The Last Pilot: A Novel

by Benjamin Johncock

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  FOR JUDE

  The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time.

  ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

  PROLOGUE

  It was a stretch of wretched land bleached and beaten by the relentless salt winds that howled in off the Atlantic, forsaken by God to man for the testing of dangerous new endeavors. WELCOME TO CAPE CANAVERAL! the sign said. SPEED LIMIT: 17,400 MPH. Three miles south sat Cocoa Beach, the Cape’s resort town, so low-rent that even the giant chiggers wanted to escape it. In daylight, Cocoa Beach was cobaltic blue, coconut palms and low-rise motels called The Starlite and Satellite and The Polaris, a replica rocket clasped above each name. The beach was like a strip of asphalt, long and wide and barren and hard. You could bend a spade on it. At sundown, mosquitoes the size of a clenched fist clustered at the water’s edge. At night, it was infested with sand flies that stripped skin from muscle. The only visitors were young men racing cars and the occasional couple, lured out of their motel room by the slink of the murky sea and the promise of God knows what on the bare, hardback sand. Cocoa Beach was the kind of place where people ended up.

  It was late, past nine, the diner was empty. George’s had low lights, a high bar and a couple of Chesley Bonestell originals hanging on the wall. It wasn’t a bad place. He came here because no one else did.

  His heart hurt like hell. He pulled a half-pack of Lucky Strikes from his top pocket. He stuck one in his mouth and struck a match and lit it and waved the match until it went out. He looked at his hands, the thick hair on his fingers, his knuckles. He drank the rest of his beer.

  Steely eyes gleamed down from a billboard across the street. Was it Shepard or Glenn? He didn’t know, or much care; he just wanted the goddamn thing to stop staring at him. He stared at his food. He wasn’t hungry.

  A couple entered. The man held a gray hat between two fingers and the woman adjusted her dress as they waited to be seated. The waitress gathered plastic menus, ushered them to a table, presented the specials. The couple smiled at each other and he wondered if they were honeymooning. Smoke clung to the pine-paneled walls, lilting slowly toward the linoleum floor. The man approached his table.

  Excuse me, he said, sir? Sorry to bother you an all but my wife—he glanced back—we was just wondrin, well, you’re one of them, ain’t you? What we been hearin about? The New Nine?

  He stayed seated, pulled hard on the cigarette, his throat tightened.

  I knew it! Honey, I was right.

  The woman joined her husband. Her skin looked pale like a lake in late fall.

  My wife, Betty, he said.

  Pleasure to meet you, she said.

  Now, which one are you? You’re Borman, right?

  Honey—

  Lovell? No, wait, I know this.

  You’ll have to excuse my husband; we’ve heard so much about you all.

  Harrison. Jim Harrison. I knew I knew it. Jim Harrison!

  The man looked at the woman and the woman stared at the table.

  Sure hope you don’t mind us intrudin, the man said.

  We’ve been staying down in Miami; at the Plaza, the woman said. It’s been a wonderful three weeks, but the other night I said to Bill, Bill, let’s get in the car, let’s explore a little—

  It’s a Caddy, powder blue—a coupe.

  —so we drove up the coast, the two of us.

  I said, we should go visit the world’s first space-port.

  I didn’t know what he meant.

  But I never thought we’d meet one of you fellas.

  A real astronaut, my goodness!

  A thing like that!

  Harrison put out his smoke and stood to leave.

  It sure was good to meet you, Bill said, extending his hand. And thank you, for everything; really, thank you.

  Harrison nodded and shook his hand. The couple returned to their table. In the restroom he pissed and thought and stood there for a long time.

  At the door, the waitress rang up his check.

  Everything all right for you, hon? she said.

  He stared at the register. Hard cracks crossed the linoleum under his feet. His heart beat hard in his head.

  Outside, the air was cool. It felt good on his bare arms. He stopped and stood on the near side of the sidewalk, against the mottled concrete wall of George’s backyard. He held his head. He had to think. All he ever did was think. A man walked by and stared. An hour passed. Inside the diner, lights were switched off in pairs, the couple left. Behind the wall, garbage sweltered and stunk. His breathing was heavy and his chest was wet. He felt dizzy. He had to move on, fill his mind.

  The steely eyes followed him across the empty street. He could smell the sea; the salt and the sky. Wolfie’s Cocktail Bar & Pantry was still open. Voices leaked out onto the sidewalk and echoed inside him. He walked on, past waiters licking spoons, clearing tables; past bars closing up. Air-conditioning units clung to gloomy walls, whining melancholic laments to men not yet home. The wind was hard with salt, the moon curled large and still. He reached Walt’s Bar and stopped. He felt tense. Christ, he thought, I need to walk. I need to get to bed.

  He got back to the motel at two. There were still people by the pool. Girls, mainly. A few men. They’d arrived soon after the first Mercury flights, the girls; eager young things, keen to become acquainted with the world’s first astronauts. Cape cookies, Shepard called them. They’d been staying here since the beginning, the astronauts, enjoying the hospitality of Henri Landwirth, the Holiday Inn’s manager. The rooms were stacked like cardboard boxes across two floors, encircling a bright blue swimming pool and a pink cocktail bar. Plastic chaise lounges, white like gulls, fanned the water. A racket of cicadas and crickets clattered loudly in the background.

