Jim Shepard - Flights

Small boats appeared and disappeared below, flecked across the dark water. He allowed himself only the briefest glimpses, concentrating on the altimeter. In minutes he seemed to be coming up on the harbor at Port Jefferson, a small spit of land rising from his left to a steep bluff. Hundreds of boats were sheltered in its lee like orderly flotsam. There was a long knife edge of breakwater and then the darker blue of the channel and a freighter of some sort, maroon and black with its rust visible even from his height. He passed over the town as it climbed the hills from the harbor as if in an attempt to meet him, and he began to have the vague impression of trees and roads below, his eyes fixed on the compass and altimeter. The engine roared reassuringly and he made constant minute adjustments, concentrating. The cockpit hung pendulum-like beneath the great wings and the sun swept in the canopy and glittered on the fuselage. Ahead of him, rising like a sheer wall to an awesome height, was a snow-white anvil-shaped cloud filling his field of vision as he hurtled into it, having kept his eyes too long on the instruments. The sun disappeared and he was in a world of gray, all sensation of movement gone and the engine racketing abstractly in the half gloom. He fought panic and kept his eyes on the altimeter as it dipped and rose, thinking, Maybe it will stop, it’s got to stop somewhere, and as it continued his fear mounted and he was no longer sure of his compass headings. He had to try something else and he had to trust his memory and ability.

EMERGENCY PROCEDURES: Disorientation in Clouds.

Executing a 180° turn in clouds.

Upon entering the clouds an immediate plan should be made to turn back as follows:

He located the clock and put his finger physically on the glass over the minute hand, trying to calm himself. When the sweep second hand indicated the nearest half minute, he banked to the left, holding the turn coordinator — a small white symbolic airplane wing on a black field — opposite the lower left index mark, waiting, waiting, for the second hand to complete its revolution. When it did, he leveled off, checking the compass heading to insure it was the opposite of the previous one and climbing to restore altitude. He could hear himself breathing, panting like a dog. Outside the cockpit everything was still softly opaque. He fought the urge to dive or climb. The gray remained, fog or wool, and his fear grew and he was ready to call on God when the gray swept away and sunlight flooded him, glancing blindingly off the cowling. He whooped even as he blinked and averted his eyes.

After a few moments he swung the plane around to the left again, returning to the cloud but letting the altimeter slip until it read 2000 and he was passing underneath the flat white ceiling, the light losing some of its warmth, bumps and irregularities appearing on the underside and rushing past. He passed a highway, ribboned with moving cars. A shopping center like an arrangement of low boxes. Clusters of towns. More highways. He found himself out from under the cloud, in the sun again, with the shore and the Atlantic uneven strips on the horizon. Towns, trees, roads, fields. Farmland. Low fences with animals (cows?) spotting the land. A bridge across a narrow bay. Marshes and beach houses. The white lines of sand and breakers and he was back over ocean again, banking up and around with blue sky and white clouds spinning across the windshield. When he leveled out, the compass on the dash was reading E-NE and he was following the long thin strip of land to his left between a large bay and the Atlantic, the land a joyous tan in the sun and a directional indicator to East Hampton Airport.

He seemed to be safely south of the clouds and flew level, free and happy. He laughed aloud again in delight, bobbing his wings a bit to echo his feelings.

The radio crackled, harsh and startling. “Aircraft 9–0 Zulu, are you on frequency?”

He stared silently out the window, everything falling apart in front of him.

“Aircraft 9–0 Zulu repeat are you on frequency?”

The tone recalled Sister Theresa seeing him on the roof, his father hearing of the detention. Broken windows, ruined dress pants, late arrivals, and poor report cards. They knew the plane was missing, they knew he had it and they knew it was still in the air.

He sat immobilized by the shock of his failure. It had been crucial that he land undetected, to allow for his unnoticed disappearance on the bicycle, but he couldn’t land undetected anywhere now with the designation he was sporting on the side of his fuselage. His plan had been destroyed, that quickly, that easily. He wiped his eyes furiously. He had to think. It couldn’t be all over after everything he’d been through. Below him breakers ran a jagged white track along the shore, curving and growing in distant foamy lines. He was passing a very large airport to his left, and the land below opened into a great irregular bay closed to the sea by a long spit crested with dunes. If it was Shinnecock Bay, as he guessed it was from the map, Southampton was directly east, and he would be approaching East Hampton Airport in minutes.

He couldn’t land there, he thought. He couldn’t just quit. But where else could he go? What other airport could he find from the air without navigational aids? Montauk had an airport, he knew, but that was as good as giving up: they’d be waiting there as well, and it was exposed and isolated, with nowhere to go once he landed.

“Biddy. Biddy, this is your father. What the good Christ do you think you’re doing?”

He stared at the radio, stunned. The engine’s roar changed in pitch to signal he’d let the nose drop, and he corrected it.

“Biddy, tell us where you are.” His father sounded as though the lifeboats were sinking or he was hanging from a cliff. On the radar screen his blip would be indistinguishable from any others. “Biddy, you got up all right but how are you going to get down? Biddy! Let them talk you down!” His father’s last cry shook him, and he reached for the microphone. The crackling continued.

“Aircraft 9–0 Zulu, are you on frequency? Aircraft 9–0 Zulu, are you on frequency? Acknowledge.”

The coast was flowing steadily under the cowling as the Cessna’s nose ate up space and distance. There was literally nowhere to go. He began to cry, from frustration and tension. I could go right to Great Gull Island, he thought. I could go right to it and land in the water.

But he recognized the absurdity of the idea: he’d destroy the plane, kill himself. Or hurt himself and drown. And how could that possibly go undetected?

The voice on the radio asked again if he was on frequency. His father’s voice broke in. “Biddy,” he said. “Please.”

The blue sky hung unbroken before him. The extent to which he’d hurt people had been reflected in his father’s final cry, and it had been much more than he had guessed. Every action he was taking was connected to others and hurting in ever-widening circles and ways and there was no longer any hope of preserving the illusion of his actions enjoying a total independence in the world, of his escape taking place in a vacuum. Was any of this going to make him, or anyone else, or anything about his life; any better?

East Hampton Airport rolled into sight over the drum of the horizon. He lifted the microphone and pushed the “Send” button. “I’m all right,” he said. “I’ll be right down.” He lowered it to his lap at the answering gabble of voices and shut off the receiver. He turned the frequency to 132.25 for East Hampton. He glanced into the distance in the northeast, trying for a glimpse, at least a glimpse, after having come this far, of the north fork and Plum or Great Gull Island in the haze. But it all remained indistinct and imprecise, however beautiful. He switched the receiver back on and raised the microphone.