“Why does he want you to meet Kay?” I ask him, to clarify this last point.
“I don’t want to!” he says, using his outside voice.
I return to my paper and add an item:
Toby doesn’t want to meet Kay.
“There. I wrote it down. But why not?”
He starts kicking his feet against the chair legs. “I just don’t!”
“Okay, okay.” I rest my hand against his shins. “Anything else you can think of?”
He leaves the table and finds his bucket. He pulls out a toy plane. “This one isn’t the same as John Wahbuhson.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is the F-14. Tomcat.” He holds it up to me. “John Wahbuhson flew the F-105 fighter pwane. Thud.” He fishes around in his bucket again.
“Like our Thud?”
Toby goes to pet the dog while I amend one of the items on the list.
Toby likes John Robberson’s plane and identifies it as a F-105 fighter plane.
Toby knows his airplanes. Ever since the Boneyard, we’ve read the same mind-numbing book every night. It’s closer to an aviation encyclopedia than a bedtime story.
“Daddy will be home soon,” I say. “You go play now.” On the way to the laundry, I take a tiny detour into his bedroom. My heart thumps like Thud’s tail on the hardwood floor when I realize there is no F-105 mentioned anywhere in that book.
Eric, home from work, surprises me in the hallway. “What are you doing with his bedtime book?”
“There’s no F-105 in here,” I say, flipping the pages toward him.
“Okaaaay.” He takes the book from me and closes it. “And why do you find this omission upsetting?”
“Toby says it’s John Robberson’s plane. Our son has a toy F-105, but do you even know what an F-105 looks like?”
“No. Should I?”
“No. And neither should Toby. How can a three-year-old know something like the name of that plane?”
“He probably saw one at the museum. I don’t know.” He walks toward our bedroom.
But I know. Toby knows something, and there’s no way he could know it. I follow Eric into the bedroom. He pulls a T-shirt from his top drawer and turns toward me, bare chested. I can see the scar under his ribcage.
He says, “Why do you have to read so much into it?”
“Listen to this.” I read him my entire list. “What about the oatmeal cream pies?”
He sits down on the bed and pulls off his socks. “What about them? They’re a snack. Unhealthy, okay, but it’s not like his imaginary friend is telling him to drop a bomb on unsuspecting villagers.”
“Why does he keep talking about what John Robberson likes? Why would he do that?” I pick up the socks he dropped.
“For you. The more you ask him about John Robberson, the more he tells you about it. He’s humoring you. He knows you want to know.”
“What about Kay?” I ask, pointing to the list. “Every time I ask him about Kay, he freaks out. He’s not humoring me on that one, now is he?”
Eric rolls his eyes just as my cell phone rings in my pocket. I go to the study to take the call. It’s international, which means it’s Carla, which means it’s the middle of the night there, which means I should take this.
I’m now two life phases ahead of Carla, my college roommate. She’s single and took a consulting sales job right out of school, so she travels all the time and makes tons of money, and we have almost nothing in common anymore. Except that on bad days, we call each other and express how much we wish we could change places. She’s in London, sitting alone in her five-star hotel room in the middle of the night, her sleep pattern still stubbornly adhering to the wrong time zone. I’m relieved for the lack of crisis this time. Jet lag. I can deal with jet lag, especially if it’s not mine.
I tell her, “Someone told me that jet lag is the time it takes for your soul to catch up to your body.”
“How woo-woo of you.”
“Eric thinks I’m majoring in woo-woo right now.”
“What do you mean?”
I tell her about John Robberson. I hear Carla tapping keys as soon as I say “F-105.”
“There’s this book I read awhile back … here it is. It’s written by the parents of a little boy who was the reincarnation of a World War Two fighter pilot.”
“Why are they all fighter pilots?”
She laughs. “The kid had ungodly nightmares—like he was trapped in a burning airplane—and he kept talking about this guy by name. The mom believed it right away but the dad refused. Then he got obsessed with it and did all this research, and by the end of the book, they took the kid to the place where the plane crashed so the old soul could have some peace. And it went away and the kid forgot about it.”
