Stealing Flowers (10 page)
“Did I pass?” I asked when it was over. It
had taken about an hour, although it felt like the whole
morning.
Mr. Barth nodded, but before he could say
anything, one of the female teachers said, “Thank you for coming,
Christian. We’ll let your parents and Una know tomorrow by
phone.”
I looked at Mr. Barth and he shrugged.
“Well, my full-grown child, how did you do?” Una asked on the way
to the car.
“They wouldn’t tell me,” I answered, “but
one of them let it slip that I’d passed.”
Una rubbed my head. “We’d no doubt.”
The following Sunday, early in the morning,
Stan knocked on my bedroom door.
“Would you like to go to Washington?”
I brushed my teeth and was downstairs in a
minute. “Is Sally coming?” I asked.
He shook his head. He’d prepared us a
breakfast of bacon, eggs, orange juice, and toast. Like every
morning, I was starved and ate quickly with lots of ketchup. I
didn’t see Mary, Una, Sally, Larry, the driver, or Isaac, Dad’s
assistant, that morning. On the way to Teterboro, Stan played the
news and it announced the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia,
the Hippy and Yippie invasion of Chicago, and the Japanese invasion
of America. Invasions were occurring everywhere in the world and I
wondered if Dad and I’d been drafted to fly spy planes. “I didn’t
know we were at war,” I said. “Is it bad?”
Stan turned up onto the ramp to the
turnpike.
“It’s bad and it’s called the Vietnam
War.”
I’d heard of Vietnam, but didn’t know
anything about it.
“I know about Hippies” I said, “some of the
bullies sell drugs to them.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” he returned with a
soft laugh.
“Why did they invade Chicago? Isn’t that in
United States?”
“Saying that they invaded Chicago is a
manner of speaking. They held a demonstration there. Remember, I
told you about the presidential election.” I nodded. “There’s a
two-party democratic system in the US, Republicans and Democrats.
The Republicans held their Convention some time ago and chose
Richard Nixon, the candidate who will run against the Democratic
Nominee. The Democrats had theirs in Chicago this week and chose
Hubert Humphrey. The Yippies and Hippies demonstrated to try and
change things, especially the war. It’s very unpopular.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re losing.”
“Why is Japan invading America. Is that a
manner of speaking too?”
He nodded. “Japan this year beat Germany in
overall industrial output, making it the third strongest economy in
the world behind us and the Soviets. The only invasion on the news
in fact was the Soviets invading the Czechs. That’s a very
complicated situation. Actually no fighting took place there
either, but we won’t strain your brain any further.”
I was happy to hear it but didn’t say so.
When we arrived at the airport and parked the car, it was beginning
to warm up. “Do you want to take it up?” Stan asked.
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “Would
they let me?”
“You don’t have your license yet, but no
rule exists to prevent you from flying if I piloted alongside of
you.”
I took a deep breath. “I’ll try and take it
up, if you’ll help.”
“Let’s look over the plane.”
I walked around the back, checking the
flaps, rudder, and other moveable parts. It was new, but I looked
at the undercarriage, the wings, and the propeller as Stan had
showed me. I scrambled into the cockpit with my heart racing and
breathing short hard breaths. I locked in the seatbelt and shoulder
harness.
“Here, have a chew,” Stan said and passed me
a Chiclet.
After I received clearance for runway 3-A, I
turned on the master and ignition switches. I made one last
inspection of the instruments, let the plane roll and checked the
brakes. Then I took the throttle to 1700 RPMS for a few minutes and
checked all the flaps.
“Everything looks fine,” I said.
“I agree. Let’s go.”
I spoke to the tower and taxied out to the
start-pointers and received final clearance, moving the throttle to
full-open and releasing the brakes. When I reached 55 KIAS, I
slowly retracted the wing flaps. The pavement was speeding by and
my heart felt like it would explode.
“Take it to 75,” Stan said. At 78 KIAS the
plane lifted off the ground and the rate of climb was moderate but
with a near maximum of RPM. Within a minute we were at 3000 feet
and I charted our air flight plan. “Fantastic,” Stan said and
rubbed my head.
If I wasn’t so nervous, I’d have been proud.
