The Man Who Ate the 747 (20 page)

She tiptoed into the stream and watched the carp nip at the fluffs of cotton that floated on the surface. She washed her face and dried it with
The Book of Records
T-shirt that he had given her.

She had fallen fast for him and with good reason. His worldliness. Something about his funny way of projecting statistics onto everything—as if all those numbers would protect him from his feelings. Something about the way he ate corn on the cob, rotating the ear like a lathe. Something about his frayed collars. The sweet way he looked when he said her name. Willa. As if he wanted to hold the word in his mouth for as long as he could.

And yet …

She hated him for leading her on, for breaking
promises, for making Superior worse off for having believed in him. She should have known better than to give herself over so quickly, to open up, to care.

J.J. was right. Wally was the man building her the Taj Mahal. He was the only one who ever had. He might be the only one who ever would. And she knew just what she had to do.

A
cloud of dust rose up on the road. Wally recognized the truck by the clanking engine even before the old green Ford pulled up to the porch. He knew he should offer to tune the thing up for her. But when he saw her, his throat went dry and he reached for his root beer. He choked on the aluminum grounds.

Willa stepped out of the truck and slammed the door. Her hair was loose and wet. She wore a white blouse, a simple skirt, and sneakers.

“Hey,” she said. Arf wagged his tail, trotted down the steps and licked her hand. “Hi, boy.”

“Evening,” Wally said. “Didn’t expect to see you out here again.”

“Sorry. I should have called.”

“No. Glad to see you.” He worried why she had come, yet at the same time, whatever the reason, he was happy just to look at her, an apparition, so beautiful.

“Get you something to drink?”

“Sure,” she said.

“Juice? Beer? Stabilizer?”

“A Bud would be great.”

Wally went into the dark coolness of the house. He was flabbergasted. What was she doing there? Had she noticed the 747 was almost gone, not much more than a bunch of bones in the yard? He checked the mirror on the way to the kitchen. His hair was askew and he had crumbs on his chin. Not exactly the way he wanted her to see him. This was the first time she had visited, not counting the time she came to pay her respects when his parents died. He mashed his hair down and wiped his face, hoping he looked human enough, even if his face wasn’t at all symmetrical.

He rinsed metal grounds out of the bottom of a glass, filled it with beer, and brought it out to the back porch. Willa was sitting on the steps, her back up against a column, legs propped up on a bag of seed.

“How you getting on?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said. “Hoping for a good harvest. Fingers crossed.”

She looked out at the fields. “Sure is quiet out here.”

“Sure is. All those folks made so much noise, I couldn’t think straight or get much sleep.”

“Glad they’re gone?”

“Yup. Just me and Arf again. The way we like it.”

Wally took a drink, then said, “So what brings you to the country?”

He watched as she seemed to search for the right words. She looked at the fin of the 747 rising against blue sky. One last section of the plane. The rest, devoured, every frame and stringer, because of his insatiable love.

Finally she spoke.

“I want you to stop. I want you to quit eating the plane.”

He measured her words, thought for a while, then said, “But I’m almost finished, Willa. Just a little bit more to go.”

“It’s over. There’s not going to be any record. There’s just no point.”

“There is a point,” he said. “I never cared about all that. You know why I’m doing this. I wanted your attention.”

Willa looked him full in the eye. “You’ve got my attention.”

He let the moment hang. “I wasn’t sure you noticed.”

“Of course I did. How could I miss it?”

Willa laughed and Wally guffawed a bit too loud. The wind came up and rustled the maple tree. Arf
panted. A pretty harmony. Maybe it would last just a bit longer. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“Want to stay for dinner?” he asked. “I’ve got a ham.”

“Love to,” Willa said.

She curled up on his old sofa. Wally liked seeing her shoes lined up neatly on top of the Persian rug that belonged to his grandma and grandpa. Their pictures, old sepia photos, looked down on the beat-up lowboy. Always stern-faced and disapproving, they seemed to smile this night.

“So, what made you decide to eat the plane?” Willa asked when dinner was over and the dishes were washed.

