Flight of Passage: A True Story

by Buck, Rinker

  I always remembered that leg through Kentucky for another reason. Kern was very pleased with my flying and impressed with the way that I doggedly held my altitude and course, deviating only when we had clouds or an obstruction ahead to dodge. This was deeply satisfying to me and I knew exactly where that discipline came from. During my cross-country training, my father had been merciless with me about maintaining my altitude and heading. Even in rough air, he held me to strict Air Corps standards—plus or minus 50 feet on the altimeter, no more than three or four degrees of variation on the compass, and there was hell to pay if I buried my head in the map too long and let the plane wander. “Altitude, goddamnit,” my father would bark into my ear. I wasn’t bitter about that and even enjoyed the hard work, but I did regret that we never just kicked back and enjoyed ourselves up there. There were no displays of affection either. The problem carried over on the ground. After an afternoon of flying with my father, I was so gun-shy and tense around him I could barely speak to him for a week.

  But I could enjoy myself with Kern. He didn’t care about enforcing Air Corps standards, even though I was flying up to that for him. And he was very open about his feelings and would express whatever was on his mind at the moment.

  “Rink, you’re doing great!” he yelled back over the noise of the engine. “I can’t get over how well you handle this Cub.”

  The turbulence I was battling, the feelings I experienced, swirled around inside me with a vertigo of their own. When Kern said things like that I would suffer these momentary, intense bouts of anxiety and loneliness for my father. I couldn’t understand it. All winter, I had looked forward to getting away from my father. Whenever I thought about him and planes, I thought of drudgery and hard work, a man who treated me as if he were still a hardass Stearman instructor preparing air cadets for war. Now that we were finally out here enjoying our adventure, I missed him—plaintively, even passionately sometimes. Of course, I didn’t understand yet that emotions are dealt in pairs, subject to laws of association. I loved the man I hated for making me fly the way he did, but this was confusing and the turbulence was so bad I couldn’t thoughtfully sort all this out.

  Every twenty minutes or so, weary of these thoughts, my arms stiff from battling the turbulence, I shook the stick and gave the plane back to Kern.

  So, we banged down through the bottom of Hank’s swale. The air was rough and the face of the land below was desolate and unfamiliar, but every time I got the map back I could see that we were making good progress. Kentucky was a brutal stretch of flying, but I enjoyed the responsibility of spelling Kern at the controls and I knew that I was proving to be worth a lot more to him than either of us had expected.

  I played a nice trick on Kern as we approached the Mississippi. He was flying up front, following the last couple of ravines out of the swale, and hadn’t asked to see the map for a while. I called forward that there was a large obstruction ahead and that he should turn due west and climb to 3,000 feet. As we turned, I picked up the Deer Creek below. Over the next ten miles, as it fell to the river, the creek passed from the rocky, hardwood foothills of Tennessee to the spongy, effluvial plain of the Mississippi River.

  I told Kern to expedite the climb so that he couldn’t see out over the nose. Vacantly he stared up over the prop to the sky, grateful that we finally had enough clear air ahead of us for some altitude. Through the side windows, though, I could see the river shimmering out of the landscape, immense and brown and undulating from horizon to horizon.

  Leveling off at 3,000 feet, Kern throttled back, checked his engine instruments and looked aimlessly ahead. Then he raised his left hand and called back. The wings gently rocked and the rudder pedals danced. The bolt of excitement passed from him through to the controls, and then to the plane and me.

  “Rink! That’s it! Look. The Mississippi.”

  It was the most glorious and impressive piece of landscape I ever hoped to see.

  The river filled the sky. To the north the oxbows eddied out and looped back on themselves, a twisting congeries of brown water and sandy banks disappearing into Missouri, and to the south the flow straightened out and spilled broad as a lake, emptying out into vast wetlands beyond the banks. The Mississippi was a whole continent of water, an inland ocean, bisecting the land. We couldn’t believe the amount of water moving past us, and how broad the river was, bank to bank. The banks were immense washes of sand, as big themselves as the rivers we knew back home, curving out where the river turned into huge, open deserts, blinding under the sun. Nothing I’d read or seen about the Mississippi had prepared me for this, a body of water so large. The prospect from 3,000 feet in clear air, taking in thirty or forty miles of river, was staggering. It was a majesty of water and banks, an abstraction, too grand to take in.

