The Man Who Ate the 747 (10 page)

As he ate, Wally ran his finger tenderly over newsprint and Willa’s byline. Even her name was a sign they were meant to be together. Willa and Wally. Just two letters different. How many times in school had he carved both names into the desk?

Now maybe things were turning around and soon
everyone in town would be pulling for him. He was going for a world record! Willa would come. She would write about him. Maybe then she would put him on the front page. Maybe then she would realize how much he loved her. Maybe then she would love him, too.

Wally got up and let Arf go outside. He stood in the doorway staring out at the remains of the airplane, twinkling in the moonlight.

That plane was part of him now. It was going to give him wings.

T
he invasion took less than 12 hours. Shrimp watched the cavalry rolling into town. So far he had counted a dozen television trucks and 22 out-of-state license plates. It was only 10 in the morning and Superior had never been so busy, even compared to the Lady Vestey Memorial Day parade when hundreds of visitors showed up from neighboring counties.

This was different. These people were outsiders. They didn’t belong here. The civic peace could easily get out of control. It was his sworn duty to make sure it didn’t.

The first call had come from Edna Nippert at 7
A.M.
She had seen three Asian men at the Country Store. They stocked up
on canned goods and Gatorade. What in tarnation was going on? Edna demanded to know. Then a half hour later, more strangers were spotted at the Napa auto parts store. They spoke no English and, using a phrase book, asked if there was a hotel in town. Someone thought they were probably Italian.

Shrimp had declared it an official 1089—an emergency traffic situation—and ordered the entire police department, all three officers, to get out on the roads. By 9
A.M.
, the Victorian Inn was all booked up. The Git-A-Bite Café had run out of Wonder Bread for toast. There wasn’t a copy of
The Express
to be found in town.

Shrimp guessed that since its founding in 1875, no one had ever paid this much attention to Superior, even when a very young Lawrence Welk played at the City Auditorium. A few years back,
Hard Copy
had come to town for a story about Crazy Tad Wockenfuss. Drunker than $700, he had tried to kill his mother by firing two shotgun blasts from his downstairs living room chair, right through the ceiling, at her bed upstairs. He missed. Mrs. Wockenfuss couldn’t bring herself to press charges against her only son, so she bought him a trailer on the far side of town. Shrimp had made a brief TV appearance, describing the hole in the ceiling and the shredded mattress.

As a lawman, Shrimp knew Superior’s only other modest claim to notoriety was the fact that outlaw Jesse James and his brother, Frank, had a sister who
lived in town. According to legend, the two spent a night once and left behind a $20 gold piece.

Now the world appeared to be on its way to Superior, and judging from the traffic, it was heading straight for Wally’s field. Shrimp reached into his lunch pail and pulled out his Thermos. With all this pressure, he knew he better not forget to eat. On doctor’s orders, at least three high-calorie, high-protein shakes a day, if he wanted to make it over the 120-pound minimum by the weigh-in.

On the crest of the hill, a half-mile away, he saw two helicopters flying low, fast and right toward him. Clutching the Thermos, he got out of the car and stood in the road watching the choppers come closer. He shook a fist at them. They weren’t allowed to fly so low. There were community noise standards. The citizens wouldn’t stand for it.

As the helicopters thumped, he felt the first pang of panic. The rotor blast posed a serious threat. Twice before he’d been knocked flat by the hospital chopper from Lincoln. It was a peril of weighing 114 pounds.

He braced himself and blew his whistle frantically. They buzzed right over him. The gust from the rotors hit him hard and he staggered to stay upright. His hat went flying off his head, down the road and into the ditch. Shrimp reached into the car for his radio.

“All units, I don’t know what the code is for this, but I’ve got two helicopters speeding on Main Street. Stop them, boys. Stop them right now.”

Then he stomped his boots in the dirt and skidded down the embankment to fetch his hat. The slope was steep and wet from the morning dew. His hat, brand-new all the way from Wahoo, was covered with mud. He wiped it off on his sleeve and started to climb. Halfway up the slope, he saw the convoy of six big satellite trucks thundering toward him. He froze.

As they roared by, the blast of wind hit him like a twister and he felt himself sailing—arms and legs akimbo—through the air and right back into that muddy ditch.

