by Lee Baldwin
“So any theories on who bummed your trip?”
“Had to be Mick, one of the guys involved.”
“Who is Mick? Is that the McIntyre in your story?”
“Mmhmm. He got 8 to 12 in Lancaster. They can keep him there long’s they want.”
Tharcia’s face goes white around the bruise. “OMG, do you think this Mick knows my mom?”
I nod. That right there is an entire saga of deception, duplicity and betrayal. I’ll tell her sometime maybe but not today.
“Mick. Mick. McIntyre.” She’s saying the name over and over like she’s tasting it. Her head comes up. “Micmac!”
The picture clicks into focus. A child’s name for her daddy, before she could spell or pronounce McIntyre. Of course. It was Mick who lived with Montana those years after she returned to San Jose. It was Mick who Tharcia thought was her dad. And could in fact be. No telling what Montana has been up to, ever.
“When was the last time you saw Micmac?”
Her face has clouded over, unhappy memories shoving through. “When we moved out of his house to the one we have now. Nine years. Mom never mentions him.”
“Well, the Mick I know is in prison.”
“You said.”
Rodrigo rouses, heaves to his feet, tucking his blue plaid shirt into jeans which have the most tentative hold on his narrow hips. “I’ll just leave you two kids in peace. Nice ta meet ya, Farsical.” He stumbles out the door headed toward the road.
Tharcia is chuckling into her hand like she’ll pop a gasket. I get up and stretch. This is way too much for my morning brain.
“Well now I can put it together,” she says, “why he never visits. Why Mom doesn’t really see many people, except for the one-nighters. Oop, sorry, no offense Stuka.”
“None taken. Seems we both understand Montana.” I give her a wink.
She nods. “He’s in prison, she’s waiting for him.” That look on her face is completely without judgment, rancor, accusation, any of the dozen other emotions a kid could have about her mother’s tweaked-out love life. Or missing out on her own personal needs.
I look at her. Thinking I could lecture Montana just fine on parenthood. “She ever go to Lancaster for a visit?”
“No idea. She goes everywhere for work though, I could totally miss it.”
“You ever visit him yourself?”
Shakes her head emphatically. I see the time is pushing on for ten. “Ya know, I have a date with an airplane. Gotta motate.”
“Oh, you’re dating airplanes now? I have heard of people dating rocks.”
“It’s slightly easier than dating a rock climber.”
“Hey! I am a rock climber.”
“Well then how ‘bout a week from Saturday?”
She cocks her head at me with a watch it dude expression. “Aren’t you hanging with my mom?”
“Sunday, then?” I sigh. Fun is fun. But. “Tharcia, I think your mom and me were just tripping on memory lane.”
She looks at me, serious. “Like her don’t ya?”
“Busted,” I nod. “I did once. Too many complications and other boyfriends.”
“Yah. You’ll find the right one.”
I say nothing, reminded of my laser focus on simply vanishing. But the mention of airplanes starts her asking about my flying, teaching, how I got started, what it means to me, and so on. Interesting kid. She has a lot on her mind and seems genuinely interested in people. So we chat through another round of coffee, minus the Scotch. I won’t be piloting today but I want my senses intact for what I’m about to do.
“Can I talk to you, Clay?”
“What we’ve been doing.”
“No, Stuka.” She leans forward in her chair. “I feel I can talk to you. I need to say something.”
“Sure, OK.”
She takes a deep breath, then goes right to the heart of it. “My mom hitting me the other night spilled this out. I cried last night. It was hard.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I sat in my car. Until it was over. Then I came in and fell asleep upstairs.”
I lean forward. “Tharcia, what is it?”
Another deep breath, uncertain. “I was abused by one of Mom’s boyfriends.” She stops. She’s looking hard at me like she just succeeded at a difficult task. I nod slowly and wait, jaw clenching. This is the worst. There is nothing I can say. All I can do is look at her, the sadness of her bruised face.
“I’m glad you stayed,” I say quietly. “You getting any help with this?”
