Jay Lake - Rocket Science

“I thank you kindly, Corporal Bellamy,” said Odus, “but what’s the real story here? You’ve never stood an old man a drink before. Why start now?”

Floyd leaned over the table with a look on his face like he was going to share the Secret of Life. “Business confidentiality, Mr. Milliken. Commerce in all its glory, bringing jobs and money to Augusta.”

Odus drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “Floyd, it’s none of my business what people do or don’t bring in here from Kansas City or Chicago or Baltimore. Heck, London or Hong Kong don’t make me no never mind. But I saw you drive a Nazi war machine off that flat car Floyd Bellamy, me and half the town. That ain’t business, that’s plum weird . What the hell are you up to?”

I was pretty interested in Floyd’s answer to the question.

“Business, Odus, is about getting ahead of the other guy. Santa Fe Railroad’s going diesel, right? Tell me, why is that?”

Odus shrugged. “Don’t know the details, ain’t my job, but it’s about cost I reckon. Steam locomotive’s expensive to operate and maintain. I hear one man can run two, three diesels together. Try that trick with steam, you’re like to wind up in the ditch with thirty tons of scrap metal parked on your forehead, right quick.”

“Cost.” Floyd ticked his points off on his fingers. “Efficiency. Quality. Same reasons we won the war. We could do it better, faster and cheaper than anyone else.”

He glanced around the room, made a show of checking for eavesdroppers. The conversation paused while Midge brought our suds. Floyd got another wink. She never even looked at me. “I’d never be one to give aid and comfort to an enemy, but Odus, you’ve got to know the Jerries had some great technology. German optics, chemicals, color dyes, fertilizers, machine tools — best in the world before the war. Heck, they’d still be the best at that kind of stuff today if those bombers Vern built hadn’t flattened them.”

My B-29s only flew in the Pacific theater, which Floyd knew perfectly well, but this was his spiel.

“Maybe you have that right,” Odus answered grudgingly, “but it feels darned weird to be talking up the enemy.”

“They’re not the enemy any more,” Floyd whispered fiercely. “Those are our boys now. If General Patton had had his way, we’d be fighting side by side with the Jerries against the Red Menace already.” He sat back in his seat and took a long pull off his mug. “No reason in the world some hard-working American boys can’t make money off some of Jerry’s good ideas.”

“I ain’t giving you no money,” said Odus automatically.

Floyd waved his hands, as if pushing Odus away. “No, no, Odus, you misunderstand me. I don’t want your money. I just want to keep a lid on things for a while — maybe four, six months.”

“Lid?” Odus sipped his drink. I toyed with mine, then shucked a couple of peanuts from the little ceramic bowl.

Floyd gave Odus a narrow-eyed stare. “You see that halftrack I pulled off the train?”

Odus chuckled. “Of course.”

“It wasn’t no halftrack.”

Odus’ chuckle turned into a laugh. “Floyd Bellamy, if you’re going to flim-flam me, you’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”

“No, Odus, it had wheels and treads. That’s not what I mean. But that funny little housing on the back? It was a mobile fertilizer plant. High-yield fertilizer straight from bunker-grade crude. Nazis had to develop that stuff to survive near the end of the war when we had ’em cut off from overseas shipments and on the run.”

Odus gave a low whistle. I was pretty impressed myself — Floyd must have worked on that routine for a while.

“Anyway,” Floyd continued, “Vernon here’s an engineer. Me and him are going to break down that equipment, reproduce the process, and make Augusta, Kansas the fertilizer capital of the world. And we only need one thing to do it.”

“What?” After that last bout of resistance, Odus was completely under Floyd’s spell. I figured Floyd could get money from him now if he had a mind to.

Floyd reached across the table to touch Odus’ lips. “Your silence,” he said.

Odus sipped from his beer and thought that over. He glanced around the bar at the oil-stained roughnecks. I could almost see him thinking about all the wells in eastern Kansas, the business it would bring to the railroad, wondering where the plant would be built. I’ve got to give Odus credit — he held back.

“I’ll make sure the boys keep their mouths shut,” Odus finally said. “I’ll put out the word it was European farm machinery.”

Floyd clapped him on the shoulder. “Odus, we’ll all be famous someday, because of the wisdom of men like you.”

If I had half Floyd’s gift of gab, I’d be a wealthy man. Somehow on the way out the door, he convinced me to keep the tractor and drive it back to the farm the next day.

Early that morning — it was a Friday — I drove my Hudson the thirty mile round trip into Wichita and borrowed some tools from work, including a magnifying glass and a set of measuring calipers. I was extremely curious about the manufacturing history of the airplane we had hidden in Floyd’s barn. When I got back to Augusta, I parked down by the railroad depot and got on the Farm-All. My knees would be sore by the time I got to the Bellamy place, but Floyd could darn well give me a ride home in his dad’s pickup.

When I came sputtering up their drive into the yard of the farmhouse, Floyd and Mrs. Bellamy were sitting on the front porch in the deep shade of the giant wisteria that grew on the front of their house. From the parlor, you couldn’t even see outside, just a dark jumble of sticks and leaves. I killed the Farm-All out by the oak tree and walked up to join them. I was covered with mud and sweat.

“Vernon, you really should take more care of yourself,” Floyd’s mother said.

“Good morning, Mrs. Bellamy.”

“I’ll fetch you some apple cider.” She swished inside, under way with the same slow determination as a Mississippi barge.

Floyd stretched his arms upward, rolling his neck to clear a crick. “Have a nice night?”

“Went home, listened to the radio.”

“I really appreciate you taking care of the tractor. I had to catch up with Mary Ann.”

“Without your mattress in the truck?”

“Vern,” Floyd hissed. “Mama’s right in the house.” He grinned. “Besides, there’s other places and ways.”

And women , I thought, remembering the waitress laying that big old kiss on Floyd in the State Street Lounge. I’d never know, at least not until I was married. If.

Mrs. Bellamy came back on to the porch, rescuing me from my thoughts. “Floyd tells me you boys have a special project going in the barn.”

I glanced at Floyd. “I was wondering when he was going to let you in on our little efforts.”

She handed me an apple cider, then sat on the glider. It hung on rusted chains from the wasp-blue porch ceiling, which was why I had taken one of the shell-back metal chairs. I was too much the engineer to trust those old chains and their hidden mounting.

“I don’t hold with airplanes, Vernon Dunham,” she said. “I know its what you do for a living and all, but they are the work of Satan.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, ma’am.” I’d gotten this lecture when she found out what I was studying in college, and gotten it again when I went to work at Boeing. I’d never had the heart to tell Mrs. Bellamy that I was a licensed pilot.

“If God had meant man to fly,” she went on, “he’d have given us brains like the birds.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am.” I couldn’t work out if that meant only the stupid should fly, or the fearless, or the natural aviators. It didn’t matter — the general tone of her opinions was quite clear.