The Man Who Ate the 747 (5 page)

“What do you know? New York City,” Mabel said.

“Welcome to Superior,” the policeman said. “You just pull into town?”

“Just got here.” J.J. handed over a business card.

The police chief inspected it carefully.

“‘Keeper of the Records,’” he read. “My wife is never gonna believe this. You know, she has the worst breath on earth. You might want to look into that.”

Mabel laughed. “Speaking of records, you should see my boyfriend, Hoss. He’s got the world’s biggest, uh,—”

J.J. cut her off quickly. “I’m in a bit of a hurry. Can you help me find this man eating the plane?”

The police chief tightened his belt a notch.

“We can help you find anything you want,” he said. “We know everyone’s business around here.”

“That’s great. Where do I—”

“Cool your heels,” the chief said. “We like to take our time here, get to know each other. I’m Chief Bushee.”

“You can call him Shrimp,” Mabel said. “Everyone does.”

The chief put his hand on J.J.’s shoulder and led him back to the table. “Keep the coffee coming, Mabel. We’re gonna visit here for a while.”

J.J. slid into his chair. He wanted to blast out of the Hereford Inn, find the man eating the plane, and get started. He could hear his mother’s voice as she put him to bed, reading from the storybook about the unruly child named Max: “And now, let the wild rumpus start!” He wanted to start the rumpus, but he had to keep his cool.

“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” the chief said. “You ever hear about the prison escape up in Grand Island? Guy made a 30-foot rope out of dental floss and climbed right out the window. Took him two years. Is that a world record?”

The blue blazer with the gilded crest flapped madly on its hanger in the backseat as the Taurus bumped along the two-laner heading north out of town. The road wandered past a cemetery and a few farms before dribbling into the fields. J.J. drove along looking for the old windmill.

Coffee with Shrimp had gone for more than an hour. Rapid-fire, he learned about every pretty girl
and every unfaithful farmer in the county. He also heard about the chief’s desperate struggle to stay
above
the minimum weight requirement for Nebraska police officers. Shrimp weighed just 114 pounds. The limit was 120, and the annual physical was just weeks away.

After four doughnuts and two milkshakes, a “1018” emergency radio call interrupted their talk. A bobcat had fastened its fangs onto Mrs. Esther Hoshaw’s leg. The 89-year-old woman had whacked the animal on the nose with her dandelion digger and driven it off, but now she needed medical help.

Before running off, Shrimp scribbled directions to a farm on the outskirts of town. It was the roundabout way to get there. On foot, cutting through the Bargen family’s wheat fields, it only took ten minutes. But he didn’t want the newcomer getting lost.

On the ridge up ahead, where the heat rippled on asphalt, J.J. saw a broken Fairbury windmill ravaged by weather, just two beaten blades still cutting the air. He turned right onto a dirt road running beside a stream. It crossed over a wooden bridge, climbed up a hill, and gave way onto sweeping land. The cornstalks were lush green. In the middle of the fields, he saw a red farmhouse and barn faded by the sun. A brown dog slept on the porch. A rooster ran across the front yard.

Then he saw it for the first time, unmistakable, unbelievable.

A 747 in a farmer’s field …

He stopped the car by the side of the road. He
wanted to remember every detail. He wanted to remember the way the sunlight glinted off the tail and rudder. He wanted to remember the exact angle of the jet jutting from the ground. He wanted to remember the way the plane stretched out against the horizon, like a giant nesting bird. He wanted to remember the sensation of awe. In all his travels, he had never ever seen anything like this.

He left his car on the road and walked through the rusty gate with its hand-painted sign:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED.
He tramped up the dirt lane toward the farm, and as he came closer, the perspective shifted. Now the barn was dwarfed by the remaining fuselage. Up close, he could see the tail end of the plane was as solid as Boeing had built it. The marking on the fin was simple: an American flag. From the nose cone all the way past the wings, the aircraft was picked clean, a metal carcass under the hot sun.

J.J. felt the full blast of the discovery. A 747 was no run-of-the-mill jet. It graced the pages of The Book as the world’s highest capacity airliner and, perhaps, the most important aircraft ever built, revolutionizing mass transportation, hauling more than 1.6 billion passengers around the world.

The dog barked from the porch, watching every step as J.J. walked straight to the behemoth. He stood beneath the gleaming hulk of a plane and its towering horizontal and vertical stabilizers. He reached up on his tiptoes, ran his fingers over rivets and aluminum skin. Warm and smooth.

It was real, this 747, in the middle of a cornfield.

No one ever knocked. The house was always unlocked. Why was someone banging on the screen door?

Wally Chubb hauled himself off the couch, turned off the Weather Channel, and searched the living room for his orange hunting jacket. He needed something to cover his red union suit. He was a big man with square shoulders and hands like slabs of steak. His face was long and wide, covered with bristle the color of rust. He patted down his bushy hair and lumbered to the door.

“Who’s there?”

A man in a blue blazer stood on the porch with his hand outstretched. He was too dressy to be a salesman, too good mannered to be a debt collector.

“Afternoon,” the stranger said. “How you doing today?”

“Can’t hurt a Christian.” Wally wiped sleep from his eyes. “What can I do you for?”

“You Walter Chubb?”

No one ever called him Walter, except for school principals and lawmen.

“You from the IRS?” Wally asked.

“No,” the man said. “I’m here about the 747.”

“What 747?” Wally kneeled down to his dog. “Arf? You see a 747?” The mutt yelped and licked his face.