“So much for the comforting idea of children with old souls.”
Carla says, “I know. I hear moms say things like that all the time, like it’s a good thing. Like it means they’re wise beyond their years. But, jeez, I think it would be awful if your kid really had an old soul—because it means he’s a reincarnation, right? And he’d be talking to dead people and obsessed with how the last guy died. Who wants their kid to remember somebody else’s death?”
I don’t answer, but she stops talking. I hear ice clink in her glass.
She asks, “Toby’s not obsessed, is he? Having nightmares?”
“No nightmares. But he plays this weird airplane game every day where all he does is crash. Breaks his leg ten times a day.”
“But he never dies, right? So it’s different.” She laughs. “At least you don’t have to take him to revisit a crash site.”
“And one more thing. He talks about someone named Kay. Not in a good way. Just keeps saying he doesn’t want to go see her. Evidently that’s what John Robberson wants him to do.”
“It’s so weird to hear you talk like he’s an actual person.”
“Well, technically, he’s not anymore,” I say, dejected. “At best, he’s a spirit with a body he left behind.”
“And how does that work, anyway?” Carla continues. “What’s the lag time between one soul departing and it landing in another body? Minutes? Years? Nanoseconds?”
I hear the chair squeak and realize I cannot stop shaking my right foot. “I’m serious. It’s freaking me out. I don’t want some lost soul working out his karma on my kid.”
She says, in a softer voice, “It’s a lot easier to just believe in good old heaven, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t until my mom died that I appreciated how comforting the concept of heaven is. I remember standing next to Pa at the funeral home. All their old friends repeated these platitudes so confidently that for his sake and mine, I wanted them all to be true: She was no longer in pain. She was in a better place. She would be there to greet Pa when it was his turn. She was watching over me and the baby.
What if they were wrong? What if her spirit, her soul, the very essence of her being had already moved on to someone else? The idea that my mother’s soul could shuck her old connections so easily is unsettling.
I couldn’t do it, just let my soul drift away. If I died right before my first grandbaby was born, I’d find a way to haunt Toby. Not in a mean way—I’d just want to see.
“What am I going to do?” I ask Carla.
“Um. Google.” When I don’t laugh, she says, “Start with the plane and go from there.” I hear her take a sip from her drink. “Come on, you’re slipping, girl. Do your work.”
As soon as I hang up, I find it:
Affectionately called “Thud” by its crews, the Thunderchief was the first supersonic tactical fighter-bomber developed from scratch rather than from an earlier design. The “D” model was the most widely used and produced version, with 610 built. The F-105 served throughout the Vietnam War, dropping thousands of tons of bombs on North Vietnamese targets. Thuds continued in U.S. Air Force service until the early 1980s, when they were retired from the Air National Guard.
/> I bookmark that page and hone my search, looking once again for John Robberson. This time, I try the Air Force website, but I get lost in the jargon. It feels like a maze that could take years to figure out. Finally, I find a site by an amateur Air Force historian that I realize is unofficial, but at least it’s clear. Bookmark. There were about eight hundred F-105s built; looks like 395 were lost in battle.
There’s a list. A freaking list! “F-105 PILOTS SHOT DOWN.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that. It’s crude, sure. It looks like a Word document. I can just picture some gruff old veteran spending hours on the phone, going to a million vet reunions, tracking all this down.
“Better him than me,” I say. “I don’t know who you are, buddy, but thank you.”
My heart is in my throat as I do a search for Robberson in the document. No result. I try again. Nope. I jump to the end. Total: 443 pilots. Okay. Back to the top. I try again, thinking maybe I made a typo. I alternate spellings—Roberson, Robertson—which returns several entries, but no John. I smile, remembering Toby’s insistence on “Wahbuhson.” Fully aware that I’m relying on the power of phonetics, I try Robberson again. Nothing. I scroll down the names, which aren’t in alphabetical order. Maybe chronological. Not all of them died. It has their status: POW, Rescued, KIA. Nothing. I’m sure it’s there. Maybe I missed something. Second time through, same result. I can’t believe it. Three times. Nothing.