  We flew ourselves drunk on that river. We actually crossed the banks three times, by cutting diagonally across the huge oxbow near Blytheville, Arkansas. At the first loop of the river we dove down low over the sandy edges and then ran flat out across the water. The wind rifled up the water into white-caps. We were amazed at the flotsam carried downstream by the flow. There were immense trees and logs grounded on the sand bars, their spoked roots and branches crowning out of the water, bearded with aquatic weeds and sand. At treetop level we crossed the swampy, piney land in the middle of the river and pointed the nose toward a tugboat pulling a string of barges around the muddy shoals of the oxbow. When we reached the tug, Kern drew sharply back with the stick and we pulled straight up. Just before we stalled he threw in all of his left aileron and rudder and we spilled over on our wingtip for a “hammerhead” turn, and then we screamed back down over the smoky stack of the tug, choking from the filmy diesel exhaust. A couple of crewmen came out and watched us from the stern rails and then the cook from the galley, who was wearing this ridiculous looking white chef’s hat, stuck his head out onto the deck and waved. Kern banked the wings right over their heads and we headed for the far shore. We were reluctant to leave the river behind but we were low on fuel and were forced to turn due west again, to drop down for the big macadam runway at Blytheville, Arkansas.

  Kern turned for the traffic pattern and pulled the throttle back to descend. As we dropped below the horizon of pines we both stared back at the river.

  “Rink, I can’t get over this. It’s two o’clock on our second day, and we’re across the Mississippi already.”

  For some crazyass reason that we never did figure out, there was a funeral director sitting in his Cadillac hearse in the airport parking lot, lethargically watching the student pilots taking off and landing in their shitwreck yellow Champs. He strolled over and chatted with the geezer while we fueled the plane. It was scorching hot here in Arkansas, but the undertaker wore a heavy, dark suit, a starched shirt and tie, and a black Stetson. He had the lugubrious but pleasant demeanor of all undertakers.

  I was hungry again but Kern didn’t mind. We were across the Mississippi already and it didn’t matter whether we flew another leg today or not. The funeral director offered to drive us into town for lunch and we all piled into the front seat of the hearse. He spoke in a deep southern drawl that we could hardly understand, prattling all the way into town about this and that, mostly the local industry and sights. It was hot in the front seat of the hearse and I was exhausted from flying, and my ears were still ringing from the throbbing engine of the plane. Halfway into town, lulled by the saccharine, indecipherable drawl of the funeral director, I fell asleep against the passenger-side door, which was an odd sensation, because I was in a hearse, and I felt like we’d flown hard all day just so I could die and go to heaven in Arkansas.

  One thing about the citizenry of Arkansas amazed us. They were obsessed with the Kennedys. Everybody kept telling us that we looked “jest like” the Kennedy brothers. The geezer at the airport had said it, and now, as he dropped us off in town, the funeral director said the same thing.

  “Lawd,” he said. “You boys es jest doubles for dose Ken’dee me
n. Know that pitcher of young Jack on his PT boat? Well, you thar, ya look jest like ’im.”

  The funeral director had elbowed Kern when he said that.

  “Hey Rink,” Kern said, stepping out of the hearse. “Do you think it’s true?”

  “What?”

  “Me. Looking like Jack Kennedy.”

  “Ah, Kern. Who gives a shit? Let’s eat.”

  The funeral director dropped us off at a cavernous, country-style cafe built underneath the bleachers of a horse track in Blytheville, which overflowed with a Sunday afternoon crowd. We were amazed at the gaudy hairdos and extravagant makeup of the waitresses, and how much fried chicken you could buy for a dollar in Arkansas. I couldn’t believe how they piled up the plates—people in Arkansas seemed to be world-class eaters. In addition to wonderfully flaky but moist Southern-fried chicken, we got collard greens cooked in ham bones, corn, okra, all kinds of jellies and sauces, mashed potatoes and noodles with gravy, homemade bread and pecan pie for desert.