From his bedroom window, Wally looked down on his field where several hundred reporters and photographers milled around waiting for the official kickoff of the world record attempt. The Bargen sisters from down the road were selling lemonade and cookies to the strangers. Darting through the mob, young Blake was raking in coins with his very own “Official 747 Program,” created and photocopied at the public library.

Wally didn’t recognize all of the people, but there were many familiar faces. Tom Fritts, the banker who loaned him money, and Doc Noojin, the veterinarian, were visiting with the mayor and the county attorney. He couldn’t believe they were all there, the town’s finest, spiffy in their Sunday best.

Wally examined his brand-new overalls, right from Country General, all crisp and blue. His good white
shirt was starched and ironed thanks to Rose, who had stopped by earlier. She had helped him pick out his clothes for the big event, told him he looked as handsome as a prince, and planted a mushier than normal kiss on his cheek before leaving.

“Will you help me with my tie?” Wally asked.

“Sure,” J.J. said. “Now remember, if you feel nervous, you don’t have to say a thing. Just smile and eat the plane. They’ll shout a lot of questions. But you don’t have to answer.”

“You think Willa’s here?”

“Definitely. I saw her on the way here.”

“She sure is pretty, isn’t she?” Wally said.

“Yes, beautiful.”

“Prettiest girl in the world. You got a record for that?”

“Nope, too subjective,” J.J. said, “but I’ve done some research in this area. I know a thing or two. Turns out symmetrical features are the key to human attraction. Men with well-proportioned facial bone structure have sex four years earlier on average than asymmetrical men.”

Wally looked in the mirror. Big fuzzy cheeks, untamed eyebrows, and reddish brown eyes his mother once said were the color of clay from the bottom of the river. There certainly wasn’t anything symmetrical about his face. Maybe that explained everything.

J.J. nudged his way in front of the mirror and examined himself.

“I’m nothing special to look at,” he said, “but I do have a perfectly symmetrical nose.” He ran his finger
down the two-inch pathway. “No dips or bumps, the spread exactly two-thirds the distance between my eyes. The slope of the dorsum from bridge to tip exactly 45 degrees—”

He turned away from the mirror.

“Sorry to get carried away,” he said. “Anyway, facial symmetry means fewer genetic mutations. Of course, men also want women with waists 40 percent smaller than their hips. The hourglass figure is biological proof of fertility and fitness.”

He put his hand on Wally’s massive shoulder.

“You see,” he said, “beauty is about attraction, and attraction is about survival.”

Wally felt as if he had been whacked by a windmill. “Come on. What about feelings? What about true love?”

“Love?” J.J. said. “I hate to break it to you, but it’s all brain chemistry. You see a pretty girl and you get a blast of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. That’s why you feel excited. Same with happiness. It’s just an electrical impulse from your left prefrontal cortex.”

Wally had no doubt that his left prefrontal cortex was spinning, but he was also sure that the impulse came straight from his heart. The man from
The Book of Records
knew his science, but he didn’t know beans about love.

J.J. straightened his jacket, smoothed his hair, squinted into the lights. In 14 years with The Book, he had never seen so many reporters. He faced a wall
of cameras. Red lights on. Beyond them he could see the white masts of the satellite trucks.

No doubt back at headquarters, Peasley, Lumpkin, and Norwack had gathered in the airless conference room to watch, while at the home office, the Lords of The Book had surely tuned in to monitor the announcement.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he began, “I’m pleased to welcome you—”

He saw Willa in the front row, surrounded by journalists from the big and little city papers and TV stations all over the world. She wore dark sunglasses, her long legs were crossed, and she wiggled one foot in a little circle. God, she was beautiful.

If only he could impress her …

Unmistakably, she frowned at him, scrunching her nose and shaking her head, and it was enough to make him fumble with the pages of his remarks.

He felt perspiration on his back, a trickle between his shoulders, and he took the quick way out. “We’re here today to begin the official certification of Wally Chubb’s attempt to eat this Boeing 747.”

“How dangerous is this record—” a journalist shouted.

“We’ll take questions in a moment,” J.J. said, “but with no further ado, I present Mr. Wally Chubb.”

