Skid

by Rene Gutteridge

  “Who do you think you are?” Mack yelled, but regained her control when Mitch told her to get it together. Adjusting his red suspenders, Mitch stepped in front of them and addressed the woman.

  “Ma’am, we’ve had a family emergency.”

  The woman’s fierce scowl lifted, but only slightly. She glanced over each of them and then turned her disaproving expression back to Mitch. “Then I want a full refund.” She whirled and headed for the front door.

  “Ma’am,” Mitch said. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll do it.”

  “Mitch!” Mack protested. “What are you talking about?”

  Mitch looked at the woman. “Just give us a moment, okay?”

  “Fine, but make it quick.” Her eyes grew wide. “I think I smell something burning!” She hurried off as Mack pushed her way in front of Mitch.

  “Why would you say that?”

  With tears still lingering in his eyes, Mitch put a gentle hand on Mack’s shoulder and gazed at each of them. “You know their motto. The show must go on.”

  A quiet determination set in. Everyone knew this was what their parents would have wanted. They’d always taught their children to persevere and not give up. They’d taught them a deep work ethic and showed them what it meant to work hard even when it wasn’t convenient or easy. The Hazards had watched their parents work no matter what.

  Mack’s jaw jutted forward. “Let’s do it for Mom and Dad.”

  They all nodded. Cassie pointed out that they needed to reapply their clown makeup and went to the van to get it.

  Mitch put his arm around Hank. “You okay?”

  “No.”

  “Can you do this?”

  “Yes.” Hank turned to Hayden. “Holler at Cassie. Tell her to get the flamethrowers ready. Apparently this crowd likes fire.”

  Chapter 2

  Six years later

  The normal, slow burn of a cigarette was accelerated by the fact that Bob Worton wasn’t supposed to be smoking in his office, the bathroom, anywhere on the fifth floor, or within fifty yards of the building. He also wasn’t supposed to smoke in his home or the car. That meant that Bob had learned to press his lips firmly onto the cigarette, suck five times like a kid slurping up a glass of soda, and have nicotine in his system in less than forty seconds. The smell lingered, but he’d happened upon a wonderful thing called a Yankee Candle in the department secretary’s office, specifically the apple spice scent. Making his office smell like a bakery did wonders for hiding the evidence. He explained away the white haze that lingered a foot from the mildewed ceiling of his office by mentioning the ancient air duct system.

  The truth of the matter was that he’d been caught smoking at least eleven times and had yet to be fired for it. And he knew why. Nobody wanted this job, and nobody wanted to find somebody who wanted this job. So everyone willingly looked past the fact that Bob smoked in his faraway office, previously a janitor’s closet five minutes from the coffee machine. He’d tried to quit once, and on a Tuesday at four, in the men’s bathroom, his boss had politely asked him to start back up.

  Flicking an inch of ash off his cigarette, he scrubbed the end into an ashtray, which he then slid into his desk drawer. Flipping through the file folder on his desk, he paused a moment on the form labeled Job History. He regarded the young man across from him, who sat with both feet on the floor, knees pressed together, hands flat on his knees. His hair was cut short and parted to the far left, swept to the side like he’d just arrived from 1957. Then there was the suit. Bob couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen anybody around here in a suit.

  The guy who’d applied for the job earlier that morning wore a stained polo, slacks that looked like they’d been wadded up in a drawer for months, and hair that hadn’t seen the useful side of a brush in what appeared to be days. The man before that had just been fired by the FAA. He wore a tie, but it didn’t make the chip on his shoulder look smaller.

  The ex-FAA guy was the most promising applicant until this young man arrived. He’d phoned Bob personally, asking if the position was already filled. Even though Bob told him it was, Mr. Hazard had asked if he could arrange a meeting in the afternoon.

  Mr. Hazard now cleared his throat twice. Turning on the fan by his desk to get the air rotating, Bob stood and opened the door to let the smoke out. “Mr. Hazard—”

  “Please, Hank, sir.”

  Sir. Bob kind of wished he’d held off on the cigarette and made a better impression. Apparently that wasn’t needed, though, because this kid seemed intent on good impressions no matter what kind of impression Bob made. Falling into a chair crankier than Bob off nicotine, he pulled out his center drawer and used his eye drops.

  Hank sat quietly. Attentively.

  Blinking until his eyeballs were sufficiently coated, Bob leaned forward and engaged him. “Hank. I’m a little confused about your, uh, job history. Can you explain to me exactly what line of work you’ve been in?”

  “I worked in my family business for a long time, since I was young. We owned a clown company. I was a clown. A mime, actually.”

  If it hadn’t been typed out in front of him, Bob would’ve thought they were speaking in metaphorical terms or that Hank was about to tell a wildly inappropriate joke. But there it sat, on his résumé. What could he say? People made their living however they must. He was a prime example. Two heart attacks and one hundred forty extra pounds later, Bob wondered if he would have been happier had he been a clown. He liked clowns.

  “And then it says here you were a mechanic.”

  “Yes sir. I like cars.”

  “I see. But then it says you… I’m sorry, I’m not sure I quite understand this.”

