Jim Shepard - Flights

Biddy looked from the TV to the rain outside. “Sure.”

“You can’t and watch TV at the same time.”

“Yes, I can. Go ahead.”

Kristi turned on the overhead light. “‘In my class I have a girl named Interruping Libby. She always interrups reading groups.’”

“How did you spell ‘interrupts’?”

“I-n-t-e-r-r-u-p-s.”

“That’s wrong. There’s a ‘t’ at the end, too: p-t-s.”

“‘Sometimes she even interrupts our silent period. I really do not like her. When my teacher is talking she says I want to talk to you so talk to me and not to her. Interrupting Libby always interrupts. People do not do that to her. My mother got fed up with her and sent my father to see her. He said she better stop that people are going to start hitting her in the mouth. So she didn’t interrupt anymore.’”

“You made that last part up,” he said.

“You like it?”

“It’s better than your other one.”

“I like it.”

The back door opened. “ From the beat, beat, beat, of the tomtoms ,” his father sang. Biddy and Kristi went into the kitchen. Their father was dripping with rain, setting packages along the counter in a row.

“Did a little shopping,” he said. “Got a little liquor, got a little mixer, got some rolls. You want a sandwich?”

Biddy said no and Kristi returned to the TV.

“Oh, and got a little this.” He handed a package to Biddy, who felt immediately the heft and shape of a big book.

“What is it?” he said.

His father shrugged. “Have to open it.”

He tore at the wrapping, and underneath it said in big red letters The Lore of Flight.

“God,” he said. “How’d you know I wanted it?”

“Well, you asked me questions about Bill Carver’s plane until I thought I’d drop. This’s got all that stuff in there.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Never mind where I got it.” He opened it. “See? It’s got ‘Flying a Small Aircraft,’ ‘A Typical Flight,’ a section on weapons. … It’s interesting stuff.”

Biddy closed it.

“It’s a good book,” his father said. “It’s not cheap.”

“I didn’t think so.”

His father smiled and went into the bedroom to hang up his jacket.

“What’re you doing home?” Biddy called.

“I just took off a little early. I’ll work on the cellar. You guys turned it into a real shithouse.”

“What’d you get me?” Kristi called from the den.

“Oh, Jesus.” His father came out of the bedroom and started down the cellar stairs.

“Biddy gets everything.”

“It was a book sale,” he called, his voice ringing hollow under the floor. “You want a book? You don’t read the ones you got now.”

“I want a cat,” she said.

“We’re not getting a cat.” There was the scraping sound of boxes being moved across concrete. “We can’t even take care of ourselves.”

Biddy went into the den. His sister put both feet under a hassock from her perch on a chair and kicked upward violently, flipping it across the room and off the wall.

“Jesus Christ!” his father yelled from below. “What’re you doing now?”

No one said anything. There was an angry white mark on the paneling where the leg of the hassock had hit.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” Kristi called. “The hassock fell over.” She looked back at the TV. “It falls over all the time.”

Ronnie and Cindy sat opposite each other at the Lirianos’ kitchen table. There was a fruit dish with three pears between them. Biddy was waiting for Mickey, who couldn’t find his shoes. Ronnie was drinking anisette.

“How about this,” Ronnie said. “‘Fair trial? Whaddaya mean, fair trial? If I get a fair trial, I’m dead. What I need is an unfair trial.’”

“Oh,” Cindy said. “I know it’s George Raft, but I don’t know which movie.”

Ronnie swirled his anisette. It left a clear film on the glass.

“I don’t know,” she finally said.

“That’s two in a row. Go ahead.”

“Well, what movie was it from?”

He wouldn’t tell her. “All right,” she said. “‘Dignity. Always dignity.’”

“Gene Kelly. Singin’ in the Rain .”

She made a face.

“‘When you side with a man, you stick with him. Otherwise you’re no better than some animal.’”

She played with a spoon. “I should know this,” she said.

“You should. William Holden in The Wild Bunch.”

“How do you play this?” Biddy asked.

“Badly.” Cindy swept some hair behind her ear.

“We’re trying to stump each other a certain amount of times,” Ronnie said.

“‘She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes,’” Cindy said. “‘Haven’t you?’”

Biddy lifted a salt shaker. “Who said that?” he asked.

“Poor Norman.” Ronnie sat forward. “Anthony Perkins in Psycho .”

“Rats,” Cindy said.

“Might as well run up the white flag,” Ronnie suggested. “I think you’re in over your head here.”

“Over my head. Listen to this nine-inch worm.”

“Nine-inch worm?” Biddy said.

“It’s a joke,” Ronnie said. “A filthy joke, I might add. Ms. Liriano here apparently designed and built the sewers of Paris.”

Biddy sat back, lost.

“What do you think, Biddy?” she said. “Why am I marrying this yim-yam? Do I have a soft spot in my heart for strays?”

“The soft spot’s in your head,” Ronnie said.

“Our first fight,” she said. She leaned closer to Biddy, conspiratorial. “Isn’t he a homely sucker, Biddy? Look at the face. Looks like a fist with eyes.”

Ronnie laughed.

“You’d better watch yourself,” she said. “I might come to my senses.”

“I’m worried,” he said. He picked at a tooth. “Start something on the side with Biddy here.”

Biddy shifted his weight in the chair, wondering where Mickey could possibly be. He said he’d see what was keeping him, and got out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time.

Mickey was rummaging through his toy box.

“Are you coming out?” Biddy said.

“I don’t feel like it.” He didn’t look up.

“Why not?”

“I don’t feel like it.” He looked at him. “Who asked you to come over anyway? Why don’t you go home or move away or something?” Biddy stood flatfooted, stunned. Mickey threw another toy in the box. “Jerk.”

Page 279 of The Lore of Flight, “Flying a Small Aircraft”:

In these days of swing-wing supersonics, jumbo jets and airline passengers by the millions, it is not generally realized that the great majority of aircraft are small and simple machines. For example, there are over 100,000 privately owned small aeroplanes in the United States, where they outnumber airliners about a hundred to one.

He was taken back to the day he and Louis were caught by the yellow jeep near the runway: they had crept to the very edge of the reeds, lying on their bellies, the crushed straw warmer than the ground underneath, and had watched the private planes turn and wait for clearance, running the engines up, before accelerating down the tarmac away from them and lifting free into the air in the distance.

They watched five aircraft go off like that in succession, plane after plane revving, vibrating, gathering power, it seemed, before the final release. Each one in succession turning to show its colors, broad stripes of red and blue and green, each one spellbinding him in turn, seducing him further from the reeds, blinding him until too late to the approach of the yellow security jeep in the periphery of his vision.

He compared The Lore of Flight to an old Cessna manual Mr. Carver had given him after the flight to East Hampton. He reread “Flying a Small Aircraft,” comprehending bit by bit throttles, rudder bars, angles of attack, trim, and drag. He read about the tendency to yaw, and about stalling. He studied the Cessna specifications and the preflight checklist, reproduced in full. At the end of the chapter, in a red Magic Marker box, he outlined and highlighted: