Frank had readied me for my new future.
During this time, we got to really know each other, talking for hours about the most mundane subjects or sometimes not talking at all, a comfortable silence between us. I respected his wisdom and experience, and he respected my intelligence.
Late one afternoon, we sat drinking a beer on the wrap-around porch after completing some work on the plane.
“Hey, do you want to see something neat?” Frank asked as he stood and walked through the front door of the farmhouse. I got up and followed him in, my curiosity piqued.
I had never actually been inside the house before; we spent all of our time in the barn. The kitchen had a few sparse furnishings left, covered in dust. The old appliances looked like they were from the fifties. We walked into the living room, and I noticed an upright piano sitting against the wall, its keys yellowed with age. Next to it was a door with a black latch. Frank opened it, revealing a creaky staircase leading down into a dirt-floored cellar, the perfect breeding ground for giant spiders. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and descended the stairs. I reluctantly followed him down, sure that at any moment I would feel the thump of a large, hairy arachnid falling into my hair.
He crossed the low-ceilinged basement to the west side of the house, facing the barn. A damp musty smell enveloped my nostrils, squeezing a sneeze from me. Against the wall lay an empty bookcase with rotten planks.
“Right over here, behind the bookcase.” He pushed the front of the shelf until it clicked and swung open to reveal a dark cave beyond. “It’s a secret passage that leads to the barn.”
My eyes opened wide in amazement as I examined this interesting piece of architecture.
“Is it an Underground Railroad stop?” I asked, hoping to hear the history of the hiding place, all thoughts of creepy spiders dissolving with the new discovery. I could imagine runaway slaves hiding in there, terrified to be found, but happy that their journey was soon to end as they crossed the border into freedom.
“No, it wasn’t put in until the twenties. It was a moonshine route, used to hide whiskey smuggled down from Canada.”
“Can we go through?” I asked.
“Sure.” He led the way, lighting the stone-lined passage with the tiny beam of light. Moisture condensed and dripped from the granite blocks that made up the walls. The middle widened enough to hold about three casks across at the widest point with a path left for a person to walk all the way through.
At the end of the tunnel, a stone staircase led up to a trap door. It came out in the goat pen in the barn. When we emerged into the bright afternoon light, I turned to Frank.
“That is wicked cool!”
“I thought you’d get a kick out of it.” He beamed back at me, pleased at my reaction.
We cleaned up and headed home to Burlington. As we chatted in the car, my thoughts kept wandering back to that tunnel. It felt like it was linked to me, like the smugglers from the past were reaching out to me, a sign that I had found my way in the world.
4.
“We’ve got a small job to do,” Frank said. “These are the coordinates. Type them into the GPS and save them.”
“Okay.” I entered the coordinates into the new GPS I bought a few days before and turned back to Frank, curious to see what kind of work I’d be doing. “What do I need the GPS for? Are we flying?”
“Yes, we are flying. Actually, you’ll be flying.”
“Really?” A mix of excitement and anxiety coursed through my veins. I hadn’t flown in the ultralight yet, never mind actually piloting the aircraft myself.
“You’ve got to learn sometime,” he said and shrugged, as if it were as easy as riding a bicycle. “Plus, there’s someone you have to meet.”
When we got to the farmhouse, we pulled the plane out of the barn and onto the field. I sat down in the pilot’s seat and strapped myself in. Frank sat next to me and explained exactly what I needed to do, from the foot pedals on the floor to the switches on the ceiling. I understood the mechanics of the engine and the physics of flight but doing is different from knowing. I was more nervous than I cared to admit.
Frank took a pair of headphones from a hook on the ceiling and handed them to me. They looked like the old 70s stereo kind, big and chunky. Their bulk, however, was not just to ease communications, but to block out the loud roar of the engine. I slipped them on and positioned the microphone in front of my mouth. He placed his own over his ears.
“Testing. Can you hear me?” Frank’s voice boomed in my head.
I nodded.
“Say yes, Ellie. I won’t know if mine are working if you just nod.”
I laughed, hearing my own voice picked up on the microphone and echoing in my ears. “Yes, Frank, I hear you, loud and clear.”
“Good.” He winked at me. “Ready?”
As we taxied down the grass runway, Papy Volant took to the air with ease, lifting above the field faster than I expected. Frank put his hand over the steering arm to guide me, but he let me do the work.
“Bring it up to 900 meters,” he said, tapping the altimeter. I pulled back on the controls and let the plane rise even higher.
A crosswind hit the ultralight and the whole plane jumped in the air like a stone skipped across a pond. My stomach jumped with it. I gasped, caught off guard by the movement, and let go of the stick.
“Don’t let go,” Frank said and took my hand, placing it back where it needed to be. “It gets a little bumpy but you just have to keep it steady. That’s normal. You’ll get used to it.”
Frank was patient with me. He made piloting seem like such an easy task that I caught on quickly and my confidence grew. I loved the sensation of flight. There was a freedom in the sky that I couldn’t get enough of.
