In This Broken Air — Chapter xxiv
--
xxiv
July 10, 1966
PILOT ALBERT ACE JR. stood on the runway, facing west. A great decrepit garage in the background. Late afternoon, a sheltered summer day, the trembling roll of the Palisades all around. The place where he started out flying kites with his mother and the other children of the pincer. Where had the rest of them gone? He liked oftentimes to think of himself as a lone entity. Perhaps some had found work as lift operators in Stowe, enrolled in the army, bought a cottage and raised a family in a remote suburb. Did any of those children he grew up around think of him? Did it matter whether they did? Once, a year ago, he had run into Betty Simmons on a regional flight out of Laguardia, a pink-cheeked, freckled girl with whom he had shared a cohort and sailed as campers. They had exchanged pleasantries before she filed to the rear with her two young sons. Roman and Archer — those had been their names.
And what had he to show for? He had no next generation. Hardly had he any stake in his own. He was not brave like the men and women who fought overseas. He was not brave like his mother or father had been. And having spent the last ten proper years of his life devoted to the art of flight and a third to that of a woman, both causes he had lost. He was a failure.
Saying nothing, standing still, all noise was left to the humming valley, all motion left to the swaying pine branches. He reached a hand into his pocket and from it produced a small bronze key, stained edgewise by his dried blood. He examined his left palm. It had healed over in full, leaving a slightly puckered, tender scar. His leg, upon testing it against the dirt runway, felt okay.
July the tenth, thirty-eight days since arriving at Post Mills, Orange County at the commencement of this white-knuckled summer. Thirty-eight days had once meant little; time was spent, nothing changed. Now in less than six weeks, he and Olive had been many things they hadn’t in the three years preceding, such as apart.
Ahead, the garage fended to stay upright. Flanked wedges of mossy wood were at awkward angles across its ceiling. Vertical supports under the fascia bent but did not break. Undertones of The Mesa. Dozens of hay bales were stacked before the entrance. He felt the key’s serrated teeth, wiped away the blood, thought of nowhere else among this enclave that he hadn’t explored.
Run, he thought. He wanted to but for the moment couldn’t. Run, damn it. Toward it!
A glimmer through the hay bales. Somewhere beyond them, the reflection of a descending sun off a rusted metal lock. He stood there pathetic, grounded, frozen between the thick of Vermont forestry. The runway was hard underfoot. Drawing motions in the vacant air before him, his eyes impenetrably shut, his awareness cosmic, Al’s left hand pulled forward.
Auxiliary fuel pump, off. Flight controls, free and correct. Harness, fastened. Mixture, full rich. Doors and windows, parking brake, flaps, engine idle, magnetos, propeller, trim, fuel gauges, gyro, lights, radio — checked and set.
He let his hands fall to either side, drew a long breath like the lesser octave of a starting engine. And then he began to run. The sunshine baked on his back as he propelled into the evening sun. Its blinding rays went unnoticed behind his shut eyes. The ground was firm and chalky and sent great clouds of dust into the air. His leg, fit. The world, endless.
He was made, he was born, of feathers and wax.