  The waitresses kept coming by and refilling our iced tea glasses, whether we asked for it or not. And you couldn’t refuse either.

  “Mo? Sure, honey.”

  When they heard our accents, everyone in the cafe wanted to know where we were from.

  “Nu Jursa! Whoa, Nu Jursa! Hey evry’baddy, dese boys ’ere es all de way from Nu Jursa!”

  And the damn Kennedy thing. Arkansas was bonkers over the Kennedys. Everybody in the restaurant was just awed by this, our likeness to the Ken’dee brothers. They kept scratching their heads, looking at us, then hee-hawing with laughter about it. “Fer sur,” these boys from Nu Jursa were the spit’n image of Jack and little Bobby.

  It was the funniest “thang,” one of the waitresses said.

  “Evra dern Yanka I meet looks jes like them Ken’dees. I mean, dis one har, with dem big eyes? Gawd, ain’t he JFK? And you! Look at you with dat pur-fek kirly ’air. Ya’re Bobby! Jes a reglar little Bobby-socks, fer sur.”

  Kern enjoyed all the attention and broke out into smiles and blushed every time someone told him he looked like old Jack, which just made him look more like Jack.

  “See Rink?” Kern said. “Jack. Jack Kennedy. Everybody thinks I look just like JFK.”

  Myself, I didn’t mind being Bobby that much. I got used to it. All through Arkansas, and then down through Oklahoma and into east Texas, every time we landed, the Ken’dee routine started all over again. “You thar, golly-gee, she-it, ain’t that Jack tho? And Bobby! Jes look at that little Bobby, wil’ya?” Maybe they were pulling our legs, and every Yankee in penny loafers and paisley shirts got this treatment, but there was something about it that felt natural too. Not only because my father worked on the Kennedy campaigns, but because everyone seemed to be, we were obsessed with the Kennedys as children. We named horses and dogs after various members of the first clan and in the spring of 1961, after John Kennedy had been in office for a while, Kern and I rode up into town with pictures of the President in our pockets, so the barber could give us the same “Princeton” haircut that Jack wore. Growing up, we had always been painfully aware that we were considered odd as a family, this big, crazyass Irish brood that made a lot of noise and caused a commotion wherever we went. Also, we were Democrats in a strictly Republican voting district. Then the Kennedys came along and saved our social asses. Even the way my father drilled us with achievement and togetherness from dawn to dusk seemed legitimate for the times. Now that Kern and I were out in the country, doing something with ourselves, we practically expected to be taken for an imitation Bobby and Jack.

  Besides, everybody down south was fun-loving and hospitable, and I liked the bumptious, talkative atmosphere in the southern and western cafes. Indeed, it was practically nirvana down there, because the food was so outrageously inexpensive and good. In Arkansas, I discovered the most delectable method of preparing protein known to man, chicken-fried steak, and I ordered one almost every night after that. Give me one of those, with a hefty pile of okra and mashed potatoes on the side, and you can call me Bobby all you want.

  When we stepped out of the cafe, the funeral director had swung around with his hearse to run us back to the airport.

  At the airport, it was still quite hot, and we were too tired and woozy to fly. Arkansas, and in particular Arkansas food, was a drug that slowed us down. We found a large shade tree behind the operations shack, rolled out our sleeping bags, and slept off our lunch. When we woke, around six, the sun was low, the sky crystal clear, and a light breeze was freshening off the river. We felt revived, ready to fly again, greedy for more miles behind us.

  We propped the Cub, taxied down for the active runway, and pushed off southwest for the big Stearman strip at Brinkley that Hank had told us about. The pattern of our days was emerging. Every morning we took off at dawn and flew hard for seven or eight hours, broke at some little town for a late lunch and some sightseeing, and then raced the sun another 250 miles before we tied down for the night.

  We flew the oxbows of the Mississippi down to Osceola and found the rail line running southwest. I didn’t want to leave the river yet so I stowed the map and shook the stick, yelling forward to Kern.

