Flight of Passage: A True Story Read online

  “Ah horseshit. If a senior told you to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you do it?”

  “Of course not. But this was different.”

  “Horseshit.”

  Lately, my father had been improvising techniques from the Alcoholics Anonymous program to deal with me. My behavioral problems, he thought, were like an alcoholic’s, addictive and chronic, and they needed to be addressed systematically with an eye toward a long-term cure. He made me write out on one side of a sheet of paper all of the things that were wrong with me, and then on the other side I had to list all of the measures I could adopt to correct each defect. He made me read the biographies of AA founder Bill W. and the late Matthew Talbot of Dublin, a famous reformed drunk, who my father and his friends in AA were petitioning Rome to have declared the “patron saint of all alcoholics.”

  This time, my father decided to try a new approach—I think this one was the sixth or seventh step in the AA program. That’s the one where recovering alcoholics contact all the loved ones and friends they had wronged while they were drinking and apologize for some grave offense that they still feel guilty about. Then they had to sit there and listen to all the negative things that their relative had to say about them. This was supposed to provide humbling but useful new material for the recovering alcoholic to work on.

  “Rinker,” my father said, “I want you to write a letter of apology to this woman. And no bullshit either. Just give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth, bless-me-father-for-I-have-sinned letter for this old gal and maybe that’ll help you understand why you did this.”

  “Dad, I’ll do it.”

  I worked my ass off on that letter. Upstairs in my attic room, banging away on my Smith-Corona typewriter, I wrote and rewrote, consulting my Webster’s Dictionary and Roget’s Thesaurus for just the right words. It had to be perfect. When I was done, I was so proud of the results that I made a carbon and saved it before I took the original down for my father’s approval. Here’s the last paragraph, which appeared just prior to “Sincerely Yours.”

  However, I am truly sorry and I do feel guilty. I had no way of knowing that my thoughtless actions would provoke such tortured consternation in a woman in your frail condition and of such advanced age. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can be of any further assistance during your recovery from this most troubling and memorable event.

  As he read the letter, my father’s hands trembled and he fumbled for his pipe.

  “Ah shit Rinker. Look at this thing. You booby-trapped it.”

  “Hey, c’mon Dad. It’s a good letter. I worked hard on that.”

  “Ah, bull.”

  “Dad, let’s just get this over with. I’ll mail it in the morning.”

  “Rinker, we can’t send this thing. The goddam lady will die of a heart attack.”

  Terrified that I might actually mail it, my father crumpled up the letter and threw it into the fire. He stared into the flames for a while and then sighed.

  “Ah hell Rinker. I don’t know whether you’re going to end up in the White House, or down on the Bowery. But right now, you’re my biggest pain in the ass.”

  “Ah Dad.”

  “Look. Go upstairs and study or something, will you? Get out of my sight.”

  When I got to the door my father called out again. He was sitting in his rocker with his back toward me, facing the fire.

  “You know what really bothers me about this?”

  “No, what?”

  “Kern. Your brother. This stuff really hurts him, Rinker. He’s very upset and confused about you. Do you realize that? I’ve asked you not to antagonize him, but you always find a way.”

  I wasn’t really that worried about my brother. I’d been antagonizing Kern for so long he practically expected it by now. But I felt awful about what my father said, because he wasn’t really talking about Kern, he was talking about Kern and him together. My father had worked hard over the past four years bringing Kern along, teaching him to fly. His life then was enormously frustrating and complex—too many kids, too many bills, a job in New York that he no longer enjoyed—and watching Kern grow as a pilot had erased a lot of his pain and brought him joy. The day my brother soloed, I think, was the happiest day in my father’s life. They were perfect together, and Kern was practically my father’s alter ego now. Kern’s happiness meant everything to my father, everyone in the family could see that. Bringing Kern out of his shell and boosting his self-confidence had been a major accomplishment for my father. By hurting one of them, he seemed to be saying, I was hurting both of them, threatening the one great contentment of his life over the past few years.

  I hated myself for that, but I also hated my situation. Everything I did had to be considered in the light of my father and my brother’s expectations. Their relationship was primary and intense, a given. I was secondary, the also-ran in our threesome. Perhaps I should have been able to figure all of this out. A lot of my behavior had to do with rebelling against what I considered my father’s inordinate sympathy and love for my brother, and certainly I was envious of their relationship. But nobody figures very much out at the age of fourteen.

  I never felt guilty for very long. This is just family, I thought, something to get away from. Why should I worry about my father and my brother when things were going so well up at school? Everybody loved the way I mooned that old lady, and I wasn’t going to walk away from popularity that came as easy as that.