The pasture was full of folks Wally had known all his life, the people who barely raised a finger from the steering wheel to greet him when their trucks passed
on the road. Now they wanted to be part of what he was doing. His father had told him someday people would finally understand him, appreciate his gifts, and recognize why he was special.

It had been a long time coming.

It all began, really, the night the plane dropped from the sky. He was sitting on the porch at dusk with a glass of milk, watching one of God’s great light shows. The sky was nearly black with thunderclouds. Lightning sliced the sky every few seconds. The rain came next, in torrents, drowning the fields. Arf’s doghouse—lovingly glued together—disintegrated in the downpour.

Then a flash illuminated a shiny speck across the cornfield. In the next bolt, the fleck was bigger. It looked like a meteorite or a shooting star heading straight toward the house.

The sound intensified, outrumbling the thunder. Arf ran to the corner of the porch and barked like crazy.

Then he saw it. An airplane screaming down, blocking out the sky. It hit the ground at a shallow angle, cut across the fields like a plowshare, rending a deep gash in the earth. It skidded toward the house and, as if meant to dock there, slid to a stop, no more than an arm’s length from the second-floor bedroom window.

The air stank of jet fuel and the hot skin of the plane sizzled as it cooled in the rainfall. He worried if anyone was alive inside the huge aircraft when the emergency door popped open and an inflatable orange
chute unfurled. Two men in jumpsuits scooted down the slide, their movements herky-jerky in the jagged light of the storm.

One of the men introduced himself as the captain and asked to use the phone. The second man, the copilot, drank some water, petted Arf, and said “Oh man, oh man” a few dozen times. The storm was the worst he’d ever seen. He couldn’t believe he was alive.

An hour later the thunderhead was just damp air and water dripping off the eaves. The two men offered their good-byes and walked down the dirt drive out to the road. It was as if they’d just dropped in to say hi and now the visit was over.

“Hey,” Wally called out. “I think you left something.”

“It’s all yours,” the captain said. “Just a pile of junk. We were flying it to the scrapyard in Arizona. Maybe you can get something for it.”

How many mornings had he awoken in his bedroom staring out at a cockpit where the sun once came up? How many days had he spent tracing the plane’s great hump? How had this incredible object come to dominate his thoughts? How had he let so many acres of hay go without cutting?

He didn’t know. But he was absolutely certain that the lightning storm had been heaven-sent, that the 747 was a gift, a windfall, and that he had to use it in a way that would lift up his life.

When he decided to eat the plane to prove his love for Willa, he thought it would be his own private
business. He never told her what he was doing—he just hoped that sooner or later she would come to know. Now hundreds of people were watching and waiting with cameras that would tell the whole wide world how he felt about Willa.

He was ready. He hauled a chunk of honeycomb sheeting over to the chute, dropped it in, and pushed the red button. The grinding noise carried across the field, and instead of turning away and ignoring the sound, as people always did, the crowd cheered.

He climbed down from the rafters and walked proudly to the front of his contraption. The great grinding sound was heard all around Nuckolls County, broadcast live to the whole country, in bedrooms and boardrooms, and beamed via satellite to every corner of the world.

Wally reached into the machine and pulled out a bucket of metal grit. He moved over to the little place that had been cleared for him in front of the press.

“Mr. Chubb, Mr. Chubb,” a reporter called out to him. “Is this the first glass and metal you’ve ever eaten?”

“Nope,” he said. “When I was a boy, my ma once put a thermometer in my mouth. I swallowed it by accident, and it didn’t hurt me at all.” He chuckled a bit.

“Mr. Chubb,” said a reporter in a fancy blue suit. Wally thought he had seen him on TV. “How long have you been eating the 747?”

“About as long as it’s been in my backyard,” he said.

He picked up the bucket, brandished it like a trophy, smiled for the cameras, then poured some grit into an electric blender that had been set up on a card table nearby. He added a few scoops of vanilla ice cream and some milk, pressed “blend,” and made himself a thick shake.

He poured a big glass of gray sludge and raised it high into the air. He had thought long and hard about what he would say to the world, but as he gazed at Willa, the words just vanished. He let out a giant smile. This was the beginning of great things.