Ken Douglas - Dead Ringer

“Here we go, boy.” He taxied onto the runway, turned into position, stomped on the brakes, pulled out the throttle, let the revs climb. Feet off the brakes and the plane started down the mile long runway, Horace keeping it on the center line.

A fly flew into his mouth, down his throat.

He gagged. Revulsion rippled through him as he choked air up from his gut, trying to get it out. Another fly in his eyes. Fuck. He pulled a hand from the controls, swatted it, smacking himself in the face.

“Watch the center line, 27 Yankee.” The voice from the tower jolted Horace. He’d almost revolted himself off the runway. He swallowed the fly and eased the plane back to the centerline.

A quick look at the wind speed gauge. Fifty miles an hour. He’d almost really fucked up.

“You okay, 27 Yankee?”

Horace grabbed the mike, thumbed the talk button. “Swallowed a fly. I got it together now.”

“Yuck,” the tower said. Then, “You have a nice day, 27 Yankee.”

“You too.” Horace hung up the mike. Speed 70 MPH. He started his takeoff roll, felt the thrill as he did every time the wheels left the ground. At two hundred feet he eased off some of the back pressure on the yoke. He preferred a flatter climb than most. He loved looking out, watching the houses, yards and pools gradually shrink in size. In the plane he was like a kid.

Virgil loved the takeoffs, too. He’d get all excited, pointing out places he knew, the Taco Bell, the car wash, the graveyard by Signal Hill where they’d buried their dad. For Virgil, Dad’s ghost haunted that hallowed ground. Twice, sometimes three times a week he’d take his brother to Dad’s tombstone. Not anymore. Horace would never go there again.

He banked left over Long Beach Harbor, climbed up to five thousand. Over Huntington Beach, he banked right and headed out over the ocean. A slight detour before heading out toward Catalina and as usual a slight shiver shimmied up his back. It happened every time he flew over the water. Blue sea below, white clouds above, but he wasn’t worried about the weather, as the visibility ahead seemed endless.

The weather was the least of his worries. He was flying with a dead man as co-pilot. He grabbed another look at his brother, who believed in ghosts. Horace didn’t suffer that affliction. When you were dead, the light went out. That was it. Nothing, just nothing. No god like Ma said. No ghosts like Virge believed. It was over. Just plain over.

Still, he had to struggle with his nerves when he reached over Virgil’s stiff body and fished around in the pouch on the passenger door. Virge kept a lot of junk in there-cookies, comic books, his juggling balls. Virgil had been slow in the head, but he was agile of body. On more than one occasion Horace had to yell at him to stop the juggling when they were on final. Imagine trying to land a plane with them balls flying around the cockpit. Fingers moving through the crap, Horace found a CD. Music was necessary, Virgil wasn’t going out to the drone of a prop.

He shoved the disc into the player. Bruce Springsteen filled the cockpit. “Born in the USA.” Horace screamed along with the Boss. Virgil loved that song. Horace hit the repeat button. It would play for him for the duration of his last ride.

Billowy cumulus clouds loomed ahead. Shit, where’d they come from? Horace wasn’t instrument rated, but it looked like he could skirt them. He made a slight turn to the right. More clouds. “Born in the USA,” Horace ranted as he climbed to avoid them. Turbulence shook the plane, cloud vapor wisped by, cotton trails blurring his sight. Then he was up and over, still climbing, still banking right. More ahead, darker, grey. Storm or squall, Horace didn’t know, didn’t care. He just wanted to get over it.

Dancing around clouds was something he enjoyed, was good at. More turbulence, there was plenty of rain in them. Still in the right bank, he saw a hole and climbed up through it and found Heaven. Blue sky above, rolling white cotton below. He hung in the air as if suspended by the hand of the god he didn’t believe in.

A quick look at the altimeter, Eighty-five hundred feet. He’d climbed farther than he’d thought. There was a cloud bank ahead. More Cumulus fluff. He checked the oil pressure, the compass, the radios, the VOR needles. Off course, but he knew that.

He was cold. The sweat under his arms, chilly rivulets dripping under his shirt. His teeth chattered. “Born in the USA.” He leaned over the body, pulled off the harness and seatbelt. He unlatched the door. Still leaning, he pushed on the body’s shoulder with the palm of his hand. Virgil tumbled sideways, half in the plane, half out. The plane went into a downward right turn, the open door acting like flaps.

It was the rigor. Virgil had dropped onto his right side. His body from the waist up was outside the plane, but his legs were still bent, like he was sitting. He couldn’t fit through the doorway.

Horace pulled the wheel to the left, countering the drag on the right. He checked the altimeter, he was losing altitude. The cumulus in front didn’t seem so innocent now. The sweat under his arms seemed frozen. Icicles stabbed his heart.

He pulled back on the wheel, added power, slowed the descent and grit his teeth as the plane slipped into the soup. He was flying blind, still losing altitude. The stall warning sounded, buzzing loud. He pushed the nose downward to avoid the stall. He had to get the body back in the plane.

With his left hand on the controls he stretched, grabbed onto an arm and tried to pull it back in. No joy, it was stuck in place, and the altimeter said he was dropping at two-hundred and fifty feet a minute. He had to get Virgil gone.

He pulled off his harness and seatbelt. More cold sweat. He took his feet off the rudder pedals and the plane turned more to the right. He spun around in the seat. Using the door on his side as a back brace, he pulled his feet up onto the seat, planted them on Virgil’s ass and pushed.

Nothing. Virge was wedged in. Back solid against the door on his side, Horace tucked his legs to his chest, then lashed out, slamming his feet into his brother’s rear end. Movement. Some. It was gonna work. He pulled his knees back again, slammed them into Virgil’s rear again and Virge moved a little more, but he was still stuffed tight in the doorway.

Breathing hard, head spinning, fighting panic, Horace pulled his knees to his chest, grabbed a great breath, heaved it out, screaming like a kung-fu fighter as he hammered his feet into Virgil’s rump.

Virgil popped out of the plane like a Champagne cork, pulling the bricks after himself as he disappeared into the clouds. “Born in the USA.” And Horace slid after, his feet dangling out of the plane. He spun around, hands flaying for something to grab onto. Frantic fingers found the seatbelt. He grabbed onto it. The plane was in a spiraling descent now, any second it was going to go into a spin.

Horace felt his hands slipping from the strap, but a quick vision of an uncontrolled plunge into to the water below gave him the extra strength he needed to pull himself up toward the seat. He grabbed onto it, pulled more, got his legs out of the sky and into the plane. He grabbed onto the wheel, turned it to the left as he struggled into place. Panting, he got a foot onto the left rudder peddle as he pulled on the seatbelt.

“Holy shit,” he muttered over and over as he tried to find the right combination of rudder and aileron to take him out of the turn. If he wasn’t careful, he’d pull the wings off the plane. He eased back on the wheel, sweat dripping from his forehead into his eyes. He blinked it away. He was still going down, still in the soup, still blind, but he was out of the rotation.

He reached over, latched the door, checked the level control. He’d done some flight time under the hood, all he had to do was concentrate. He could get out of this. He could.