John Robberson isn’t on the list.
I rub my eyes, which are burning. Funny how disappointed I am. I should be relieved. I keep scrolling and clicking until I find the asterisk next to the total count: 395. Crashes, not pilots. My leg starts bouncing.
Footnote: Only 334 Thuds were shot down. Operational issues accounted for 61 crashes. Those pilots aren’t on this list.
CHAPTER SEVEN
*
BACK TO THE BONEYARD
I won’t be around on Saturday,” Pa tells me over the phone. “I’m taking my lady friend to the Del Sol.” That’s the casino on the nearby reservation.
“Oh,” I say, and manage to compose myself enough to ask if I’ve met his lady friend.
“Her name’s Dottie.” He laughs. “She’s a pistol. Likes to play the slots till her palms turn black. You know me; I’d just as soon throw my money in the toilet and watch it go around in circles. I told her that, but she likes to sit there for six hours and win two dollars.”
The cell phone is heavy as a concrete brick in my hand. The thought of my father on a date … I shake my head and regroup.
“How about tomorrow? I’ll bring Toby; maybe we’ll drive down in the morning and back that same night. How does that sound to you?”
“Sounds like you have something on your mind.”
“Maybe we could go to the Boneyard? Toby is still talking about one of the planes there. Are you up for that?”
“Up and back same day?”
“Yeah. He really wants to show me this one plane.”
“That’s a lot of driving to humor a three-year-old.”
I hang up and send Eric a quick text, the best way to reach him at work.
Pa has a lady friend.
He answers back, within seconds, is she hot?
A pistol.
LOL. I can hear him now. Let the old goat live a little, Eric advises.
I tell Eric I’m taking Toby to see Pa at his trailer park the next day but leave out the part about the Boneyard. I’ll come clean on it once I have a chance to observe Toby. Maybe I’ll see John Robberson. Well, actually, I don’t expect to see him. I think Toby will see him. Or hear him. Or turn into him. Or something.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
At the flight museum, I ask Pa to take Toby to the restroom so I can interrogate the museum information clerk about the flight history of the F-105. She smiles. She wishes she could help. She offers me a map. She has a brochure. She even recites the museum’s website address, http and all.
When Pa and Toby return, we walk outside, instantly squinting in the bright sun. There’s almost no breeze to alleviate the heat.
“You should’ve brought your hat,” I say as I slip my arm into Pa’s.
“I don’t see no hat on your head,” he mutters.
I’m making a concerted effort to appear as though we are wandering, just taking in the airplanes, as far as Pa is concerned. I smile at his eyebrows creeping out above his sunglasses. He doesn’t care. Nothing looks good with those one-piece jumpsuits he wears. He must have one for every day of the week, in varying shades of neutral, all with a big zipper up the front. He calls it his retirement suit.
Just then, Toby takes off running toward a plane with a shark’s mouth painted on the front. I read the plaque. The F-105 Thunderchief. I speed-walk after him, leaving Pa behind with no explanation.
I can’t leave Toby unattended with John Robberson.
“There it is!” Toby darts underneath the plane to the opposite side. The planes are generously spaced, with no restraining barriers, so he can run back and forth.
There’s no museum security guard around, so I let Toby explore. He looks up to take in the shark’s teeth and the long black nose. He peeks underneath the fuselage and touches the blue bomb casings strapped below. I see his pudgy hands on the metal casing that once held a bomb.
He is not talking or laughing or crying. I wait, without a word. A bead of sweat rolls down my hairline. After what seems like an hour but is probably three minutes, Toby comes to a stop, mesmerized.
My boy is standing stock-still in his little high-top basketball shoes, his feet wide apart, his legs still kind of knock-kneed. He has his head cocked, with the expression of an inquisitive dog. Even his arms aren’t moving. They’re hanging there, next to his body. I don’t ever think I’ve seen him stand and not be moving in some way—twisting his torso, swinging his arms, shuffling his feet, wagging his head. I’ve never seen him so completely absorbed.