“Why don’t you fly anymore?” I asked. The plane had been left in the barn for a long time. It was such a profitable tool I couldn’t imagine why he would just abandon it like that.
“My back can’t take these seats for long. It’s too uncomfortable.” He shifted as he said it, and I remembered how Frank couldn’t sit anywhere for long. He had serious back problems and the plane could definitely set it off.
We approached the coordinates, and, with Frank’s help, I landed Papy Volant smoothly in a hayfield in Henryville, not too far over the Canadian border. As I cut the engine, Frank pushed himself painfully out of the passenger seat, stretched his spine with an audible pop, and lit a cigarette.
“That was awesome, Frank!” I declared, pumping my fist in the air as if I had just won gold medal in the Olympics. “I can’t wait to go again!”
He laughed. “I’m glad you liked it. Come on, we’ve got business to conduct.”
A man who had been watching us from the edge of the field ambled toward us. He looked older than Frank, but moved with a remarkable agility despite his large belly.
“Ellie, I’d like you to meet Laurent. Laurent, this is Ellie.”
“Hi,” I said.
Laurent examined me, dissecting my every inch with his baggy brown eyes. Then, without responding to my greeting, he turned back to Frank.
“She is a little young for you, no? She will give you,” the French Canadian thumped his fist against his chest like a heartbeat, then clutched it with a painful grimace, “une crise cardiac.” His heavy French accent rolled his R’s and bounced his words in Franco rhythms.
Frank clicked his tongue in disgust. “I’m not banging her, Laurent.”
“No?” Laurent’s eyes moved back to me with dawning realization and his expression changed from disapproval to annoyance. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you found another one.”
He waved his hands in dismissal at us and started to walk toward his car.
I looked up at Frank. “What’s he talking about?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, giving me a little squeeze. “He’s just being an asshole.”
Laurent turned and called over his shoulder. “You coming? I
don’t got all day.”
We rode to Laurent’s house in his beat-up Chevy van. He lived in a brown ranch in a cozy residential area of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, about fifteen minutes from the field and 45 minutes outside of Montreal.
Laurent parked the van in the garage, and we entered the house through the side door. I found myself in his 1970’s style kitchen, the flowered wallpaper looking as if it had seen better days, the avocado appliances sitting unused since he bought the place. I asked to use the bathroom. He nodded toward the hallway and muttered something like, “Don’t fall in.” Coming from him, I think that was a pleasantry.
When I came out of the bathroom, I overheard them talking in the kitchen. I stood just outside of the room, listening in.
“I don’t know where you keep finding these fuck-ups,” Laurent grumbled.
“Don’t call them that. That’s just . . . mean.”
“You take in more strays than the Humane Society.”
“Being strays doesn’t make them fuck-ups.”
“No,” Laurent said as if he agreed, but then quickly added, “Being sent to jail does.”
“Hey!” Frank said, his voice defensive. “He took the rap for that entire thing! And you better be goddamn thankful, too, or you’d be in there with him.”
I felt a little guilty eavesdropping, but I wanted to hear more of this story, so I sauntered into the kitchen as if I hadn’t heard anything. They both stopped talking at once.
Frank smiled at me, quickly covering the look he’d been giving Laurent. “Okay, Ellie, it’s time for us to do a little business then we’ll be on our way.”
“What do we have to do?” I asked, having no idea what our business would entail. I was disappointed he had changed the subject but I knew it was no use trying to pry something out of him that he didn’t want me to hear.
“Well, this time, it’s easy. All we have to do is take this envelope.” He took a regular letter-sized envelope from the inside pocket of his coat. “And trade it with one that Laurent has.” He handed the envelope over and took the large manila one that Laurent held. “That’s it.”
“What’s in the envelope?”
“Don’t ask questions like that. It is rude,” Laurent said.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
Our business concluded, Laurent drove us back to the field, and we took off. I pointed the nose south, and we headed back toward our own little corner of the world.
“I don’t think he likes me,” I said when we had reached cruising altitude.
“Don’t take it personally, hon. He doesn’t like anyone. I’ve been friends with him for years. He’s always been a crabby bastard.”
“Then why are you friends with him?”
“Because he’s the only one who has the balls to say things out loud. He sees the negative in everything and can point out where things have the potential to go wrong.”
“Oh. I guess that’s a good thing.”
I wasn’t sure that was a good thing to base a friendship on, but who am I to judge? It seemed to work out for them.
5.
Technically, it was against regulations to fly an ultralight at night. But, almost everything I did was against some rule or regulation. And nighttime was when most of the action happened. I had gotten really good at blind navigation using a handheld GPS.
The moonless sky made it difficult to see where I was going, but the check point was already set up with a line of flashlights guiding me where to touch down, just like British spies landing in France during World War II.
I’d been flying for almost a year, smuggling small parcels between the US and Canada. Frank came to see me one morning and asked me to do another job. It was a simple delivery run. I needed to pick up a package from Laurent’s field and bring it across the United States border to the farmhouse where someone would be waiting for it. Despite my inquisitive nature, I didn’t ask what it was. After Laurent had chastised me, I never asked another question about my clients or the goods they wanted transported.
