Dirt Bikes, Drones, and Other Ways to Fly

by Conrad Wesselhoeft

  “Thanks!” we say.

  His eyes shine bright.

  Today, I’m flying an MQ-1 Mamba—a pure hunter-killer. Alpha-aggressive to the core.

  “Three rules,” I tell Lee. “Just follow these.”

  “What are they?” Lee asks.

  “Rule number one,” I say. “Customize.”

  Why customize? Because the more you distance yourself from the average default idea of you, the higher-farther-faster you will go. Just a few people truly get this. If more did, the competition would be ridiculous.

  The default arms me with four missiles. I delete three and shave the remaining missile from one hundred pounds to seventy-five. On second thought, I trim it to fifty. All I need is one pinpoint sting. Anything extra is a waste.

  Drone Pilot teaches the law of opposites—the smaller the cloud, the bigger the bang, at least in points.

  “Gonna do this fast and furious,” I say. “We’ll launch just down the road, at White Sands.”

  Lee stifles a yawn.

  The soundtrack comes on—the Hawaiian steel guitar that is both sweet and haunting at the same time. The guy with the kick-ass bass voice intones:

  “Yea, though I fly through the valley of the shadow of death . . .

  I will fear no evil.”

  I fire up my engines and blast into the blue.

  Right off, a pod of enemy fighters pops up. One by one, each fighter peels away and dives on me.

  “Rule number two,” I say. “Switch it up—shatter expectations.”

  Why? Because when you switch it up you confuse the enemy, and his confusion is your opportunity. For example, when an enemy expects defense, hit him hard.

  The best defense can be offense.

  Pretty soon, we see the rim rocks of Chicorica Canyon. I skim low and follow the dry creek, blasting over Lupita’s pastures and sliding into an air trough, just feet above the ground.

  The dam rushes up.

  Picking the moment to fire is pure adrenalized instinct. On gut, I push the button, fire my fifty-pounder, and pull into the blue.

  Even before my missile strikes I shudder, knowing that I’ve hit my mark.

  But when I circle back, the dam is still intact, standing as obnoxiously as ever. This means I’ve overestimated my firepower. It will cost me. Hugely. It’s IpanemaGirl’s lucky day.

  But when I look down again, a thin stream of water is pissing out of the face of the dam. As I watch, a concrete block spits out, like a tooth, and water geysers through the gap.

  Now it happens—the dam begins to blow out, piece by piece. In a burst, all that pent-up water—water that the city of Clay Allison would happily siphon away from Lupita and the other ranchers of Chicorica Canyon—vaporizes the concrete. A wall of thrashing foam races down the dry bed onto Lupita’s thirsty land.

  Game over. My points roll up. Good score—in fact, a great one.

  “Rule number three,” I tell Lee. “Be humble in victory.”

  Why? Because I’ve seen too many good players get full of themselves and self-destruct. Arrogance is an enemy.

  “So what do you think?” I say, bumping Lee.

  She folds her arms. Ponders the dead screen.

  “One thing’s not working for me, Arlo.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “The symbolism.”

  “Symbolism?” I say. “What symbolism?”

  “Think about it,” Lee says. “You took that dam out in five minutes. But Lupita’s got to live with it for the rest of her life. You can blow it up a thousand times, but it’s still up there. A symbol of . . .”

  She searches for the words.

  “You mean, a symbol of town greed and all that crap?” I say.

  “More than that,” Lee says. “A symbol of the way things ought not to be.”

  “So what’s your point?” I ask.

  She weighs whether to say it.

  “My point—and I’m just being honest—no offense—but this is a pretty stupid way to spend your time, if you ask me.”

  Epilogue

  TOWARD THE END OF APRIL Mr. Wasserman’s fancy rig arrives from Colorado. Two wranglers load the mares into the trailer, stalling each next to her offspring.

  “Well, that does it,” Dad says, peeling off his gloves. “I’ll get dinner started.”

  I watch the rig roll up the drive, turn on the access road, and lurch toward the interstate, bound for pastures north.

  Easy as that, they’re gone. Who knows, maybe I’ll see them again someday. Will they remember me? The years. They pass. And after all, they’re just horses.

  In my life, I’ve been loved by six individuals. No matter how much I mess up. No matter how much I don’t deserve it. No questions. No hitches. It’s just there. Inside the marrow. Deeper than DNA.

  Mom with grace.

  Dad with distraction.

  Siouxsie with distance.

  And the mares.

  Six. It’s no record. But it’s not bad.

  THIS TIME OF YEAR, THE road up Burro Mesa can be slick with melt and drainage. Dad’s pickup has been known to bog down. But it’s easy on a dirt bike.

