Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly

by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  I wait for Siouxsie to answer. When she doesn’t, Dad raps louder. “Shake a leg, Siouxsie.”

  The house holds its breath.

  From behind her door comes a puny “Okay.”

  That one word makes all the difference.

  I toss off my covers and sit up. Something sparks inside me. Today’s the day.

  I accelerate to Maximum Efficiency (ME). Slide into my jeans, white T-shirt, black T-shirt, green flannel—the one I’ve washed and left hanging on my doorknob. Pull on socks, stomp into my Old Gringos. Stumble into the bathroom, piss, splash water on my face, rake fingers through my hair. Brush the gutter out of my mouth.

  Dad likes his coffee “black as hell,” so I get that going. Then I slip on his duster and head to the barn.

  “Mornin’, ladies!” I say, sliding open the door. “Big day ahead. Gonna fly some drones with the air force boys.”

  The ladies stare at me as I fork alfalfa into their stalls, careful to obey the pecking order: Queen Zenobia first, then Blue Dancer, then Cornflakes. I’ve learned not to mess this up or they’ll get nippy.

  I scoop one and a half quarts of oats per pregnant lady. I’m very conscious that I’m nurturing their babies, too. They watch me approvingly as I measure the oats.

  “Lobo’ll come by today,” I tell them. “Cam’s gonna come tomorrow. I know they’re not your favorite people. But they’re gonna feed you, so don’t get too ornery.”

  Cornflakes snorts. Blue Dancer shakes her head. But they listen. They’re very nice ladies. Well mannered. Of a higher social standing in their world than I am in mine.

  I can’t wait to see their babies. Just three more months. But in the spring they will go—the ladies and their stick-legged foals—up to the Gunnison Valley of Colorado, and new pastures.

  Damn, I miss them already. It busts me up to think about it. Why does everybody have to go?

  I smooth my palm down Queen Zenobia’s blaze. Scratch the muscles on Blue Dancer’s chest, the way she likes. Cornflakes and I press our foreheads together. I respect the pecking order, but I don’t play favorites. Because they’re all my favorite.

  “Wish me luck,” I say.

  And they do, those mares.

  I warm up the pickup and get a bead on 95.9 KLAY. Dad’s tossed his briefcase behind the seat. It bulges with his novel—God knows what that’s all about. He’s jammed Siouxsie’s homeschool books under the seat. And he’s stuffed in some extra sweaters, jackets, and raincoats. “Contingency clothes,” he calls them.

  When I go back into the kitchen, he’s humming over the stove: frying eggs and bacon, grinding pepper, splashing Tabasco. It’s a sight I haven’t seen for a while. An English muffin pops out of the toaster. Siouxsie’s at the table mopping up her eggs. I sit down, and Dad sets a plate in front of me.

  “Well, since they’re paying for this trip, we’re goin’ in style,” he says. “We’ll stay at the Travelodge in Alamogordo, so bring your swimsuits. Oh, yes, on the way back, what do you say we stop at the Tularosa Café for some chocolate churros?”

  It feels like old times. That’s the thing about a journey—it pops you into focus and sweeps the mess of your life under the rug, if only for a brief time. Yesterday’s worry is just that.

  Plus, the fact that I’ll be flying drones with the air force boys buzzes all through me.

  Dad slips me a mug of coffee, splashed with milk and hazelnut. “That dog of yours is looking mighty morose,” he says.

  Guapo is curled in the corner, face to the wall. He knows that we are leaving—and knows that he is staying.

  He ignores Siouxsie as she struggles into her jacket, opens the kitchen door, and eases down the steps, holding the rail with both hands.

  He ignores Dad’s parting words: “Guapie, I’m placing you in command of the fort.”

  I fill his water dish to the brim, pour a mountain of kibble, lift the dog gate, check to see that the bathroom door is open and toilet seat up. When I dangle a piece of bacon in his face, he ignores it. When I bend down and stick my face in his, he aims his sad eyes away.

  I knuckle his bony head. “See you Sunday night, Fat Boy. Hump all the sagebrush you like.”

