The Rough English Equivalent (The Jack Mason Saga Book 1)

by Stan Hayes

  “And you flew ’em.”

  “Yeah. Back in ’38, ’39. Great-flyin’ aircraft. Fast. 190-knot cruise.”

  “Any idea of what kinda shape it’s in?”

  “The guy says it’s beautiful. About 75 hours on the engine since overhaul. This ain’t a Navy bird; Grumman built the 2-place version, the G-32, for demonstrators and executive taxis. They put the Navy paint job on ’em, which this one still has; yellow wings, red cowling and tail, gray fuselage. Of course, we need to fly it before we make th’ deal. Wanta take a run out to Waco?”

  The Stearman got them to Waco in a shade over seven hours, with 2 gas stops. They approached the field at dusk, turning on final over Lake Waco, touching down with Gene Debs’ usual smoothness. Turning off the runway, they taxied past the control tower and down the ramp to the third hangar. The G32, looking combat-ready, crouched in front of it. “Lookin’ tough, babes,” shouted Gene Debs through the Gosport tube. “If that ole barrel ain’t ready to go I’m a broke-dick dog!”

  Somehow you just had to use its Navy nomenclature. The F3F looked a lot like a barrel, scarlet cowling contrasting sharply with Navy gray, stuck between two stubby wings, the upper wing’s top surface bright yellow, its tail the same scorching scarlet as the cowling. It sat low between the outsize wheels of its retractable landing gear. The big nine-cylinder Wright Cyclone engine lurked behind the broad paddles of its three-bladed propeller, compelling evidence of the performance Gene Debs had talked about. It has to be a barrel, Moses thought, to hold that engine and those big-ass wheels. That’s some linkage that gets them up in there; hard to imagine all those tubes and bars fitting up inside the fuselage. But they obviously do.

  Parking the Stearman in front of the hangar, they headed straight for the F3F to get a closer look. The closer they got, the bigger it looked; they stood in its shade, inches away from the prop, looking up at its hub and the massive engine behind it. “Eighteen hundred and twenty cubic inches,” said Gene Debs. “And pretty close to a thousand horsepower. We can kick some ass with this.”

  “If we don’t go broke buying gas,” said Mose. “How’s it do on fuel consumption?”

  “Not too bad; ’bout thirty gallons an hour.”

  A slight, sandy-haired man of about forty approached them, pushing his Stetson back on his forehead. “Mr. Redding?” he said, looking from one to the other.

  “I’m Redding,” Gene Debs said, extending his hand. “This’s Mose Kubielski. You must be Mr. Young.”

  “Randy,” he said, shaking with both men. “How’us your flight?”

  “Fine; looking forward to gettin’ in this bird, though.”

  “Well, she’ll be topped up and ready bright and early in the mornin’. I got you a couple of rooms at a decent place just up the highway.”

  “Appreciate that. How’s th’ weather look for tomorrow?”

  “Hot ’n dusty, so far. Oughta be a nice ride.”

  They were back at the field shortly before seven the next morning. “I ain’t got much in the way of manuals on this ole bird,” said Young. “What I’ve learned about her I got firsthand. I don’t expect you’ll see much difference between this ’un and the single-seaters.” He led them through a detailed pre-flight inspection, pointing out things that had been done to maintain the ship’s airworthiness. “Habm’ had to do nothin’ major to her; Grumman built these thangs strong as new rope, and there’s just a little over a thousand hours on the airframe.”

  “It’s comin’ back to me- like it was yesterday,” said Gene Debs.

  “Well then, let’s take a spin if you’re ready. You and me can take a short hop to let you get the feel of her, then you and Mose can take ’er back out for as long as you wanta.”

  “It must be hard for you to turn ’er loose,” said Moses.”

  “It is,” Randy said, “but I got my eye on a li’l ole Mustang that’ll do a heap to ease my grief. You’d think a man of my age would know better than to screw around with air racin’, wouldn’cha?

  “Hell,” said Gene Debs, “this ain’t got nuthin’ to do with good sense.”

  Gene Debs horsed the F3F’s inertial starter’s short port-side crank around, building its momentum as Randy sat in the aft cockpit flipping switches. Seconds later, the starter’s whine gave way to the Cyclone’s lumpy gargle, even louder than Moses had imagined it would be. As they rolled, he walked to the far side of the taxiway, watching the rotund old warrior make its way deliberately down to the runup area. Eight hundred yards away, the engine, climbing the scale to a brawny tenor as Randy ran it up, still rattled Moses’ insides. The runup check complete, he throttled back and released the brakes, adding power back to taxi into takeoff position.