It was night. She was in his house. Eating his food, laughing at his jokes, sprawling on his furniture. This was the most amazing evening of his life. It had been worth every fastener, bolt, and spanner.

“It’s a long story,” he said.

“I’m in no hurry.”

Wally filled two mugs with coffee and brought one to Willa. He set his down on the table cut from a slab of oak. Then he sat down beside the woman of his dreams.

“It all started with Otto,” he said.

“Hornbussel?”

“He worked in the circus all his life, mostly as a clown, traveling the country. When he was home for vacation, I used to follow him around.”

Arf jumped up on the couch between them and nuzzled his nose into Willa’s lap.

“Remember the day I ate the thermometer?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said.

“Well, when Otto heard about it, he told me stories about the great international performers who ate dangerous things.”

“Like what?”

“There was a man in London who ate gravel and rocks. They called him Lithophagus. It’s Greek or something for stone eater. He was famous around the world. Another guy ate iron. People came to his shows with keys, pins, nutcrackers, bolts, and he chewed them up.”

“Never heard of such a thing.”

“It’s all in a book that I read. French guy named Dufour made his name eating burning oil, boiling tar, and acid.”

“Come on.”

“He finished off his show by eating the candlesticks and candles, leaving the theater in darkness.”

“This is all true?”

“Yup, and then Otto helped me cut up some car keys with a pair of wire snips. I ate them. Some nails, too. From that moment, I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up.”

“So what happened?”

“I wanted to join the circus,” he said, “but Otto wouldn’t let me. Told me I’d end up like him. Drunk. Poor. Alone. He said I should stay put and grow corn. Like Dad and Granddad before him.”

“You think you made the right choice?” “Sure,” Wally said, gazing into her face. “That’s why when the plane crashed in the field that night, I thought it was a godsend. A sign from up above.”

He looked into her lovely eyes. “And now I know it was.”

For all his size and strength, he was so gentle. They talked for hours. He was a good man, a kind man, a man who loved her. He was smart enough, and funny, too. He was peeling an orange for her with a buck knife. She looked at his hands. Cracked, weathered hands. His face wasn’t handsome, but it wasn’t homely. He had big shoulders and a reassuring calm.

“Did I do any permanent damage when I hit J.J.?” he asked.

“You squashed his nose, but he’ll live. He left town today for some unsuspecting country.”

“Can’t say I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” And then, unable to stop herself, she did. She began describing the first time she saw him in the office. “Figured he was just another huckster, you know?”

Wally nodded. “You were right.”

“Yeah, but …”

She found herself describing the ways he had snuck right into her heart.

“We ended up in Righty’s field. Eggs flying toward me, rolling end over end. We tried for a world record. It wasn’t his idea. It was mine!

“Then Blake tried to fly to Kansas, and J.J. climbed the water tower and got him down. Pulled the little twerp out of the clouds, deposited him safe and sound on the ground.”

“The least he could do,” Wally said.

Willa stared off into space. She saw a flicker of lightning, then a candle inside the Spartanette. Twenty-four hours ago she thought she had found love….

Wally coughed. His face was stiff. All at once, he didn’t look well. She didn’t want to hurt him, but all she could do was talk about J.J. She reached over, took his hand.

“You’ve done something beautiful for me,” she said, “and I loved it. Every girl in the world wants her prince to eat a 747 for her. I confess. It made me feel special. It’s selfish, but every time I heard the grinding noise, I knew you cared.”

There were tears in her eyes.

“I never should have let you do all this. I should have stopped you a long time ago.”

“But I love you.”

She moved closer to him.

“If you love me, then you’ll stop,” she said. “You know I don’t love you in the same way.”

“What if you gave me a chance?”

“The right person has to build you the Taj Mahal,” she said.

“The Taj Mahal?” he repeated, befuddled.

“What you’ve done for me is breathtaking. But it isn’t right. And it never will be.”

She could feel his pulse beating hard as she held his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry, too.” His voice wavered.

She put her arms around him and hugged him. She felt his strength, his power, and then his body shivering. He held her as if he’d never let go.