The mixture was lean, and as I leveled off, the RPMs dropped to
2000. I trimmed the elevation further. The conditions were perfect
for a smooth flight, something Stan probably had counted on, and
for the next half-hour, I did nothing but follow the flight
plan.
“What was that you said about touching the
sky?” I asked.
“I’m glad to see you remember it. It’s an
old war expression, ‘The closest you’ll get to heaven is in the
seat of a cockpit.’ One of my closest buddies in the Air Corps,
John Admen, used to say that. We co-piloted a big bird, the P-51,
for a month or so at Westover, until he left for another
assignment. He’s one of the people who helped us start up Tappets.
He runs Factory Bright.”
“The refrigerators like in our kitchen”
Stan nodded. “I was trained on the P-38
Lightning made by Lockheed then, but never flew that long either.
When I saw the F-86 Sabre, I knew I’d found my bird, and I guess it
was obvious to the powers that be as well. I wasn’t in it a month
and was called up for tour in the Korean War. Over fifteen hundred
airmen died there. I was in a Sabre when I was shot down by a
Soviet MiG behind enemy lines.”
His voice had kind of grown distant. “I’d
wish that on no man, son, I can tell you that.” After a pause, his
voice returned to normal. “I’ve models of the planes in my office,
even the MiG-15s. Maybe Saturday you can come in with Mary and I to
the Hoboken Office, look the place over, it’s not that big, and
Larry will take you home afterwards.”
For a while, we didn’t speak. In no time we
were over Washington, D. C.
“I radioed into the Washington International
Airport and had to circle the airport twice before receiving
clearance to land. Anybody who has flown a plane knows that the
most difficult part of it is landing. The mixture was on rich and I
turned the carburetor heat on full. My airspeed was reduced to 70
KIAS with the flaps up and as the speed dropped to 60 KIAS I put
the flaps slightly down and aligned the plane with the markers on
the runway. My hands perspired so much that the wheel was slippery.
The nose lowered too sharply, but I corrected it at once. The back
wheels touched the pavement. When the front wheels landed, I slowly
worked the brake with the wing flaps retracted. When we pulled to a
complete stop, a wave of relief washed over me. If Stan had been
nervous, he didn’t show it.
“Good job,” he said softly, “I’ll taxi it
in.”
I was half-surprised no one was there to
meet us. In the weeks I’d stayed with the Tappets, they’d become in
my eyes modest yet powerful. I pictured them as secretive magnates
who knew people everywhere in the world. Stan rented a car and we
traveled around the Capital, taking a tour of the White House with
a group of about thirty tourists. I thought many of the rooms were
ugly compare to the Tappet Mansion. They’d old furniture with
bright garish colors and flashy settings, but I didn’t say
anything. I’d once heard Stan comment that he thought America was
the greatest nation in the world and didn’t want to hurt his
feelings. However, I certainly didn’t think so myself, unless the
rest the world was in a pot of trouble. To my mind, what I had seen
so far of Jersey was pretty sad.
The many memorials and monuments in
Washington led me to understand that the we were an incredibly rich
country, yet, all they could do for me while I was in their hands,
was Lloyd Mills and stinking halfway homes like Carling Street. It
seemed inexplicable. Stan asked me if I wanted to pilot home, but I
was so drained that I couldn’t face it.
“It was fun,” I said, “but you do it.”
When I got home I rushed to see Sally only
to find that she’d gotten into trouble and been sent to her room by
Una. I knocked on her door. When I came in, she hugged me. “What
happened?” I asked.
“Una wouldn’t make me a milkshake when I
ordered one, so I fired her. She sent me up here until I apologize
to her, but I’m not going to. She’s going to be fired, you wait and
see.”
“Una can’t be fired.”
“She can so. Mom and Dad pay her. They can
fire her anytime.”
I didn’t understand how Sally could be so
dense about what was clearly evident. It was childish. The bond
between Una and Mary seemed unshakable. Every night before supper
over port, they discussed business and markets in Mary’s office
upstairs, the room which looked out above the pool and backed unto
my closet.
