And still a human being. Now you’re just…” She thumbed the cigarette filter. “The world’s changed, Mike. And you seem to be one of the dumbasses who hasn’t figured it out yet.”

“You’re right. You’re exactly right. I won’t accept what they’ve done to us. To me. I haven’t given up yet. I’m meeting the challenge head-on, like a man.”

“Oh, get over yourself!” She pounded the table and glared at him. “You’re no hero, Mike! And I don’t even think you’re like all the morons in the early days who disappeared into the sky and left their families behind. That hurt bad enough, having a husband so depressed and stupid he’d commit suicide. But last night the truth hit me. Even though it hurts way worse, I’m glad I finally figured you out. Know what you are, Mike? You’re a fucking coward.” She flicked her cigarette at him. It bounced off his chest and sent embers scattering across his empty plate. “You’re scared shitless and you’re running away. That’s why I didn’t poison your breakfast with food poisoning or flatten the tires on your truck. You’d just find some other way to escape. So fuck you, Mike. The door’s right there.”

“Dammit, Sadie! You’re missing the whole point! I’m going up there to fight back! Don’t you understand? To win! To put things right! To make a better world for you and Bobby.”

“You had the last nine years to make our world better, but all you did was sit on that damn couch and sulk. You gave up and got drunk and felt sorry for yourself while the world crumbled around you. While I crumbled around you.”

Mike pushed his plate away and looked at his hands. “It’s not just me they stole from. They took everything from us. They robbed humanity of our ability to travel, to communicate, to explore. They — ”

“Who the fuck is they, Mike? They don’t even exist! No one knows why it happened or who’s behind it. No one can stop it. And even if there was a they capable of making thousands of planes vanish, do you really think you’re any match for them?”

“It wasn’t just planes. That day, that goddamn day, choppers, satellites — even the International Space Station, for Christ’s sake! — all gone in the blink of an eye. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

“What the hell do you think you’ll accomplish? You don’t even know what you’re up against! Aliens? God? Some crazy natural phenomenon? We heard all the theories on the news. No one has any idea what caused it. Have you thought of that? What the hell do you plan to do once you vanish? Huh, tough guy? Punch your way back? That first year, your bosses sent up hundreds of fighters equipped with armed nukes, Mike. Hundreds of nukes! You think you can do better in a rusty, old crop duster! All you’re doing is throwing your life away. You’re throwing mine and Bobby’s life away, too. Think this world’s fucked up now? Imagine how fucked up things will be tomorrow when Bobby wakes up without his dad.”

Mike put his hands in his lap so she couldn’t see them tremble.

“It should never have happened the way it did. I lost Barry. I lost Phil. I lost most of the guys I served with. No answer. No explanation. Just, poof! — gone. Anything we sent into the air vanished. Where’d they all go? They must be somewhere, Sadie! I was scheduled to be in the air that day. I was supposed to be with them, to face whatever the hell they’re facing.”

“That’s right, Mike, but you were at home on paternity leave with your wife and your newborn son. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how much you regret that. You rubbed my face in it every time you slunk into the couch and cracked open another beer. For nine years you’ve acted like a child who’s missed out on some fucking party. Well, go on! Old Man Wilfred found you a one-way ticket to go back in time, didn’t he? What are you waiting for? Get out of here, you coward!” She flung her coffee mug at the wall beside him. “Any man who’d abandon his family for some self-serving, suicidal breakdown bullshit isn’t a man we want around! Do you hear me? Go! Now!” She pushed her chair back and stormed down the hall.

Mike wanted nothing more than to match her anger: scream, flip the table, maybe shake some sense into her. Instead, he downed the rest of his coffee, set his flight cap neatly on his head, and walked out the front door.

Wilfred wrung the oil rag between his scarred, leathery hands. A cloud of dust was rising on the horizon, kicked up by a vehicle headed down Garrison Road.

“Bev, honey, he’s here,” he called to his wife, who was clipping wet sheets to a drying line. “Would you mind grabbing us a couple ice teas? Lots of lemon, just a little sugar.”

She squinted down the road, shook her head, and took the empty laundry basket inside.

Wilfred tossed the rag aside and eyed the small, single-propeller aircraft that was parked on the other side of the shop. He wished that when he’d found it hidden beneath hay bales in Harry Peterson’s barn he’d had the sense to just scrap the damn thing. More importantly, he wished he’d never mentioned it to Mike.

“Forgive me, Lord,” he mumbled to himself. “I didn’t think he’d actually go through with it.”

But there Mike was, hauling ass down Garrison Road on his way to an early grave. Except he wouldn’t even get to have a grave. No one who dared leave the ground ever came back. They just vanished.

Mike hopped out and hurried to meet Wilfred. The old man closed the hood of the Winnebago and wiped his hands on his shirt.

“Wilfred,” Mike stuck out his hand. “How are you this fine morning?”

Wilfred stood straight and saluted. “Fine day, Major. Every day since yesterday is a blessing, as usual.”

Mike grinned. “At ease, sir. The way you fixed that old bucket, it’s me who should be saluting you.”

Wilfred relaxed and took Mike’s hand in both of his. “You did your share, son. Couldn’t have gotten her back on her wings without your help.”

“Thanks, Wil. I really appreciate everything you taught me this week. I’ve always understood how to treat them on the outside, now I know a little about how to treat them on the inside.”

This was the moment Wilfred had been waiting for. With a guy like Mike, he had to avoid coming on too strong. Avoid being too pushy or implying any weakness. Let the fella keep his dignity intact.