  Harrison entered the lobby. Standing by the pay phone at the foot of the stairs was a girl in a towel.

  Hello, she said.

  He didn’t say anything. Smoke from a cigarette slunk around the brim of her straw hat. He could see small droplets of water on her bare shoulders.

  Are you coming out to the pool with the rest of the fellas? she said.

  I’m going to my room.

  That’s a much better idea.

  That so.

  It is.

  What’s your name?

  Jane, she said.

  She smiled, pulling the cigarette to her lips.

  You drink whiskey? he said.

  Got any ice?

  He opened the freezer.

  You’re in luck.

  He fixed two drinks. She sat in a chair, folding her legs over one of the arms. He stood.

  Your room is kinda tidy, if you don’t mind me saying so.

  I don’t.

  Been here long?

  A while.

  Training?

  He nodded.

  Where you from?

  You ask a lot of questions.

  I’m a curiou
s girl.

  He held his drink at the back of his throat then swallowed it.

  So we’re going to the moon, she said.

  Not yet.

  How’s that?

  Takes time.

  You fellas getting distracted? she said. It’s been three years since Glenn went up. Now that was something; felt like I had my own Lone Ranger watching over me.

  Four days there, four days back, he said. Glenn was up for four hours.

  Eight days? That even possible?

  Record is thirty-four hours, nineteen minutes, forty-nine seconds. Gordo Cooper, Faith 7; the last of the Mercury flights. Hell of a mission. Took a nap on the pad during countdown. Ol Gordo, yeah; he’s okay. Not the best, but he’s all right.

  Not the best? she said.

  There’s an old saying in flight test, who’s the second best pilot you ever saw?

  I like that, she said, lifting the glass to her lips. You going up?

  You bet.

  She looked around the room, then said, why are you living in a motel?

  He tipped the rest of the slug down his throat. How old are you?

  Nineteen.

  Where you from?

  Kansas.

  You’re not in Kansas anymore.

  You’ve finished your drink.

  She moved from the chair to the bed, tucking one leg beneath the other. He stared at the floor for a long time.

  Tell me what you’re thinking, she said.

  He didn’t say anything. He picked up the bottle, poured himself another.

  You should go home, get some sleep, he said.

  She emptied her glass slowly, eyes locked on his, ice accumulating along lips glossed with whiskey.

  You sure about that? she said.

  He stared at her and her legs unfurled and she walked toward him and placed a hand on his cheek. He shut his eyes.

  Whatever it is, she said, it’s okay.

  She pulled the door tight behind her. He stood, eyes shut, bottle and glass hanging from his hands. He felt black, like he was falling, and he couldn’t stop.

  MOJAVE DESERT

  MUROC, CALIFORNIA

  OCTOBER 1947

  The house was part of an old ranch stuck out in the desert scrubland near Muroc, in the high desert of the Mojave, fifty miles west of Victorville. It had a narrow veranda, dustbowl front yard and picket fence. It was called Oro Verde; Green Gold, after the alfalfa that once grew there. The ranch sat on the edge of Muroc Dry Lake, the largest slab of uninterrupted flatness on Earth. Forty-four square miles. Every December, it rained, the first and only of the year. Four inches would collect on the lake’s dry surface in a slick pool. The wind pulled and dragged the water, licking the wet sand smooth. In spring, it evaporated and the orange sun fired the ground hard like clay, creating a vast natural runway. The sky was a dome, endless blue; vast and clear and bright. The high elevations of the Mojave were the perfect place to fly. In the thirties it had been home to some godforsaken detachment of the Air Corps, nicknamed the Foreign Legion by the locals: seventeen poor bastards who lived out on the desert hardpan in a dozen canvas tents, with no electricity or plumbing. The Air Corps used the dry lake for training, but the Muroc Field encampment was so remote and wretched that it had no commanding officer. When conscripts arrived to train for combat in the South Pacific, tar paper barracks were quickly constructed to accommodate them, and when men burned in the skies above Europe in the autumn of forty-two, the army installed a top secret flight test program to develop the turbo-powered jet. The flight test center turned permanent after the war, with a small detachment of test pilots, engineers, technicians and ground crew. The men were slowly eaten alive by the sun slung high in the day and, at night, they froze, the hard desert wind howling loud around them, stripping paint from the planes and the trucks.

  Muroc Field’s two Quonset hangars gleamed on the horizon as Harrison climbed the front steps of the house. He was slender, short, dressed in brown slacks and a shirt, open at the collar. It was Saturday; just eight. He’d been up at five, in the air at six. He pushed open the screen door and dropped his bag to the floor.

  What are you doing home? Grace said, from behind the cellar door. Wasn’t expecting you til later.

  Thought I’d surprise you, he said, make sure you’re not in bed with the mailman.