  WE BOMB SOUTH ON I-25, Siouxsie wedged between Dad and me. It’s starry dark out my window, but out Dad’s, above Eagle Tail Mesa, you can see the dancing gypsy skirts of dawn.

  “You guys remember that audio book the grief counselor gave us?” Dad asks.

  I groan. Soul Fire: Meditations on Grief and Healing was rammed down our throats. It’s basically a collection of confessional stories, inspirational poems, and Native American flute solos.

  “Yeah, what about it?” Siouxsie asks.

  Dad fishes the audio book out from under his seat.

  “Thought we’d try this again,” he says. “We’re just a three-ring circus now. We’ve suffered, all of us, and we don’t know what to say or how to say it.”

  I crank the volume on the radio. A song all twang and silicone spills out.

  Dad snaps it off, cuts me a look. “Here we are, together for the first time in quite a while,” he says. “Sort of trapped, in a way. But let’s not kid ourselves: silence isn’t golden.”

  “It’s leaden,” Siouxsie says.

  Dad ponders the dancing gypsy skirts. “I can accept the fact that she’s gone,” he says. “But I still can’t comprehend it, even after all these months. What gets me—where it really sticks—is the suddenness. We’re just not built for that.”

  “The suddenness is because of me,” Siouxsie mumbles.

  I elbow her.

  We drive a ways in leaden silence, Siouxsie narrowing herself so that she doesn’t touch me.

  “Well, what should we do about it?” Dad says at last. “Go back to the counselor?”

  “No way,” I say. “I’m done hugging pillows and screaming at walls.”

  “Then what?” Dad says. “Give me some help here, because my compass is broken.”

  “It’s not all that hard,” Siouxsie says. “Just talk about it—talk about how you feel.”

  Dad looks confused. “Isn’t that what we’re trying to do now?”

  Siouxsie groans. “You don’t get it. You either, Arlo. And until you do—you’re just gonna live on different sides of the mountain from me.”

  “Mountain?” I say. “We don’t live on a mountain.”

  Siouxsie glazes over and folds in. Dad doesn’t speak either. If we were talking about New Mexico politics or Kit Carson and the Navajo Trail of Tears, he would have lots to say. But about Mom’s death, only stuttered beginnings. Or nothing.

  I’m the same way.

  Fact is, we’ve never really talked about Mom and how her staggeringly sudden, incoherently violent death has shaped us into the stunted people that we are. It just hasn’t happened. I doubt it ever will.

  Maybe Siouxsie’s right—we live on different sides of the mountain and follow different streams toward different oceans.

  That’s what it does, this world. It turns you into a mountain hermit.

  I pop in Soul Fire, and we listen to some uplifting crap about Buddha, the Apostle Paul of Tarsus, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and Teddy Roosevelt—how they handled grief and adversity.

  Bottom line: all life is suffering, but you can triumph over it if you follow some simple rules. For example: get up early in the morning—early risers tend to be happier people.

  If that’s true, then I’m ecstatic.

  WE PULL INTO THE ALAMOGORDO Travelodge at ten forty-five a.m. Dad checks us in and calls Major Anderson.

  “Hmm,” he says after hanging up. “Seems there’s a ride ready to take you out to the post.”

  “Do I have time for a swim?”

  “Doesn’t sound like it,” Dad says.

  Five minutes later my ride pulls into the Travelodge parking lot. Except instead of a shiny limo, it’s a flatbed truck. The driver’s bagged out in military camouflage. “Hop in, Arlo,” he says, opening the passenger door for
me. “I’m Specialist Mullins.” He taps his name tape. “I’m unforgettable.”

  Chapter 16

  WHITE SANDS—OR OFFICIALLY, THE White Sands Missile Range—is a huge expanse of sugary sand, sharply different from the desert scab surrounding it.

  “Those spiky peaks over there are the Organ Mountains,” Mullins says as we approach the entrance to the post. “Man, you gotta see them at sunset—they look like bloody knives.”

  They look like bloody knives to me now, and it’s still morning.

  “I’m headed up that way as soon as I drop you off,” Mullins goes on. “Gotta pick up a load of creosoted four-by-fours. I’d ask you to tag along, but, hey, you’re a big shot. You’ll be too busy flying drones.”