  “Yo, Jack! Mind if I take the controls?”

  “It’s your airplane Bobby.”

  I curled down for the river holding lots of power, found a tug pulling a string of barges, and gave it a nice buzz job. Hammerheading up, I dive-bombed the pilot house a couple of times until the crew came out and waved.

  What a country it was, I thought, what a journey we were having. Hank in the morning, drawls and a hearse ride in the afternoon. It didn’t seem possible that such differences in terrain and speech could be contained in one day. The shadowy, desolate ravines of western Kentucky had separated morning from afternoon, warping distance and time. It felt as if we’d been gone for a year.

  So, lazy and content, feeling queerly detached, we dove down for one last sweep of the river. Then we picked up the rails and had a nice evening run over the monotonously flat and green pine barrens of central Arkansas. The forest seemed to stretch forever and there wasn’t anything to look at but the tracks. But a pink, gauzy sun was dropping low in the west, bathing our faces in warmth, and the air was still, and once more we could forget the hell earlier in the day and enjoy the luxury of flying into pastel light.

  CHAPTER 12

  The sky was dense with Stearmans when we got to Brinkley. It was a spectacularly clear evening and we could see far across the vast stands of pine. From several directions groups of battered, yellow cropdusters darted over the treetops as they returned from their evening runs. When the planes got close to the field they all dove for the runway at once, twisting and snarling around each other and landing in pods of two or three. It was a dogfight down there.

  Greenhorns that we were, we politely entered the pattern according to procedure, inserting ourselves into the maddening flow of planes from a downwind leg. While Kern was busy avoiding one flock of dusters, I was calling out traffic to the left and right, and then some lone yahoo in a big orange Stearman plowed down from over the top of us in a tight turn, practically inverted. We could feel the wash from his prop as he growled past our nose.

  So we powered up and went around the field and tried again. But it was useless. Biplanes kept cutting us off. Kern threw up his hands.

  “Forget it Rink! I’m just going to fly like these guys.”

  I was happy about it. I was drowsy from the long run over the pine barrens and had been fighting sleep for the last forty-five minutes. I hated nodding off in a plane like that. Now I was wide awake, with big monster biplanes growling all around us, trying to figure out this crazy Stearman strip called Brinkley. It looked exciting down there on the ground, with all those yellow biplanes crawling around like Caterpillar tractors and blowing dust back from their tails. This was our second night in a row at a Stearman strip and probably we’d have some fun here.

  Besides, I always liked it when my brother got annoyed li
ke that, declared himself, and took command of a situation. That was the brother I wanted and I knew, too, that he would give me a good spot of flying now.

  Kern shifted his shoulders, grit his teeth, firewalled, and cranked the Cub around 180 degrees. There was a mangy pair of Stearmans just below us, descending wing-to-wing for the runway. Kern kicked out his right rudder to the stop, cross-controlled very hard with the stick and plunged the nose forward, shuddering us in a steep diving slip down to the Stearmans. He parked our nose about 30 feet from the Stearman tails and walked the rudders vigorously to keep us there and fight their wash, and we followed their wake turbulence down to the ground.

  It was just bizarre, this Brinkley. Even as we were flaring and Kern was fighting the Cub to get it stalled in the prop-wake of those big Stearmans ahead of us, another yellow monster behind us stalled and bounced onto the strip, and the son of a bitch just rolled right for us without braking. If Kern hadn’t ruddered out of his way, the guy would have tractored right over us. This wasn’t an airport. It was the chariot-race in Ben-Hur.

  Brinkley was a hole. The carcasses of wrecked planes and abandoned engines, festooned with vines and weeds, lay in piles along the edges of the runway and the taxiways. Behind the main staging area for the duster crews ran a Tobacco Road of hangars and bunkhouses, all of it covered by the gray, putrid film of pesticide and dust. No one came out to direct us to an operations shack or gas pump, so we just followed the two planes ahead of us past the hangars. Meanwhile, more Stearmans were landing on the runway, backing up in a line behind us. The pilots raced their engines and waved their arms at us to move out of the way.