I could hear them laughing and talking
through a vent when I played war-bunker. The vent was behind
suitcases and empty boxes. I’d begun to avidly spy on them. I was a
tortured hungry prisoner of war, just like Stan had been in Korea,
quietly listening to the enemies’ commanding officers. Una directly
helped run Tappets. She advised Mary. Her power, whether for good
or bad, was enormous. Her word in regards to Sally and me was
absolute. Every time our names were raised, Mary always said
something like, ‘You do what you think is best, Una.’
Although Mary’s expectations to my face were
not much different than what I had heard from the closet-bunker, it
soon became clear that the Tappets definitely followed a strategy
and expected me to perform. “I don’t want her fired, Sally,” I
said. “I like Una and so do you. Maybe you should apologize and
then we can go swimming.”
Sally looked like she might pout, but I
caught her eyes and kissed her on the lips. “Okay,” she said and
kissed me back. “I’ll apologize for you.”
She was stubborn when she wanted to be and
if she got into a snit, nothing could be done for it. Your time
with her was ruined until her mood returned to normal. When we made
peace with Una, we phoned Andy and Kurt and met them at the pool.
The next day was Labor Day and we played the whole day in the
backyard with Kurt and Andy. Una supplied us with snacks and
drinks. She planned a special supper that evening with everyone
ordering what they wanted, like in a restaurant.
I ordered steak and mashed potatoes. Sally
ordered chicken wings and french fries. Mary and Stan said they
would have whatever Una was having, which to me was a mistake. Una
frequently made the meal inedible with her corky spices and putrid
sauces. Often I’d try what she had prepared for them, and repulsed,
I would hide my shudder and bolt down some juice or milkshake to
rinse the foulness out of my mouth.
When we sat down to eat on Labor Day, I was
surprised at the enormous platter put in the center of the table.
It had clusters of chicken breasts with lime, red pepper, and
sliced peaches on a bed of bright green lettuce. My steak and
mashed-potatoes were scrump-delicious. I’d done my best to think
little of what was to happen tomorrow and focused instead on what
we were doing tonight. Kurt, Andy and their parents were joining us
at eight o’clock to go to Staten Island to watch the fireworks over
Upper New York Bay, but immediately after supper, Una brought out
presents for me for passing the entry test to East Orange’s
Wedgewood Private School.
“Congratulations,” Mary and Stan said
hugging me.
Sally jumped up and down and kissed me. One
of the boxes was big, and contained school supplies, a black
backpack, a calculator, and other items. The second was small and
was a black watch with a picture of an F-16 fighter aircraft on the
face of it and with my name engraved on the back. The third turned
out to be my new school uniform.
“Try it on,” Una ordered.
I left to my room and put it on, looking in
the mirror. Again I was a stranger to myself. However, I must
admit, with my short blond hair and blue eyes, I looked like a rich
kid ready for school. I didn’t feel like one and realized I
probably never would, but that was okay, too. I also noticed that
my scar was almost undetectable now. I returned to the living room
and everybody was happy. It had quite an effect and when I
suggested wearing it to the fire display, everyone laughed.
“Go and change, silly rabbit,” Una said,
“that’s only for school, not for play.”
The last thing I remember of that day is the
beautiful fireworks, especially the brilliant blue balls of
exploding fire high in the sky. I came home dog-tired, and for the
first time since arriving at the Tappets, I slept through the
entire night without going to see Sally. I dreamt of fireworks and
they didn’t stop for the whole night.
“What’s wrong?” Sally asked as we sat for
breakfast the next morning.
I could see by the look in her eyes that she
wasn’t angry I hadn’t slept with her, only concerned. “Nothing,” I
whispered. “I just slept through.”
She was in the school-uniform, a blue dress,
kerchief, white socks, and black shoes. Her long hair was in two
braided pigtails and she’d a blue ribbon in her hair. She looked
wonderful and I was excited, and also angry at myself for not
waking up at one o’clock to cuddle with her.
Una prepared us cereal, milk, fruit and
toast with jam. “I’ll bring the car around,” she said at twenty to
nine. “Brush your teeth carefully, wash those faces.”
“Let me fix your hair,” Sally said when we
were alone in the bathroom.
We kissed and hugged for a moment, then
headed into the back of Una’s black Cadillac, buckling up. Una
pulled up at East Orange’s Wedgewood Private School ten minutes
later.