  At the gate, Mullins shows the guard some papers. We get waved through.

  “We’re riding on sacred gypsum now,” Mullins says. “This is the largest military installation in the whole country, bigger than the state of Delaware. It’s prime proving ground for rockets, missiles, and drones.”

  He points to a road sign: TRINITY SITE 42 MILES.

  “Ever hear of Trinity?” he asks.

  “You mean the atomic bomb tests?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” he says. “Happened just up the road in July of ’45. Guess what happened a month later?”

  “Hiroshima,” I say.

  “Yup, and Nagasaki. Ka-blammo-whammo! The whole world changed because of what happened right here, on this white sand, for better or worse.”

  He points to a turnoff. “Just up there a few miles is Northrup Strip, where the space shuttle used to land. Man, we’re just full of sand and history.”

  “Any secret stuff?” I ask. “Like UFOs or aliens?”

  “Plenty of secret stuff,” Mullins says. “But all the UFOs and aliens are over in Roswell.”

  We roll down into a sand-washed valley scattered with windowless concrete buildings.

  “Right there’s the test center,” Mullins says, pointing to the building on the right. “We call it the Skunkworks, ’cuz they’re always skunkin’ around inside.”

  We park in front of the Skunkworks, and Mullins guides me to a big room. The sign outside the door says UAV Command and Control. I peer in and see about eighteen flight suits seated in front of monitors.

  “One thing to remember about White Sands,” Mullins says. “We’re an army post, which means we’re punctual. You’re done today at eighteen-hundred hours. That’s six o’clock post meridian, not six-oh-one. Which gives me just enough time to run out to the Organ Mountains, grab my creosoted load, and get back in time to pick you up. Hey, when you’re up there—in the wild blue—do me a favor.”

  “Just name it,” I say.

  “T-FOG for me, Arlo.”

  “T-what?”

  “T-FOG—touch the face of God.”

  “Touch the . . . Hey, no offense. But I’m not even sure—”

  “You don’t have to be sure,” he says. “Just think about it, if only for a few seconds. Reach out and touch whatever’s up there.”

  “Do my best,” I say.

  “I know you will, Arlo.”

  Mullins salutes me, slyly bumps my fist, and is gone.

  “WELCOME, ARLO! GLAD YOU MADE IT.”

  I look around for the voice.

  “On your right. Through the glass.”

  The right wall of the room is tinted glass. Major Anderson waves to me from the other side. Shadowy people stand beside him, in some kind of control room. I try to make out Colonel Kincaid, but it’s too dark to see much.

  “Take any station you like,” Major Anderson says through the mike. “Just click enter and follow the prompts. The password is swatvalley. We’ll get started soon.”

  I take a seat in back. Stretch, yawn, and check out these “real pilots.” They range in age from twenty-something to forty-something, give or take a few years. Half should be using Chinese hair-growth herbs.

  At the same time, they’re glancing at me. A moose-faced pilot grins. A short-haired female pilot winks. A pilot with the bulging eyes of a Gila monster grumbles:

  “DOD—Department of Desperation.”

  Somebody else says, “Department of Diapers.”

  One minute, that’s all I’ve been here. And I’m already taking flak.

  I log on and mess with the joystick. It’s a little different from the Drone Pilot stick, so I memorize the differences and practice them until they become reflex.

  Deeper down, though, I’m wishing I hadn’t come. Give me pregnant mares over arrogant pilots any day.

  A technician comes over and pastes jellied wafers on me. As he wires me, I study the others—my competition. I notice their posture. Not a hint of lazy spine. Flight suits blazed with military patches saying “100 missions,” “Enduring Freedom,” “Desert Storm.” On and on.

  I don’t have any patches on my flannel shirt, but if I did, they would read:

  “Enduring Sloucher.”

  “Zero Missions.”

  “Orphan County Scooper.”

  Major Anderson steps through a door in the glass wall and goes to the front of the room. He faces us, crisp and straight. The room goes quiet.

  “Welcome to the White Sands Test Facility,” Major Anderson says. “This is Ground Zero for testing the most powerful defense systems the world has ever known.”

  He lets that sink in. The room gets even quieter. I straighten up a bit.