She nods. “I have a dear friend, a psychologist and child counselor. She’s helped me through a lot.”
“Is it possible to make any headway? Can you feel better?”
“Some. It’s better every year. Sometimes things just go black, to feel so worthless like this.”
Sitting closer to her, I put my hand on hers. Practically whispering I say, “You, worthless? You’re courageous.”
She shakes her head. “I’m like a scared rabbit sometimes.”
“You realize how important it is? Telling someone it happened?”
“It’s what my therapist always says.” Abruptly she slams the table with her palm. “I am worthwhile. Nothing was wrong with me. My mother made me shut up about it!”
To me this is ten times worse than Montana hitting her. “She made you shut up? Did you tell anyone?”
Tharcia looks down, face hidden behind her falling hair. “Only my mom. She said we don’t talk about things like that.”
“But when? How long did you have to wait to talk about it?”
“When I was a senior.”
“High school.”
“Mm.”
“So your treatment is what, couple years on?”
She nods yes. Now it’s my turn to get furious. I walk a couple fast laps to the living room window and back. I yell.
“Arrrgh! That stupid little twit left you to suffer! How dare she! How fucking dare she!”
Tharcia gives me a minute to wind down.
“This happened when?”
“I was nine.”
“For a long time, or only once?”
“Couple months. Weird punishments, spankings when Mom was at work.”
“Did you tell your mom?”
“She saw bruises.”
“What happened then?”
“She screamed at him. He left. Next day we went to a motel.”
Again I am furious with Montana, and whichever of her lunatic boyfriends is responsible. “Why did you tell me? I am glad you did, but why me?”
“It’s part of my therapy to stop hiding it. I felt I could trust you.”
“Ah. Could you share with me who this person is?”
“We already mentioned him.”
Even before she says the name, I know. Before she comes out with it I have already consigned that person to the blackest depths of hell. Forever.
“You said...”
“Micmac,” Tharcia says. Tears shimmer. “Mom’s old boyfriend, Mick McIntyre.”
Chapter 7
Interview with a Monster
I’M EMOTIONALLY WRUNG OUT as I point my El Camino down Highway 1 to 129 and out 25 for Hollister airport. But I’m not headed for the gliderport. Today I drive around to the other side where the big hangars are, and the power planes. After the convo with Tharcia about her childhood abuse, I need a lot of cheering up. I can’t imagine what it will take for her. Something inside me aches, and I can’t find it.
So here I am staring up at a working example of the best American prop fighter of World War II, the North American P-51 Mustang. It was the first long-range bomber escort, used by the Tuskegee Airmen and several thousand other brave pilots. The P-51, flown by the Army Air Force before the Air Force became a separate branch of the military. I have an original maintenance manual on DVD, and believe me I’ve been through it a few times. About half the aircraft parts I ship are P-51 parts. There are fewer than 200 of these aircraft still flying, and I�
��m about to go for a ride in one.
With slender wings and sleek fuselage wrapped around a powerful Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12, the Mustang fighter is fast and agile, and a royal handful for the unwary pilot. I’ve done my share of reading on this aircraft, plus flying the sims on my computer. Every time, I learn something. For example, when both internal and external tanks are loaded, such as to fly from England to Berlin and back, the P-51 could be downright treacherous on takeoff. Especially if the fuselage tank behind the pilot is full. That balance thing again.
Come to find out when I looked this owner up, he’s a customer of my parts business! I can practically recite the various components he’s bought from me, because this version is rare. Sean is telling me about his ship.
“It’s a rare Mustang, the TRF-51D two-seat trainer conversion of an F-6D, which is the armed photo recon version. It’s a very down to earth airplane, not difficult to fly or hard to handle. But it will bite hard if you’re clueless.”
I am dying to know exactly how he defines clueless and am semi-hearing him as we walk around her. Lots larger than they look on video, or my PC simulator games, damn thing is 37 feet across the wingtips. Prop is 11 feet in diameter, four massive blades with squared-off tips.