  The F3F responded quickly to takeoff power, getting its tail up within the first couple of hundred feet of runway. Gaining speed quickly, it lost every trace of earthbound clumsiness as it broke ground, climbing fast, its big wheels creeping into their retracted position in the fuselage. Leveling off at about a thousand feet, it flew a mile or so straight ahead, then turned back toward the field, shedding altitude for speed. Randy brought it straight back down the runway at no more than two hundred feet, at what looked to Moses like well over two hundred miles an hour. Nearing the runway’s end, he pulled it up in a near-vertical climb, the shrieking engine’s pitch running downscale as the plane soared. They leveled off at around five thousand and headed east, a rapidly diminishing gray spot in the sky.

  “Just slide right in there, Mose,” shouted Randy over the engine’s idling thunder. Gene Debs had switched to the rear cockpit, and Moses slid carefully into the snug confines of the front seat. He pulled on the cloth aviator’s helmet that Randy handed him, and connected the gosport tube, through which he and Gene Debs would communicate during their flight. “Just sit tight for a little bit, pardner,” Randy said. “It’s a lot cooler if you just leave th’ canopy open ’til you get out to the run-up area. You’ll still be able to hear each other through the gosport. I’m gonna run up to the tower and see if I can talk ’em into lettin’ you boys buzz th’ field one more time before traffic picks up.”

  Fastening his seatbelt and shoulder harness, Moses began looking around the cockpit. The fat stick between his legs was topped by a large black pistol grip incorporating a gun trigger. The throttle and fuel mixture controls were on his left, pivoting on a common shaft. The engine and flight instruments, centered around a large radio directional compass, stared back at him from the panel. A set of trim tab control wheels protruded from a box-like housing on the left side of the cockpit floor. The radio panel sat in the same location on his right side. Looking straight ahead over the aircraft’s dashboard, he saw through the top wing’s struts a narrow strip of blue sky over a stretch of gray fuselage that ended abruptly with the engine’s giant cylinders. Taxiing this thing can’t be that easy, he thought.

  “Hey, Mose!” Gene Debs’ voice came over the gosport. “Wait’ll you feel this thing climb. It’s gotta be as fast as an F6 up to seven or eight thousand feet. Ready ta taxi?”

  “Yep. Can you see well enough to get us off the ground?”

  “Oh yeah. The view’s a lot better back here. A little s-turnin’s all it takes. You get used to it. See that crank down on your right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That retracts th’ landing gear. Thirty-two cranks, by my count. Start crankin’ as soon as we’re off the deck. Here we go.” Waco tower cleared them to taxi, and Gene Debs goosed the throttle to get the plane moving. As they reached the run-up area, Moses reached over his head and pulled the canopy shut. Gene Debs expedited the run-up, and they were quickly cleared for takeoff. “Watch this!” he shouted over the gosport. Moses both felt and saw the power building; Gene Debs advanced the throttle, and the manifold pressure gauge climbed quickly through thirty-five, forty, then forty-five inches of mercury. The F3F hit takeoff speed in just a few seconds, but Gene Debs held it on the runway with forward pressure on the stick until the airspeed indicator show
ed 120 knots. Then he released the forward pressure and pulled back on the stick, popping the aircraft off the runway as he maintained takeoff power.

  Getting his excitement over the plane’s raw power under control, Moses checked the altimeter as he cranked up the gear; they were roaring through two thousand feet, still picking up airspeed. “Yeeeehaah!” He bellowed into the gosport. “What the fuck’re the pore people doin’?”

  “So you think we ought to keep this ole bird?” asked Gene Debs as he dropped the nose and leveled off at five thousand feet, easing the throttle back as the airspeed hit 210.

  “Bet your ass. Go on and get your showin’ off out of the way so you can check me out.”

  “If you insist.” As he spoke, Gene Debs pushed over into a shallow dive, picked up another twenty knots of airspeed, then pulled the nose up to just past level flight attitude as he brought the stick sharply over to the left, holding it there as the plane corkscrewed through one, then another aileron roll. Dropping the nose again as they resumed level flight, he pulled straight up into the start of a loop, rolling a hundred eighty degrees as they dropped onto the loop’s back side, completing a half Cuban eight and diving for speed again. “Still alive up there, sailor?” he asked.