  “I worked with the Las Vegas police department on a task force called VIPER. We brought down a huge drug ring.”

  “So you’re a police officer?”

  “No, my sister is. She was working undercover, trying to break up an auto theft ring. They needed people to work in a fake body shop they set up to catch people coming in to sell illegal parts.”

  “I thought it was drugs.”

  “Turned out it was. They were using minivans to transport them.”

  “Minivans.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you’re here. Why are you here?”

  “I flew on an airplane for the first time on my way out to Las Vegas to do the undercover job. I loved it. Every moment of it.”

  “Well, that’s a new one.”

  “What, sir?”

  “You just don’t hear that anymore. People liking to fly. People hate to fly. But they hate driving thirty hours across the country more, so they fly.”

  The young man sat still, as if he didn’t have the ability to fidget. “How could anyone hate to fly? When we lifted off the ground and my stomach quivered, I looked out the window and I couldn’t believe how fast we were going, you know? How small the world became suddenly. Giant trees looked like little…” Hank’s words trailed off as his cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is that I think I would be good at this job. The newspaper said something about flying. I like to fly. I thought it might be a great fit.”

  Bob tried to lean back in his chair, but it stuck and flung him a little to the left. He wanted another cigarette, but frankly, this kid looked like he’d never seen a vice he needed. The kid probably didn’t even use a pacifier when he was a baby. Bob’s mother constantly complained he’d never become a self-soother. He could self-soothe. He just needed a little help.

  There was something strange about Hank. He was very calm, self-confident but not cocky, quiet when he needed to be, pointed with his words, a certain innocence in his eyes.

  Throwing a couple of gum balls in his mouth, Bob said, “Okay, Hank, look. I’ll be honest with you. Things aren’t going well at the airline. It’s my unfortunate luck to get the job of finding out why. Before 9/11, we looked at whether it should be peanuts or pretzels, whether we should give t
hem the entire can of soda or pour it into a glass with ice. We wondered if our rival’s decision to serve half-and-half was going to outdo our packet creamers, so we added flavored packet creamers.” Bob let out a long sigh. What he wouldn’t give for the old days, when offering inflight music and earphones caused their sales to skyrocket in the fourth quarter.

  “Well, you can’t go wrong with amaretto.” Hank smiled.

  “True enough. But these days, Hank, nobody likes to fly. And they really don’t like to fly on our carrier. For a year now, we’ve been planting our people on competitors’ airlines, trying to figure out what they do better and why. We’ve sent them onboard with measuring tapes to see how far the seats reclined. We once hired a chef to figure out how they were getting their meat to taste so fresh. We’ve investigated the reason the flight crew switched from polyester blouses to knit polos. They put olives back on their salads, so we started offering crouton packs. You name it, we’ve done it.” Bob spit out his gum. The sugar was gone. “And at the end of the day, Hank, we’re still behind. 9/11 will be a shadow over all of us forever, which makes croutons seem inconsequential, if you know what I mean.”

  Bob rose from his chair and put a knee into its side, causing it to pop and shift straight again. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this. We’ve sent guys to scout out what’s going on elsewhere, and we’ve gained a lot of knowledge. Last week we found out our main competitor’s flight attendants wear three-inch heels. Who knew that could be important, right?” Bob took a toothpick out of his pocket and bit down on it. “The thing is, you can try to look at other people all day long, but at the end of the day, you can only look at yourself.”

  “That sounds like good business advice.”

  “I learned it in marriage counseling right before my divorce.” The toothpick split, and Bob tossed it in the trash.

  “Sorry about your divorce. That must have been painful.”

  Bob’s finger plunged deep inside his ear and dug for earwax just like his ex-wife hated, then slowly emerged, wax-free. “What?”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m very blessed to have had parents who stayed married for a long time. They actually died at the exact same time. That was a few years ago.”

  “Lucky them. I mean, that they were married.” And dead. The finger found an itch at his hairline. “Was it a…uh…clown accident?”

  “No. Electrical shock in a hot tub.”

  “Right…okay…” Bob grabbed his baggie of sunflower seeds off his desk. “Anyway, we’ve always hired from inside the company for jobs like this. People willingly applied to see what was going on outside our little world. But now we’re having a hard time. It’s just that people don’t want to rat out their own people. We’ve been through a lot, and nobody wants to go pointing fingers. We need somebody who will be objective. You don’t have an emotional tie to this company, so you can give me a clear assessment of what’s going on inside our aircrafts.”

  “A spy.”

  Bob thought a moment, but decided it was probably the best word. He’d come up with a job tide that sounded politically correct and integrated the words marketing and assessor, but at the end of the day, the guy was going to be James Bonding it at forty thousand feet.

  “I watch the employees, see if they’re doing their job, right?”

  Bob tried to smile through the wad of seeds in his cheek. “It’s a little more than that.”

  “Well, what more can I do on an airplane except sit there?”

  Bob sat down again, sizing up the guy who claimed he went undercover in Las Vegas. Clearly, he wasn’t seeing the big picture.