Is he in a trance? Is he seeing John Robberson right now? I can’t tell. The longer he stands there, the harder it is for me to watch. I’m trying to stare at the invisible, and it’s not working.
Because it’s not visual. It’s auditory. I strain to eavesdrop on the possibility of a whisper, eyes vigilantly scanning to find the source. Nothing.
Out of nowhere, I feel a breeze, as if someone just turned on a fan. It gives me goose bumps, even though the sun is hot on my forearms.
Toby still hasn’t moved a muscle. How long can he stay like this? I’m holding my breath. I feel a rock under my left heel and try to move my foot without making a sound.
“What’s he doing?” asks Pa in a loud voice, breaking the spell.
Toby runs over to show him the bombs. I follow them, deflated. If there was a moment, it has passed.
“Okay, what was that all about?” Pa asks when we get back to his trailer.
I start at the beginning and, to his credit, he doesn’t laugh at me. But it’s obvious he doesn’t believe one word of it. Pa sits in his recliner taking it all in as I ramble on, not fully considering the ramifications of my words or their impact on my father.
I lean back on the sofa and conclude, probably too flippantly, “I think we really don’t know what happens to people after they die. Who knows? They could come back, right?”
He pushes the footrest down to sit upright in his chair.
“Baby girl, I miss your momma more than you do. But she ain’t coming back. Her spirit ain’t floating around somewhere looking for a little kid to fly into.”
“What? I wasn’t talking about Mom.”
“Is that right?” He rocks back in his chair.
“Oh, Pa. I didn’t mean—” I try to explain, and he waves his hand dismissively at me.
I hate that gesture. This is getting old, all these men in my life not taking me seriously. I take a deep breath and see him rub his eyes.
I know. He misses her. “Can I get you something to drink?” I ask.
He shakes his head as I escape to the
kitchen.
I miss her too, but my memories are more convoluted. I can’t help feeling that we could’ve found a whole new way to relate if we’d had more time. I would love to talk to her about John Robberson. I have no idea what she’d say. Now that I’m a mother, I want a do-over with mine. I turn on the faucet so Pa can’t hear me sniffling.
In the car on the way home, the late afternoon sun makes me squint, so I reach for my sunglasses. I look into the rearview mirror in time to catch Toby crossing his eyes to focus on the tiny hook of a straw coming out of the juice box.
“So, Toby. Was your friend John Robberson there by the Thud?”
“No.”
“He wasn’t? It looked like you were—”
“No!” He throws his juice box on the floorboard and starts crying. I pull into the first gas station I see, and we stay there until he settles down. Once we get back on the road, I leave the radio off and he falls asleep.
I take a shower as soon as we get home, and Eric not only plays with Toby, he makes dinner, which is a nice break. Toby is in a much better mood by the time dinner is ready. Eric asks how it went with Pa.
“It was great, wasn’t it, Toby? Pa took us to the flight museum. I thought maybe Toby could show me what he saw last time.” Before Eric can react, I say, “Tell Daddy what you saw.”
Toby’s eyes light up. “Thud.”
Eric says, “Sure, I remember that plane. The one with the shark mouth, right?”
Toby smiles at his dad. Baby teeth.
I say, in that bright voice adults use when they are actually talking to the children in earshot, “Toby ran right to the F-105 and stayed there, completely still, for a long time. He didn’t even move. For a long time. Several minutes. He knew right where to go. I had to read the sign. F-105. Thunderchief.”
“John Wahbuhson says Thud.”
Eric gives Toby a fist bump. “That’s right.”
I drop the bright, fake tone and try to get the answer I couldn’t get in the car. “Toby, what made you stand so still? Next to the Thud?”
Toby doesn’t respond.
“Did you hear anything? Like the last time you were there?” I try to keep my voice light. “How about your buddy John Robberson? Was he there by his plane today?”
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