“For your first week turning a wrench, you made a damn fine mechanic. Thanks, Bev.” He took both glasses from her, returned a warm smile, and passed one to Mike. She walked away, shaking her white curls and muttering a prayer. Mike emptied his glass and set it on the Winnebago’s hood while Wilfred smiled, sipped his tea, and looked the pilot up and down.

“Truth is, I could use a smart fella like you to give me a hand around here. See this Winnie?” He nodded to the RV parked next to them. “When I’m done patching this one up, I have six more jobs to get to. This’ll take me a week all by myself, but with another set of hands I could get it done in less than half that time. More will come in fast, too. Business is good.”

“Is she fueled up and ready to fly?”

Wilfred cocked an eyebrow and made sure Mike saw it. “Pays damn good, too. Listen, Mike, an old fart like me can’t do this forever. Every morning it gets a little harder to get out of bed. It’d be nice to know I could pass the shop on to someone who’d take care of it. Take care of all these people passing through and settling down in our community. Times have been hard since you-know-what happened, but people are starting to pull their lives back together. They could use someone strong and capable to help them out. What do you say, Mike? Let’s roll that old gal back into the hangar and get to work.” He set his glass down and held out his hand.

It was Mike’s turn to respond to a handshake with a mock salute. “Sir, no can do. As much as I appreciate the offer, I have to go. I lost my whole squad up there. I’m a born fighter pilot. It’s my duty, sir.”

“I lost plenty of friends in the war, Mike. Long before you were even born. I know how it feels, the guilt that comes with surviving. But ask yourself, if you could talk to your squad now, what would they want you to do? Join them up there and increase the misery down here? Or keep your feet on the ground and rebuild?”

“I know what I have to do,” Mike said, passing him the keys in his outstretched hand. “Those are to the truck. Please make sure Sadie gets them after I’m gone. I was hoping she’d see me off today and then drive it back home, but she wasn’t really up for it.”

“No, I imagine she wasn’t.” Wilfred took the keys and grabbed another set from his pocket. He paused, then held them out to Mike. “My offer still stands. She’s pointed at the dirt airstrip on the other side of the house, out of view. Fueled up and ready to go.”

As Mike went to take the keys, Wilfred was certain he saw his hand hesitate over them for a split second. But his heart sank as Mike snatched them up, smiled, and began jogging to his death like an excited child running to the tree on Christmas morning. Bev appeared from out of nowhere and put an arm around her husband’s waist.

Mike was a grown man, able to make his own decisions. Trying to stop him by force would only chase him deeper into his folly. Still, as Wilfred watched the middle-aged man climb into the cockpit — who, every day, looked more and more like his late son, Jim — he wished he’d sabotaged the damn thing. Poked some holes in the fuel lines. Loosened all the bolts. Poured sugar in the tank.

But he hadn’t done those things. And now a broken-hearted, bull-headed man was about to throw his life away.

Youth is wasted on the young, he thought, squeezing Bev and tensing his lips to keep sorrow from taking hold.

He saw Mike take a photo from his jacket pocket and stick it on the dashboard. He flicked some switches, signaled with a thumbs up, pulled his straps tight, and reached to turn the keys.

Wilfred closed his eyes and expected to hear the roar of the propeller engine coming to life, but it didn’t come.

More than a minute passed. He and Bev exchanged a look and squinted at the cockpit. Mike was staring intensely at something. The photo he’d stuck in the dash was back in his hand. He wiped his eyes, tucked it back in his jacket pocket, and turned the key.

The engine growled, sputtered, then the propeller purred to life. Mike gave another thumbs-up, but the childish glow had faded from his face. He released the brake and the rusty crop duster started down the makeshift runway.

It made it about thirty yards before there was a loud bang. Wisps of thick, black smoke billowed from the engine’s vents. The plane rolled to a stop.

Something had gone wrong. Something Wilfred had missed. Something catastrophic. His white whiskers flared into a smile at his own incompetence.

Mike pushed open the dome and hopped down. He yanked the engine’s access panel open, which released a huge cloud of oily smoke. He batted it away with his hat, took a few steps back, and put his fists on his hips.

Bev gave a little squeal of joy, and Wilfred felt her relax a little in his arms. They watched as Mike threw his hat into the dirt and ran to the tail of the plane. He punched the rear rudder and screamed an obscenity that made Bev go tense again. He hit it again, this time with his whole weight behind it. Suddenly, curses and punches were flying in rapid succession as he dented the tail in a dozen places.

Tears streaming from his reddened face, Mike stormed back toward the workshop, passing by the elderly couple as if they weren’t there. He came out holding a large red can with a long black spout. Wilfred moved as if to stop him, but Bev held him tight.

Mike stomped across the dirt yard, stopped beside the engine, then tipped the can into the cockpit and the open engine panel. Liquid sloshed from the spout, vanishing into the smoky darkness. There was a burst of bright orange light, and the whole front of the plane was engulfed in flames.

Mike slunk back to Wilfred with his head down. He dropped the can at his feet and ran both hands across his face, wiping away sweat and tears and gasoline. When he finally got the courage to lift his gaze, Wilfred’s smile hadn’t faded.

“Bev, would you be so kind as to fetch a fire extinguisher from the shop?”

She patted Mike on the arm and disappeared inside.

“Say, Wilfred, would you still be up for me coming by tomorrow?”

“Take these,” Wildred said, tossing the truck keys into Mike’s hands. “Get on home now. Clean yourself up, patch things up with Sadie, if you can, and get some rest. I’ll see you first thing in the morning, you hear? We’re gonna strip this old Winnie down and get her back on her wheels again.”

Mike nodded, took a deep breath, and lifted his chin. By the time Bev got back with the extinguisher, he was already hauling ass back up Garrison Road.