  Just before you reach the top, some benevolent dirt-bike god has placed a bump. Hit it right, and you sail over into the grass.

  That’s what I do now—hit it right.

  Sail.

  Land sweet.

  Brake and wait.

  Pretty soon, Lee pops over. Rolls up. Takes off her shades and looks about.

  It’s her first time on Burro Mesa.

  Sea of grass—sea of sky.

  To the north, the Front Range—by some trick of light crystal close today. You can practically touch those glaciers.

  A small herd of browns dots the mesa, a couple dozen cows and their calves. El Guapo will have a field day today.

  We’re at least a half hour ahead of the others, so we cruise over to the rim. Stand our bikes and walk to the monument.

  Dad tried for months to write the epitaph—or whatever you call it. Phrases like “Etched by golden sunlight” and “Gone for now, here forever” got favored and rejected.

  “Pained by life and beauty, yet deeply strengthened by it”—that was another.

  “Arlo,” he told me, “I’ve come around to your way of thinking. Words fall short. They simply do not do justice. Maybe if I were Shakespeare, but—forsooth!—I ain’t.”

  So it’s just plain, unchiseled rock. Rib-cage high. Shoulders wide. Cut from the yellow earth of Bandelier, New Mexico. Dad, Cam, Lobo, and I hauled it up here two weeks ago. Dad ground every last ounce out of the pickup.

  We stood the rock just back from the north rim, twenty paces or so. Used a winch, a pulley, and old-fashioned sweat. Then Cam and Lobo pocketed their hands and drifted away. With all the respect that friendship knows.

  In the end, family buries family.

  Dad and I packed and smoothed the base. Combed every last grain of sand.

  Then I drifted away.

  LOOKING NORTH, I FEEL AGAIN the whole soaring-falling flight.

  Impossible—impossible!

  Easy.

  Far below on the piney forest floor lies a twisted mess of dead metal. No more roaring down the interstate, a monster.

  Just getting swallowed by rust and time.

  “Arlo, don’t get any closer,” Lee says, pulling me back from the edge.

  We stake out a picnic site. Sprawl in the grass. Lee snaps off some stalks, and her fingers go to work.

  Cows are curious—natural investigators. We must look to them like pillars of salt, because those grazers start to lumber toward us.

  Lee glances up. “What the—! What’re they up to?”

  “Nothin’,” I say. “They just want to run us off the edge.”

  She picks a shooting star to add to her grass braid. Soon we are surrounded by gawking thousand-pounders. Blue-eyed Elsies.

  “I feel like I’m on public display,” Lee says.

  “Hey, I can do something
about that.”

  I place a hand over her eyes.

  Kiss her peach soft.

  Plum shiny.

  We fall back into the perfect alfalfa.

  Later, through bovine legs, we see the pickup rolling across the mesa. The cows twitch, the circle opens, and there is El Guapo standing in back, forepaws perched on the tailgate, snout poked into the breeze.

  So eager and primed that he plunges out and lands in a tumble. Then he’s up and off, full tilt, ducking toward this cow and that, beelining joyously, skittering and scattering them, filling the air with moos.

  Dad pulls up and gets out. “That’s one fine workin’ dog,” he says. “Hold up, Siouxsie. I’ll just be a minute.”

  Dad and Lupita offload the picnic stuff. Then he gets back in and drives Siouxsie over to the monument. Lifts her out. Carries her to the yellow hunk of standing rock. It’s getting harder and harder for her to stand alone, so they hold on to each other.

  Lee snaps open the blanket. Lupita starts to set things out.

  I drift over to the monument.

  Step up beside Dad and Siouxsie.

  Into all that silence.

  All that remembering.

  Siouxsie pulls off her headband—the tie-dyed one with the rippling shades of blue—and places it on top of the monument.

  “Now you guys,” she says.

  “Hmm,” Dad says. “Didn’t know this was on the agenda. Wish I’d come prepared.”

  He digs around in his pockets.

  All I have in mine are my bike keys. I take off a spare to the old Yam 125 and place it beside Siouxsie’s headband.

  Dad contemplates his wedding ring. Slips it off and puts it there.

  “Nice,” Siouxsie says.

  He helps her back to the truck, and they ride over to the others.

  Me, I linger a while.

  The wind rolls across the grass, carrying the memory of distant glaciers and the promise of summer.

  I can see all the way to Pike’s Peak.

  Turning, I can see halfway to Mexico.

  Up here, it’s just space, space, space.

  Green, blue, and forever.

  That’s epitaph enough for me.