“Two thousand horse the way I have this one tricked out. Thanks to the supercharger parts and pistons you found for me.” Sean says this with an appreciative grin.
At last the gab is over and I’m settling down in the front cockpit. First thing I notice is the nose. It sticks out there a long way. I’m 5 feet 11 and although I’m in the front seat I am not going to see over that nose. From the front seat of a glider you can see the ground a few feet ahead. This bird sits back on its tail wheel so the nose is already pointing at the sky. Sean, getting set in the aft cockpit, tells me you have to use the rudder and make S-turns to see where you are going during taxi.
He’s clicking and punching things back there. Levers and knobs move in my cockpit, showing me what he does, after all it’s a trainer. I point my small vidcam at everything. Sean sets primer, the automatic mixture, and engages the starter. The whole plane jumps as the prop starts to turn. He counts to six out loud as the squared-off blades pass, then he throws the magnetos to the BOTH marker. Like playing a complicated instrument, he hits the fuel boost pump switch to the left of the starter, then the electric primer to the right with another finger switch. The mixture lever in my cockpit moves up into the NORMAL position.
The whole plane shudders, then there’s this ferocious dragon roar and the blades become a blur. All kinds of black smoke belching out both sides of the nose, blowing by the cockpit. My insides are vibrating, the sound goes right through me.
Sean taxis us out to the run-up area of runway 3-1 and does his engine checks at 2300 RPM. Magnetos, prop, Simmonds regulator, supercharger, carb air, radiator air, a dozen switches to set. I won’t remember them, they are on the checklist, and now on my video. The thought of starting one of these on my own is sobering. How would it be if I were sitting here alone right now, behind this huge engine bellowing a challenge at the sky?
I hear Sean through my headset, making his radio call to take the active runway. He puts us on the centerline, sets rudder trim. He pulls the stick aft of neutral to lock the tail wheel, pushes in on the throttle quadrant and the manifold pressure comes up to about 40 inches. Brakes off, we start to accelerate, Sean adds boost up to 55 inches and we’re pushed into our seats hard.
At this point the world’s only sound is that V-12 up front. The six exhaust stacks each side of the nose are lined up with my head and it is deafening. I see how Sean anticipates the nose wanting to swing left by easing in right rudder. That’s the propeller torque. I’m lightly following through on stick and pedals, to feel what a real warbird pilot feels. We’re heading down the runway much faster than I ever do in a glider, and about eight feet farther off the runway, the landing gear is so tall. Sean eases the stick forward when we hit about 100 MPH. The fuselage comes level, I can see ahead.
It gets quieter as we lift away, but not that quiet. We’re flying now. Sean starts cleaning up the ship: gear up, flaps retracted, power back to 46 inches boost and the engine note drops to 2700 RPM. We’re doing about 190 MPH in a steady climb and it feels like she can keep it up all day. We’re at 3000 feet already. On tow in a glider at this point I’d just be clearing the hills at the end of the runway.
What a feeling! A light airframe, enormous torque and combat-grade aerobatic capability. And, I remind myself, a potentially treacherous aircraft in the hands of an amateur. That’s a humbling thought, and the rest of the ride, great as it is, takes on a threatening cast.
Amateur = me.
But unbelievably, Sean lets me take the controls. I do some turns, some climbs, a couple dives, not very steep. This aircraft is your literal Bat out of Hell, but smooth and predictable, I am loving it! Visibility from the cockpit is good, I get over looking at every dial knob and switch and just fly her by feel and she’s beyond sensational. I can do it, I can fly this aircraft. I put us in a 70-degree bank and we pull about five gees and the feeling is incredible. Can’t wait to tell Wade about this! And we can’t wait forever for his nutter pilot friend to show up. Something says it might be up to me, and an inner voice, a very brave one, says bring it on!
We make a pass over runway 3-1, and Sean says something unexpected through the phones. “You have this pretty solid. Want to land it?”
“Oh hell yes,” is my instant reply. That’s when the sweat starts to roll.