I shut down the plane and jumped out of the cockpit. Three men waited next to a dark sedan parked nearby. One guy leaned against the back, disinterestedly picking his nails and ignoring my presence. The other two stepped forward as I approached.
“You Ellie?” the first one asked. His eyes protruded from his flat face like a pug.
“Yes,” I answered. No, you dumb fuck. I’m the other woman landing a plane in this particular field at 11:30 at night. My sarcasm usually only played out in my head; I’m always polite on the surface.
“This is Max. He’s your package.” He indicated the other man standing behind him.
Surprised, I looked my cargo up and down, appraising him. He was mid-twenties, tall, and broad shouldered, a cute, outdoorsy type with rugged features and a sharp, stubble-covered jawline. His short but unruly brown hair stood up in all directions as if he’d been anxiously running his hands through it. He smiled at me, friendlier than his homely companion, and said, “Hello.”
“Hi. Hop in,” I said and nodded toward the plane, returning his smile with one of my own.
I got in, flipped on the overhead light, and started checking gauges, moving levers and switches, setting my GPS for home. He hesitated then folded his tall frame into the small cockpit. He wiggled around to get comfortable, his knees pushed all the way up to the dashboard, his head almost touching the ceiling, and tried to strap himself in. He couldn’t figure out the buckles on the shoulder harness.
“Here, like this.” I leaned over, adjusted them, then snapped them in place. I looked up, our faces only inches apart, and our eyes met. For the first time, I could see their green color, like sunlight reflected through summer leaves. I was frozen in his headlights.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You’ll need these, too.” I handed him the pair of headphones and watched as he slid them over his head.
Again, he said, “Thanks.”
“No problem,” I answered as I realized I was still practically in his lap. I blinked, then sat back down in my seat, clicked off the overhead light to cover the blush I could feel creeping up my cheeks, buckled my own seatbelt, and turned the engine over.
He fidgeted, pulling at his clothes, touching his hair, moving the knapsack he carried from his lap to the floor, then back again. His agitated energy thrummed throughout the cockpit.
“Are you nervous?” I asked.
“Oh, I always get nervous around pretty girls.” He smiled at me, and I knew he was lying. Max wasn’t the kind of guy to get nervous around girls, pretty or not.
“Don’t worry. I’m a good pilot,” I said, hoping to reassure him. He cocked an eyebrow at me and laughed.
“I trust you,” he said as he adjusted his seatbelt again, pulling the straps tighter across his chest.
“You know, the guy who used to own this crashed it twice and walked away both times,” I told him, thinking he would feel better if he knew a crash wasn’t necessarily fatal.
“That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that it’ll stay in the air,” he answered.
“You could survive even if the engine conked out. It glides. Sort of.”
“Good to know.” He smiled weakly at me then turned toward the front, biting his lip and tugging at the front of his hair.
I taxied down the field and pulled the plane into the air. Peeking at him out of the corner of my eye, I could see his eyes were squeezed shut and he was holding onto the seat like a five-year-old on a roller coaster. When I leveled off, I decided to engage him in conversation to alleviate his fear.
“So, where are you from?” I asked.
“New Brunswick.”
“You’re Canadian?”
“Yes.”
“Anglophone or Francophone?” New Brunswick was a bilingual province, in fact the only one that was officially bilingual. I didn’t hear any hint of a French accent, but that didn’t mean anything.
“Anglophone.”
“This is the first tim
e I’ve brought a human across. Usually it’s stuff.” Stuff? My vocabulary was suffering in his presence.
“Oh.”
“You know Frank?”
“Yes.” Of course he knew Frank. Frank arranged this flight.
I wasn’t good at getting people to open up, and the conversation wasn’t going anywhere. He sat perfectly still, the color drained from his face, his breath coming in small bursts, almost hyperventilating. He needed to relax and think about something else. I hit him with the most unexpected question I could come up with.
“So, what’s your favorite sex position?” I wasn’t shy about sex and often found it amusing to watch people as something lewd and bawdy came out of my innocent-looking mouth.
“What?” His eyes went wide as he looked over at me.
“Your favorite sex position?”
He actually smiled, forgetting the distance to the ground. “That’s a new one. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that on a plane before.”
“Well?”
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on my mood or the situation or who I’m with.” He paused. “What about you?”
I smiled. “Any one I’m in!”
My tactic worked, and the tension started to ease from his body as he laughed at my answer.
“Okay. If we’re going to have this kind of conversation, I have a question for you.” He grinned then posed his question. “If you could have sex with any celebrity in the world, who would it be?”
“Johnny Depp.” I didn’t have to think too hard about that one.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. Who would you pick?”
He thought about it for a moment then said, “Charlize Theron.”
I was disappointed he was into the tall blonde bombshells instead of petite brunettes. Then it occurred to me that he might be offended by my response. He looked nothing like Johnny Depp, although he was just as attractive.
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