“Look here,” the man said. “I’ve got a few questions about the plane.”

“I knew it.” Wally stood up. “You’re a Fed. Aviation Administration, right?”

“Not even close. I’m with
The Book of Records.
Came all the way from New York. Name’s J.J. Smith.”

“What do you want with me?” Wally said.

“Are you eating that plane?”

Wally just stared.

“No one’s ever eaten a 747 before,” J.J. said. “This is the first time ever. It could be a world record.”

“What do you get for setting a record?”

“A certificate and you’re in The Book.”

It didn’t sound like much. A piece of paper and your name in a book. He wasn’t eating the plane for any reward. “Think you came a long way for nothing, mister,” Wally said. “I can’t help you.”

“But wait—”

As Wally started to close the screen door, he saw his best friend riding up the dirt path on a bicycle. “Hey, Nate!” he called out.

Nate Schoof got off his bike and leaned it against the house. He wore square black Kissinger glasses, his hair shined with a good coating of Brylcreem, and his Wildcats T-shirt and Wranglers looked ironed.

“Interrupting something?” Nate asked.

“Fella here is looking for a man eating a 747.”

“Who’d be crazy enough to do that?” Nate said.

“Beats me,” Wally said.

J.J. handed Wally a business card. “Thanks for your time. I’ll be at the motel in town.”

“Good visiting with you,” Wally said.

J.J. rushed down the dirt road back to his car.

A man eating a 747. It transcended astonishment. Edgar Snavely at
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
would have a cow when he found out. Too late! The record would be all locked up for The Book.

Wally Chubb’s resistance would be easily overcome. He’d been through this dance many times. The locals were simply testing, but soon they’d come around. He would wait, mind his own business, and eventually they would beg to be in The Book.

J.J. checked the rearview mirror. It was filled with the silvery creature that the farmer in the Halloween costume was eating piece by piece. The big man in his red pajamas was waving from the porch.

Why was he eating the plane? Was he nuts, suffering from some neurological disorder, a perfect case for Dr. Oliver Sacks? It didn’t matter. People chased records for all sorts of reasons. They wanted their 15 minutes. They wanted to make money. They wanted to impress friends and family. They wanted spiritual fulfillment. Who was J.J. to judge? All he wanted was to ratify the record, get out of town, and get Peasley off his back.

In the shade of the porch, Wally, Nate, and Arf watched the stranger head off down the lane.

“Wonder how that guy heard about you,” Nate said.

“Who cares?” Wally said. “I’ve seen
The Book of
Records.
Looked through it at the library once. Just a bunch of freaks.”

“Perfect fit.” Nate polished his trifocals with the corner of his T-shirt.

“Very funny,” Wally said.

“You think I’m kiddin’.”

“I’m gonna get you for that one.” Wally sat down on the porch glider that bucked a little under his weight. “So? Did you see Willa today?”

“She wasn’t in the café this morning, and I didn’t see her in town either.”

“You hear anything about her lately?”

“Nope. Nothing. Just what I see in the paper.”

“No big deal. I was just wondering.”

“It’s okay,” Nate said. “Come on, let’s go to work. I solved your problem.”

“Oh yeah, how’s that?”

“I’ll show you.”

The big wood doors to the barn swung open, kicking up a cloud of dust. A mouse scrambled through the hay. Streams of light dropped down through cracks in the roof, illuminating a huge metal contraption. It stood 15 feet high, like an oversize refrigerator, with wires, pulleys, cranks, and levers angling in all directions.

“Stopped by Ace Hardware on the way over,” Nate said. “Ordered a new five-horsepower engine for the chipper-shredder. Think that’ll do the trick.”

“How much it cost you?”

“Don’t worry about it. Missy slipped it to me for free.”

“She’s been sweet on you since the fifth grade,” Wally said.

“Only ’cause I helped her with her homework.”

“You helped everyone with their homework.”

“Now look at me. I’m the guy who assigns the homework.”

The two men put on aviation-grade ear protectors. Wally knelt next to the contraption, reached inside a panel, and yanked a rip cord. The machine sputtered, groaned, then died.

“You got enough gas in there?” Nate asked.

“How should I know? You didn’t put a gauge on it.”

“One small oversight in my perfect design. Go ahead, try again.”

Wally pulled hard on the cord and the engine rumbled to life.

Nate pulled open the front door of the machine and inspected the gears. His hands darted between moving parts. With a wrench and a screwdriver, he pulled and jerked and finally, with a satisfied smile, he turned to Wally.

“Ready when you are.”

Wally gave a thumbs-up, then marched out of the barn with his handsaw and giant tinner snips. He walked directly beneath the rear bulk cargo hold of the 747, the belly of the beast, positioned a creaky ladder, then climbed right up.

He cast an eye over the smooth metallic expanse. He had never seen a jet up close until that stormy night ten years ago. He had never flown on an airplane or even been to an airport. Still, he was proud of his accomplishment: He had eaten his way through the front of the aircraft, 41 Section, according to the markings on the frames and stringers, running from the nose cone through the cockpit, well past the wings, all the way to the tail.

Standing on his ladder, he examined the subassembly panels under the plane. Where to begin? He tapped the aluminum skin with the tip of his snips, then began cutting. It took ten minutes of hard work, first with the huge scissors, then with the saw, rocking back and forth to give the blade more edge. He liked the warm shavings sprinkling down on his sweaty face. He liked the smell of metal, bitter and raw. Finally, a four-by-four square dropped to the ground with a thud.