  “Hank, it’s easy to be a good employee when passengers sit there and aren’t a bother. It’s more difficult when people get demanding. You’re going to need to be a very high-maintenance passenger. The things you have to go through just to board an airplane these days are causing more people to be in bad moods. You’re going to be the guy who is never satisfied. Blankets. Pillows. More pillows. Hotter food. Colder drink. You get the picture.”

  The young man appeared to be thinking this over.

  Bob leaned forward. “Hank, you seem like a very fine young man. The moment you walked in, I could tell you were taking this interview seriously. You said it yourself, you love to fly. You do some fine work here, and who knows what kind of doors might open for you in the airline business.”

  This perked him up. “It would give me an idea what this industry is really like.”

  Bob smiled and nodded, though it was all he could do not to burst this kid’s idealistic bubble. This industry would never, ever be the same again. He’d been doing it for twenty-five years. 9/11 changed everything.

  “Hank, you’ve got a very important job. We’ve got to find a way out of this slump we’re in. Thousands of jobs are at stake.” He finally gave up, spit the seeds into the trash, and lit a cigarette, trying to fan the smoke away. “If we don’t figure out how to beat the competition, we’re going to have to file bankruptcy. We’ve got analysts combing over everything from gas consumption to ticket prices. My job is to find out about job performance on the aircraft, which has now become your job. I want you to take scrupulous notes about everything you hear and see. You’re going to watch everyone. Listen to the flight attendants talk. How is the captain’s tone when he’s addressing the passengers from the cockpit? I want every detail covered, Hank.”

  “I’m hired?”

  “You’re hired.”

  “I thought someone else had the job.”

  “You’re a better fit and, quite frankly, seem to be a better human being. That’s got to qualify you in some regard. You seem to be a hard worker, Hank, and that’s what I need. You’ve done some time working undercover, so in my book, that qualifies you for this job.”

  Hank popped to his feet and stuck out a hand. “Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.”

  Bob shook it, then handed him his papers and ticket. “You leave tomorrow for Amsterdam.”

  “I’m going to another country?”

  “That’s right. Transaltantic Flight 1945 to Amsterdam. You’ll have a one-night layover, then will come back. You do have a passport, don’t you? That was in the job description.”

  “I do. Seven years ago we planned to go to an international clown training event in Spain. It didn’t work out, but I still have the passport.”

  Sighing, Bob put out his cigarette. “Make this count, Hank. You do a good job and it’s nothing but up from here.” Unless they filed bankruptcy, of course.

  “Mr. Worton, God bless you. I mean that.”

  “Son, God doesn’t bless people who need a pack a day just to get out of bed in the morning.”

  “You’re only trying to fill a void in your life. God loves you, sir. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  Doubt it? He had never even heard anyone say it to him. He glanced at the cigarette, still smoldering in the ashtray that lay in the open drawer to his left. In the smoky room of life, Hank Hazard seemed to be the lavender air freshener he’d happened upon yesterday in the break room.

  Bob Worton smiled mildly, but inside, he really, really hoped what Hank said was true.

  Chapter 3

  I’m sorry, sir. Your flight has been cancelled.” Sweat poured down Jake Van Der Mark’s face, noticeable even to the expressionless woman on the other side of the counter. He couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder. A long line of people, weighed down by luggage and unfortunate luck, waited behind him.

  Jake wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt, and the woman’s face expressed her disgust.

  “It’s hot in here,” he mumbled. “Look, I need to get on a flight to Amsterdam. I have to.”

  She didn’t seem inspired by his desperate plea. “Sir, we’re doing all we can to get our passengers onto another plane, but we don’t have anything leaving tonight, and we’re very booked tomorrow.”

  “Then put me on another airline.” He didn’t raise his voice. He knew irritating the desk agen
t wasn’t going to win him any points. “It’s just very important that I get to Amsterdam. Quickly.”

  “Sir, we have a flight leaving tomorrow evening at—”

  “No! I mean…no, um, ma’am, I’m sorry, it’s just a family emergency. I need to get there.”

  Her fingers clacked against the keyboard. “I can offer you a voucher for—”

  “I must leave in the morning. No later.”

  Sweat dropped from his chin onto the counter, and the woman, who kept antibacterial gel next to her computer, couldn’t keep her nostrils from flaring with disapproval. Jake had always prided himself on his ability to take advantage of situations, which was the reason he was in this predicament in the first place. And there was no reason not to take advantage of a woman and her germ gel.

  Gasping loudly, he sneezed and didn’t bother to cover his mouth. Wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he tried a little wheeze and said, “Sorry. I’ve been sick with the crud. It’s been brutal. Stomach cramps, a bronchial cough that sounds like death, and then there’s the chills and the fever and the diarrh—”

  “I can get you on a flight going out at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  She squirted her hands with gel, typed something in the computer, and printed out a piece of paper.

  “Thank you.”

  “You have no checked baggage?”

  “No.”

  This raised a curious eyebrow, which lowered again when Jake gave indication that another sneeze might be coming. He stopped, but she still felt compelled to squirt her hands. “All right, then. You’re set. Next, please.” She grabbed a can of Lysol from under the counter and sprayed the germ gel bottle.