“Fine. I’ll follow through and take care of airspeed, flaps, gear and such. You just set us down, three wheels. Stall her in from a couple feet at about 100.”
I fly a normal pattern from 1200 feet, turn base very late to give me a longish final leg so I’ll have plenty of time to line her up. Sean handles the countless other tasks. I am glad my video camera is on! Every throttle adjustment I make requires a change in rudder trim, and although I see it happen, I am damn glad Sean is on it.
I can’t tell if it was a classic three-point landing, but Sean is pleased with the result. At least we don’t bounce. Climbing down from the high cockpit, I shake hands energetically. What he says next blows me away.
“What planes do you fly, Clay?”
“Gliders. Tandem and singles.”
“Single engine?”
“Gliders, purely. No power.”
Sean gives me an appraising look. “You got a good touch, Clay.”
So, go ahead and make my decade. Later, after my exhilarating kilobuck joyride, I’m sitting in my El Camino looking over the video I just took. Even on the small screen I can tell there’s a ton of training in that 35 minutes and I’ll go over it time and time again.
I drive around to the gliderport office, not because I have a schedule today, but because I like to say hello to folks. Nice group of people out here, lived their lives around aviation, very solid and dependable. And there’s one in particular I always like to see.
Late on a calm Sunday morning, the rich folks are just starting to stir. In the office Julie looks up from the counter with a smile. She’s talking to a new student about the books, manuals and charts he needs to begin training in gliders. Place the school uses for an office is a relic of the 1940s when it was part of an Army training compound during WWII. I can see past Julie into Stacy’s office, peek in and Stacy is there. I tap lightly. She looks up and her face changes, but not in the way it’s supposed to when she first sees me. She looks at me for a long moment, leans back, finally summons a kinda-sorta smile.
“Clay. How’s it going?”
I grin at her. “Can’t complain, how’s by you?”
Stacy now looks more than merely uncomfortable. “Would you get that door? Thanks.”
In spite of the gloomy overtones, I don’t mind closing the door and being in private with her. We’ve had some times together, great ones. When I get a better look at her face, seems like she’s genuinely upset.
“Hey girl,
what’s up?”
“Clay this is very difficult. The school has to let you go.” She delivers this straight, rehearsed, not cold but not too warm either.
“Stace, what?”
“There have been questions, Clay. Too many questions. The NTSB has been around, Hollister police have been around, San Jose detectives, your parole person...”
“Montana? Agent Harrison?”
Stacy nods. Ice of jealousy tugs at her lips. “The DEA has been around talking to us. Agents were here again just this morning. They are all groping for something, Clay. You are a fine pilot and a super trainer. We’ve really depended on your expertise the last ten years.” She doesn’t mention the three-year gap when I was locked up. “I hope that sometime in the future...” Her voice trails off. “Clay right now we have to take a break. I’ll send your final check.”
At this point she looks down and brings a hand to her forehead. I know what she’s thinking. Not only the job here, the great relationships with the school personnel, but all the promise several years back when she and I were talking. But that was before prison. Thanks again, Mick.
Should have been easy, after three years behind bars, to come out into society and not form any attachments. But Stacy gave me my old job back. And just being around her, well, she’s so damn easy to be with.
“So I’m off the schedule as of now?”
Still looking down, she barely nods. I think for a second. There’s nothing here at the school that’s mine, no desk to clear out, everything comes and goes in my flight bag. I take a deep breath.
“Stacy. I get it. You need to protect your business. I’m down with that. I wish things could be different too. I’ll miss you. We’ll talk sometime.”
She nods. The scrape of my chair on bare wood puts a ragged end to the conversation. On a whole nice chunk of my messed-up little life. She’s not looking up. Silently, I leave the office.
Walking out into the sunlight, I barely have time to draw a deep breath when I take in this scene at the curb. Parked behind my El Camino is a dark DEA car like the one visited me after my flight with Roswell. Man in a dark suit, leaning against the car, looking down as he flips through his phone.