  “And kickin’. When you gonna to do sump’m remarkable?”

  “Hang on.” They were approaching the field again.

  “Waco tower, Grumman 44932.”

  “Grumman 44932, Waco tower.”

  “Requesting a final low pass down runway 9.”

  “Roger. 932 cleared for a final, repeat final, low pass down runway niner. Observe a minimum altitude of three hundred feet.”

  “932. Wilco.” Gene Debs nosed over in a shallow dive toward the field. The airspeed indicator eased past two hundred knots as he lined up with the runway, heading east. The wind sang a frantic soprano through the struts and wires, harmonizing with the engine’s howl. They crossed the airfield’s boundary at three hundred feet and two hundred twenty knots. The runway’s concrete passed under them, coming suddenly closer as the plane rolled inverted. He checked the altimeter, steady at two hundred fifty feet. “I’m back in the saddle again,” Gene Debs sang through the gosport. “Out where a friend is a friend, where the longhorn cattle feed on the lowly Jimson weed, back in the saddle again.” Rolling the plane upright as the opposite end of the runway approached, he added power and pulled the F3F up into a steep climb. “Well, sir;” he asked. “Would that possibly fit your definition of remarkable?”

  “With a capital R,” said Moses. “Goddamiteydayum! Let’s take this rascal on home.” They kept each other in sight on the flight back to Bisque, gaudy naval veterans, colors intact, the lean yellow dragonfly hustling to keep pace with the fat variegated bumblebee.

  “Well, my boy,” queried Lee Webster, answering Moses’ greeting as he pushed open the door to the Bisque Lunch Room that chilly Tuesday afternoon, “where the fuck’ve you been? All Bev would say was ‘He’s on a little business trip.’

  “Hell, Webster, I’ve been to heaven. And I can take you there.” Ribeye set a Red Cap on the bar in front of him, and stayed to listen.

  “No thanks. I was there last night. Not that it put the look in my eye that’s in yours right now. It’s got to be airplanes. What the hell have you been up to?” Moses told them. “Holy shit. And now you’re gonna be flyin’ it?”

  “Bet your ass, mister; every chance I get. I can take you guys up in two-three weeks, as soon as Redding checks me out. It’s a hell of a ride.”

  “Not nunna me,” vowed Ribeye. I ain’t gettin in nunna ’em thangs.”

  “Aw shit, Rib, c’mon,” said Moses, laughing. “You know I’m a good pilot. What the hell’s gonna happen?”

  “Who th’ hell knows? You ever see a goddam airy-o-fuckin-plane widda bent fender? You’re already th’ biggest fuckin’ cuckleburr this town’s ever had under its goddam saddle; I ain’t about to git kilt heppin’ you drive ’at sucker deeper.”

  “Motor… motorhead baby… she wanta riide all night long… if ya don’ have transportation, then she treat ya wrong.

  She’ll ride in a Cadillac…oh, yea… in a Buick wid a smile… take a Fohd or a Shebalay, mus’ be a ’52 style…

  Jack had parked in the remotest corner of the parking lot at Don’s Dog House, where they sat with freshly-cracked Black Labels, having waved off the carhops’ attentions, listening absently to Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s radio plaint. It had been colder than usual for December the past week. The old Ford’s heater collaborated with their breathing in rapidly fogging its windows. “So how they treatin’ you in th’ big city?” Jack asked Ricky over the idling V8’s rumble.

  “Not too bad; had an OK season; I’ve just about learned your old position.”

  I always knew you could run, but since QB’s don’t have to do it that much, I thought maybe you’d forgotten how to.”

  “Bullshit. You get a coupla 250-pound linemen chasin’ you around th’ backfield and see how fast you’ll run. Woke my ass up in a hurry; I’m damn glad to be catchin’ now, or tryin’ to, ’steada tossin’.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Jack, “it’s th’ part that comes after th’ catchin’ that smarts.”

  “Ah, shit. Th’ hurtin’ goes away, and all you remember is th’ crowd hollerin’ at what a good catch you made. And at your fuck-ups, too, of course.” He smiled for a second at his own joke. “You oughta come over and work out with us at spring practice. I feel pretty good about makin’ th’ team, but you could probably get my job if you ’us to get back in shape.”