  You seen the mailman?

  I have.

  You were right to come home.

  I know.

  Grace opened the door and stepped into the living room. She was tall, five-eleven, slight, with boney shoulders and fair hair, tied back. She wore a pair of crimson vaquero boots and a shirt tucked into dirty jeans.

  What you doing back there? he said.

  Fixing the door; damn thing’s been driving me crazy, she said. How was it?

  Fine.

  That bad, huh.

  She walked over, put her arms around his waist.

  He yawned.

  You tired? she said.

  I’m beat.

  Want to sleep?

  Yeah, but I came home to see you.

  You came home to make sure I wasn’t in bed with the mailman, she said.

  I came to make sure you weren’t in bed with any man, he said.

  You think I’m a floozy?

  I think we got a lot of good-lookin municipal workers round here.

  I hadn’t noticed, she said, tipping back on the heels of her boots.

  Yes you had.

  You want to get into that?

  Not really.

  Let’s get into something else, she said, tugging at his waist.

  This is unexpected, he said.

  Her lips touched his. They stood together in the sunlight.

  You’re not kissing me, she said.

  Mmm?

  You’re not kissing me.

  My mouth is dry; from the flight. Glass of water be good.

  I’m sure it would. Help yourself, I’m going out.

  She stepped away, her shirt creased from where it had pressed against him.

  Where you goin? he said.

  Rosamond.

  Rosamond?

  Post office has a package for us, she said, picking up her keys from the counter.

  You’re going to see the mailman? he said.

  Your jealousy is oddly compelling.

  You’re oddly compelling.

  You’re tired, she said.

  And thirsty.

  Glass of water, she said, then take a nap.

  I’m up again at eleven, he said. You know that’s—

  I know, she said. First powered flight.

  Yeah. Be the fastest anyone’s gone.

  I know.

  She stepped toward him.

  Be careful, she said.

  Always am, hon, he said.

  He walked into the kitchen, found a glass and turned on the cold tap. Grace watched him drink slowly, then refill the glass.

  I had a phone call, she said, leaning against the kitchen doorframe. They can see me on Monday.

  Monday?

  At ten.

  He paused, looking at the water in the glass.

  I didn’t think it would be that quick, he said.

  The lady said it’s been quiet; she said—doesn’t matter.

  Want me to come?

  No, maybe; I don’t know.

  I can speak to Boyd? The old man owes me some slack.

  I’ll be fine.

  Ten?

  She nodded.

  Okay then.

  Okay then.

  The kitchen was small. It had a round table pushed into a nook at one end and a window that looked out over the open desert at the other. The planes took off over the roof, making the crockery rattle. But there were days when the blue of the sky was cut with a hard line of black smoke from the ground, the stiff air vibrating with the sirens of distant fire trucks. Those were bad days. There had been one a week since the end of August; seven in August itself. These grim streaks happened.


  I’d better get going, she said, pushing herself off the doorframe with her shoulder.

  Sure, he said, and paused. Rick Bong augered in yesterday.

  I heard, she said. Janice told me. I’m going over to see Marjory on Wednesday. So’s Jackie.

  He was testing the P-80A, he said. Main fuel pump sheared on takeoff. Flamed out at fifty feet. No seat, so he pops the canopy, then his chute, but the airstream wraps him round the tail and they corkscrew in together.

  He looked up at her.

  He didn’t turn on his auxiliary fuel pump before takeoff, he said.

  Jim—

  How could anyone be so stupid not to turn on their auxiliary fuel pump before takeoff?

  Sounds like it was just a mistake, Grace said.

  There are no mistakes, Harrison said, just bad pilots.

  She sighed. She stood beside him and pulled his head to her breast, holding it gently with both hands.

  I’ll see you later, she said.

  Fancy coming over to Pancho’s after? he said. Gonna be celebrating.

  Maybe.

  I’ll be the fastest man alive, he said. Don’t you forget that.

  Doubt I’ll be allowed to.

  Well, it won’t last long. Yeager’ll go faster on Tuesday, assuming he don’t drill a hole in the Sierras.

  You should probably enjoy it while you can, she said.

  You know, I think I will.

  She kissed the top of his head.

  Bye, she said.

  Pick me up some Beemans, would you? he called after her. He rubbed his forehead and drank the rest of his water.

  Pancho’s place sat squat in six acres of bone-dry desert taut with Joshua trees. It had a wooden veranda, flyscreen door and looked like hell. She served scotch and beer and highballs and called it the Happy Bottom Riding Club. In summer, the temperature hit a hundred and ten and the bar would creak and groan. At night, it was close to freezing. The bar was part of a ranch that she’d bought from a farmer called Hannam ten years before, when the Depression sunk the price of alfalfa from thirty dollars a ton to ten.

  It was still early, ten before nine, Pancho’s was open. The desert was calm, the low sun nudging slowly west, burning the new day bright yellow and white. Stale carbon dioxide hung in the gloom of the bar like a bad mood. Harrison pushed open the screen door and stepped inside.