It was well past 2
A.M.
The minutes blinked by on the readout of the VCR. He sat still on the couch. After their long talk, Willa had wanted to leave but was too tired to drive. She had dozed off, her head nodding over onto his shoulder. Arf waited at the door. He had needed to go outside for more than an hour, but Wally wouldn’t move for fear he’d wake her up.

He had dreamed of this moment, Willa asleep in his home. He ran his whole imaginary life with her through his mind. Trying to understand what she told him, trying to understand where he got things wrong.

He wasn’t mistaken about her. She was every bit as wonderful as he had believed since that magical day she jumped down from her dad’s pickup in her blue party dress. She hadn’t loved him, but he always hoped she would if she got to know him. If only he could prove the strength and depth of his devotion, she would catch fire just a little. Then it would build and build, until she felt for him what he felt for her.

Now he faced the truth. His living light loved someone else.

He thought she wouldn’t mind if he touched her
hair, so he caressed the curls with the side of his hand. The ringlets were soft, just like the rest of her, and that made big tears spill down his cheeks. He wiped them away quickly, afraid they would fall and wake her up. Sadness invaded him. She was in his home, on his couch, asleep on his shoulder, the culmination of his dream. But she would never belong to him.

He hadn’t wept since his tenth birthday in City Park. She was the reason back then that he had stopped. Now, in some strange way, it made sense that she was the reason he began to cry again.

D
ead ahead, the island of Folegandros jutted from the waters of the Aegean. From the time of Troy, the jagged rock had been a forsaken place of banishment and exile. Sea spray stung his face with a salty mist, and gulls wheeled overhead. Dripping with gloom, J.J. slouched over the rail of the wooden ferry.

A shipload of tourists in high holiday spirits cavorted around him. But he was alone, miserable, marooned. He might as well have been sailing to Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, the remotest inhabited island on earth.

With unintelligible shouts from the captain and crew, the boat glided and bumped
into the dock, and the passengers unloaded. The little port of Karavostassis lay a good three miles from the hotel. The steep and narrow footpaths were unfit for cars, so J.J. began the uphill walk in the hot sun. Children ran past him laughing. An American boy pointed, shouting “Mama, what’s wrong with that man’s nose?”

“Ricky, don’t be rude,” the woman said. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s all right,” he said.

His bruised face was tinted all colors of the Mediterranean sunset. Of course children would gawk. Roasting in his blue blazer with the gilded crest, he knew he was dressed preposterously for the glaring heat. He trudged along, past the small whitewashed houses, brightened by geraniums in window boxes and bougainvillea cascading from wooden balconies. He followed the sharp twists of the stony streets until he came to the oldest part of the town of Hora, and there, the Castro Hotel.

A Venetian castle built atop a cliff to safeguard it from pirates, the Castro was the finest establishment on the island. At the noble doorway, the proprietor, Despo Danassi, welcomed her honored guest. A beautiful lunch awaited him—her specialty,
Matsata
, fresh pasta with rabbit.

“Po po, zestee poo kanee,”
she said. Whew, it’s hot. She showed him to her finest room. There was no air conditioning, no television, just the magnificent view from the balcony that dangled 984 feet above the sea.

He stared at the vast blue waters and scarcely noticed his lunch. It had been a long trip, straight shots from Superior to Omaha, New York, and Athens, then Piraeus for the ferry. A week in this tiny fishing village would do him some good. No news from the outside world. A perfect place and time to get his mind off Willa. He was a master at turning off the memories, shutting down the feelings, especially with a good distraction at hand. And there was nothing so distracting as a record attempt.

J.J. unpacked, gingerly washed his face, and changed his clothes. Then he made his way downstairs. Despo gave him directions to the taverna, and he set out into the street. A pack of children shouted excitedly. They were lined up with their yo-yos ready to go.

He tried to hurry past, but they surrounded him, tugging at his blue blazer.

“Look,” one said. “World record. Yo-yo!”

Kids were the same all over the world. He painfully pulled a smile, waved, but spared them the truth. They had no chance. Fast Eddie McDonald of Toronto had a lock on the world record with 21,663 yo-yo loops in 3 hours.