  “All I’d do,” Jack said, “is get Coach Dodd in hot water with the Conference, for harborin’ some walk-on from Athens. It’s all behind me, Terrell; I just don’t want it any more.”

  A patina of sadness tinged the smile that returned to Ricky’s face. “Funny how things work out. Couple years back, nobody coulda convinced me that we wouldn’t be someplace in the SEC playin’ together. If I’da been throwin’ to you in ’53 and ’54, we’da had numbers that woulda let us write our own ticket. Hell, we mighta gone to Oklahoma or somewhere.” The smile faded as he said, “I blame myself for you gettin’ outa fuhbawl. If Trisha and I-”

  Jack interrupted him. “All you and Trisha’s deal did to me was good. It got me to thinkin’ about what I really wanted to do, and to realize that fuhbawl was just a side issue for me. I had th’ chance to show old Martin an’ them that they couldn’t just shit on people and get away with it. If I’da gone back to th’ team after that, it’da taken alla th’ sting out of th’ message. This way, every time they saw me was a reminder that they better think twice before they tried sump’m like that again.”

  “Hell, you coulda just come on up to Taylor with me.”

  “I know I could’ve. But I wouldn’t’a been able to get my flyin’ time in, and that was important to me. Still is. Sorry you had to go up there by yourself, though.”

  “Turned out all right. Anyway, Smilin’ Jack, I was up thataway for homecomin’, and I got hold of a little sump’m that I been savin’ for th’ holidays.” He grinned as he reached into his navy pea jacket’s deep side pocket.

  “Whacha got there?”

  Brandishing a clear, flat pint bottle, Ricky switched to hillbilly dialect. “Peach brandy, straight offa ol’ Rocky Top.” He unscrewed the top and handed it to Jack, who sniffed it warily before taking a sip.

  “Whoa! That shit’ll setcha free,” Jack muttered after he’d caught his breath. Glad we got a chaser.” He took a quick gulp of Black Label. “I’ll say Rocky Top. With a coupla boulders thrown in.”

  “It’s smooth when you get used to it. It’s double-run; probly around 140 proof. Look.” He put his thumb over the bottle’s open mouth and shook it; the bubbles inside were slow to disappear. “See that bead?” There’s this one bootlegger, ol’ Red Dog, comes right through th’ dorms, sellin’ these for five bucks. Ol’ boy I ran into while I’us up there had an extra one, and I thought you’d probly enjoy a little
sip ’er two.” He took a large swallow and handed the bottle back to Jack, who followed suit.

  “You sure we ain’t gonna go blind drinkin’ this shit?”

  “Hell, yeah. Red Dog don’t use no old radiators in that still a’his.”

  “Well, one more an’ I’m done. I still gotta drive, an’ I can feel it gettin’ ahold of me already. And you got a brand new date, so don’t be scarin’ ’er ass off before y’all have a chance to check each other out.”

  “Ooh no,” Ricky assured him. “It’s been too long since I had even a sniff a’any decent pussy. An’ this ol’ girl don’t sound too bad.”

  “She’s not. One a’them Long Tall Sally types, and smart. Terry said that she brought the Zetas up half a grade point when she pledged.”

  “Well, just get outa th’ way and I’ll charm the shit riit outa her ass, buddy. A smart girl’ll be a welcome change. You’d think I’da run across one or two in Atlanta by now, but no such luck. And it’s a stone fact that smart girls screw th’ best.”

  “Maybe you’ll be able to test that theory, if Terry’s folks’ll stay out late enough.”

  “So you and her still gettin’ along all right?”

  “Reckon so. Sometimes I think I’m missin’ sump’m by goin’ steady; God knows UGA’s full of fine, fine women. But it’s a full time job keepin’ th’ grades up, and she’s just about stopped givin’ me shit about not doin’ th’ fraternity bit. And th’ sex part’s about as good as I could expect with anybody else. At Georgia, I mean.”

  “The New York lady’s in a different league, huh?”

  “You bet,” Jack said. “Don’t know how many there are out there like her, but I’m glad I found out that there are some, at least. She can’t be the only one. I hope.”

  “Well, that answers my other question before I ask it. Y’all ain’t thinkin’ about gettin’ married any time soon.”

  “Hell no, not as far as I’m concerned. Gettin’ married ain’t sump’m I’m sure I ever wanta do, but I sure as hell don’t want to for a long time. And I mean a long time.”