  THE END

  Also by Conrad Wesselhoeft:

  Adios, Nirvana

  Since his brother’s death, Jonathan’s been losing his grip on reality. Last year’s Best Young Poet and gifted guitarist is now Taft High School’s resident tortured artist, when he bothers to show up at all. He’s on track to repeat the eleventh grade, but Jonathan has friends who refuse to be seniors without him, and the music that never lets him go. All that’s left of Telemachus are memories and Eddie Vedder’s guitar. Maybe that’s enough.

  Keep reading for a free sample of Adios, Nirvana

  Chapter 1

  “Hey, man, get down!”

  “Dude, don’t be an idiot!”

  It’s my thicks calling to me. They’re standing just off the bridge, in the little park with the totem pole. The one that looks out over Elliott Bay and downtown Seattle.

  But tonight you can’t see a thing. Tonight, the world is a giant shaken snow globe. Big flakes tumbling down. The size of potato chips.

  In this city of eternal rain—snow! Once-a-decade snow. Maybe even once-a-century. It’s piling fast.

  We’ve been tossing frozen grapes at each other’s open orifices. Kyle is extremely good at this—can catch a grape in his mouth at fifty feet. So can Javon. They dart and dive and roll, catching nearly every grape despite the swirly snow and patchy street light.

  Nick and I pretty much suck.

  I dig the grapes out of the snow. Eat them.

  They are Mimi’s little specialty, cored and filled with vodka. One or two or ten don’t do much, but thirty or forty—whoa! Kyle lifted the whole bag from my freezer. I’ve had . . . god knows. I lost count a long time ago.

  And now I’m feeling it. All of it. I’m spinning. Delirious. A little sick.

  Plus, I gotta piss.

  I’m standing on the rail of the bridge, midspan, grasping the light pole.

  It’s an old concrete bridge. The rail is waist high and just wide enough for me to perch on without slipping, as long as I hold on to the light pole.

  I gaze up into the blazing industrial bulb. See the flakes lingering in the little upswirl. Below, the ground is bathed in perfect white darkness. It’s not all that far down, twenty or thirty feet. Just enough to break a few bones—or kill you. It looks like a soft pillow. Dimpled by shrubs and bushes.

  “Dude, dude, dude . . .”

  “What’re ya doin’, man?”

  I unzip and explode, blast a twelve-foot rope of steaming piss into the night.

  When you piss off a bridge into a snowstorm, it feels like you’re connecting with eternal things. Paying homage to something or someone. But who? The Druids? Walt Whitman? No, I pay homage to one person only, my brother, my twin.

  In life. In death.

  Telemachus.

  Footsteps crunch up behind me. I know it’s Nick—“Nick the Thick.”

  “Hey, Jonathan.” His voice is quiet. “C’mon down.”

  Just then, my stomach churns. I tighten my grip on the light pole, lean out over the bridge. My guts geyser out of me. I taste the grapes, the soft bean burrito I had for lunch. The tots. The milk.

  Twisting and drooling, I see below that spring has bloomed on the snow-covered bushes. Color has returned to the azaleas.

  Another wave hits me. And another. All those damn grapes. And, god knows, more burrito and tots.

  Till I’m squeezed dry.

  Pulped out.

  Empty.

  I watch snowflakes cover my mess. It’s like we’re making a Mexican casserole together, the night and me. Night lays down the flour tortilla, I add the vegetable sauce.

  When I look around, Kyle and Javon are standing there, too.

  Kyle says, “If you break your neck, dude, I will never forgive you.”

  Javon says, “Already lost one of you. Get your ass down, or I’ll drag it down.”

  It hurts. They are my oldest friends, my thicks.

  And thickness is forever.

  But somewhere in that snowy world below, Telemachus waits.

  I loosen my grip on the light pole.

  “Hey!” they shout. “HEY!”

  My frozen fingers slip. Their panicky hands lunge for me.

  But I’m too far gone.

  I’m falling . . . falling. There’s ecstasy and freedom here. Somehow I flip onto my back, wing my arms, Jesus-like, and wait for my quilty azalea bed to cradle me. And my Mexican casserole to warm me.

  I fall, fall, fall into the snowy night.

  Thinking of my brother.

  Thinking of Telemachus.

  Buy the Book

  Visit www.hmhco.com or your favorite retailer to purchase the book in its entirety.

  About the Author

  CONRAD WESSELHOEFT worked as a tugboat hand in Singapore and a Peace Corps volunteer in Polynesia before embarking on a career in journalism. He has served on the editorial staffs of five newspapers, including one of the nation’s smallest, the Raton Range (New Mexico), and one of the biggest, the New York Times. He lives with his three children and a big, grinning poodle named Django in West Seattle. “Much of Adios, Nirvana,” he writes, “was inspired by my son Kit and his many friends, who tromp through my kitchen, jam on guitars, and leave behind a trail of laughter, crumbs, and ketchup stains.”

 

 

 
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