  “First, I want to say why you are here. You’re here because you are the best at what you do—which is fly. With two exceptions, you represent the four branches of the United States military. Exception one . . .” He points to the short-haired woman who winked at me. “. . . Lieutenant Judy Clark, astronaut in training with NASA, based in Houston. Exception two . . .” He points to me. “. . . Arlo Santiago, from Clay Allison, New Mexico. A town up north famous for football.”

  Major Anderson doesn’t say that I’m a high school junior. Or that I’ve never flown before, except in video games. The other pilots glance at me again. I feel myself go up in value. If only by a few cents.

  “Today,” Major Anderson says, “we are going to take you out of your comfort zones. You won’t be sitting in the cockpit of a Tomcat or an F-15. You won’t be blasting off the flight deck of the Enterprise or Abraham Lincoln. Instead, your butts will be glued to your chairs. You will fly remotely.

  “I want you all to lock on that word:

  “Remotely.”

  I lock on it. It’s easy, because remotely is my comfort zone.

  “Make no mistake,” Major Anderson goes on. “Drone flying is not airborne flying. Many of your skills and instincts will translate, but some will not. In fact, some may get in the way. Score the points today, and you’ll be back tomorrow. Score the points tomorrow, and you’ll be eligible to fly drones for the United States of America. In the most conflicted hot spots in the world. Protecting and defending our liberties.”

  For a moment, the air crackles with patriotism. Even I feel it.

  A PowerPoint image pops up. It shows a line of military flatbed trucks—just like Mullins’s. The difference is, standing on each flatbed is a pneumatic launch tower. And locked into each tower is a drone aircraft.

  “Today, you’ll fly three missions,” Major Anderson says. “Mission one will be an actual drone flight, using a lightweight remote-controlled aerial vehicle. Missions two and three will be video-simulated flights using far more powerful craft.”

  He catches my eye. “Although the experience of missions two and three is much the same as a video game, do not think of them as such. The stakes are far higher. We are talking air surveillance and attack as an art form.”

  Major Anderson points to the screen. “Let’s get started with mission one. You’ll launch here, at our drone air station, three miles to the north of our present location. You will follow posted coordinates in a westerly direction to your target here, in the Organ Mountains.”

  Organ Mountains.

  An image
of the spiky peaks that Mullins pointed out appears on the screen. A long, straight highway rolls toward them.

  “We’ve cut your fuel supply to a bare minimum,” Major Anderson says. “We want to see how you deal with scarcity—how your mind works, how your body works. If there’s a spirit involved, we want to see how that works. In the event of an emergency, one of our command instructors will take over. At any time, you can communicate with us by clicking ‘Message.’ Meantime, we will monitor you—your stress level, reflexes, and to the extent possible, your thought processes.”

  He pauses to let us lock on all this information. I look at my hands—my fingers. They are very still. Very ready. I think of the phrase calm before the storm.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, these aircraft are real—they are not toys. They have a combined price tag of $3.7 million, paid for by the American people. We cannot afford to lose a single vehicle. So fly smart.”

  A Red Dart 200 pops up on my monitor.

  It’s kind of a letdown. Red Darts are wimps. The 200 is barely bigger than a model airplane. Just a bit of foam covered with a fiberglass composite. Length: two feet. Wingspan: just over four feet. Dinky-as-hell motor. There’s a camera turret mounted in the nose. A second camera in the belly.

  I’m guessing everybody here—like me—is a muscle flier. High thrust, turbofan, mach speed, that sort of thing. Flying a five-horsepower Red Dart is like handing a nickel to Donald Trump and saying “Go invest.” But maybe that’s the point—to see what you can buy with a nickel.

  I decide to give it my best.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” Major Anderson says, snapping me back. “Until I say ‘launch,’ you will give me your full attention.”

  I sit up straighter.

  “The success of your first mission,” he says, “depends upon your reaching the target, capturing key photographic intelligence, and returning to point of origin.

  “Each craft has just enough power to get you there and back, with no more than a few minutes to spare. We will rate you in four areas: flying ability, efficient use of fuel, strategic value of photographs, and general resourcefulness.