  My father was impatient by nature and hated dwelling on a problem, and he knew that Kern had him trapped. My father had rushed us through childhood, always throwing us up onto a hotter horse, or into a faster plane, insisting that we accept manly responsibilities early. He was a grand eccentric himself, always spouting off some crazyass barnstorming scheme of his own, and now Kern had simply outdone him. A coast to coast flight was exactly the kind of dreamy, preposterously impractical act that he expected of his oldest son. If he withheld his permission now, he would be turning his back on the boy he had raised.

  One night late that week my father called us down to his library. He was sitting on his rocker in front of the fire staring pensively into the flames, drawing on a long, curved briar.

  “Ah screw it Kern,” my father said. “I’m sick of thinking about this. You and Rinky can fly to California. Hell, it’s even a good idea.”

  Kern launched off the couch.

  “Yoweeee! Thanks Dad. Thanks! I promise we won’t disappoint you. Jeez. This is great!”

  Dashing out of the library for the staircase, he floated up the carpeted steps as if he were riding a cushion of air.

  “Whoa! Hey Kern, whoa,” my father called after him. “Where you going? I wanna talk about this thing. Plan the trip.”

  “Later Dad,” Kern called down from the landing. “I want to order my maps.”

  My father sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed.

  “Jeez,” he said. “Kern.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Kern.”

  My father had this enormously persuasive manner of leaning over almost perpendicular in his chair, joining the tips of his fingers from both hands into a steeple, and staring someone right in the face. I’d seen him do this at AA meetings, at political gatherings, and with the worshipful young salesmen flocking in and out of his office in New York. He tapped me on the knee.

  “Now listen here young man,” he said. “One thing.”

  “Dad, you don’t have to say it. I know. Don’t screw this one up. For Kern’s sake.”

  “Well good, Rinker. Exactly. But think of yourself too. Your brother likes you, he wants you along on this trip. Think of the things you’ll learn, working on the plane. And the country you’ll see! Why, Jesus, Texas. Texas! Texas is magnificent from the air. This is a wonderful opportunity for you.”

  “Sure Dad. Texas.”

  “Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  This was the kind of thinking I had to engage in. Because my brother liked me, because it was a wonderful oppo
rtunity for me, we would be flying out past Texas together, and then somehow we would hoist ourselves over the Rocky Mountains in an 85-horsepower Piper Cub.

  CHAPTER 2

  We brought the Cub home the day after Thanksgiving. In earlier years we disassembled our “winter planes” out at the airport, lashing the wings to wooden cradles mounted on the sides of our Jeep pickup and hitching the tail to the rear bumper, so that the plane towed backward on its landing gear. We inched the plane home that way, over twelve miles of back roads, and it usually took us all day. But Kern decided this year that this method wasn’t efficient. He made arrangements with a neighbor, Barclay Morrison, to fly the Cub into the small private landing strip that Barclay maintained on his place. This would save us a lot of time and wear and tear on the plane.

  Kern was excited about it. He planned to fly the Cub in himself, and he was determined to have the plane in the barn by the long Thanksgiving weekend, so we could get a head start on stripping off the old fabric and sanding down the airframe for repainting. He couldn’t wait to get to work, and all through Thanksgiving dinner he bubbled over about his plans for the plane and his various dreams about our trip.

  The next morning was blustery and cold. A ceiling of high cirrus blocked the sun and waves of low cumulus raked the hills. The wind was blowing straight out of the north, gusting to twenty-five knots or more, and we knew without even driving over there that we’d face a fierce crosswind at Barclay’s east-to-west strip.

  Barclay’s field was narrow and short, just 800 feet. It sat atop a high, grassy hill with steeply sloping ravines on three sides. In winds like these, Kern knew that he couldn’t possibly put the Cub down and get it stopped before he ran off the edge.

  At breakfast, Kern was very glum about it, and his immense brown eyes were opened wide with dejection, as big as hubcaps.

  “Dad. Rink,” he sighed. “The mission is scrubbed.”

  My father sat with his elbows on the table, holding a cup of coffee in both hands. He hated to see Kern disappointed like that. He stared dreamily out the windows to the trees at the far edge of our field, which were bent over in the wind. Normally these were no conditions to fly in, but normally had never appealed to my father very much.

  “Wipe that scowl off your face son,” my father said. “I’ll fly the Cub into Barclay’s for you.”

  “Dad, no,” Kern said. “It’s too dangerous. There must be a 90-degree crosswind over there today. We can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Bull,” my father said. “Tomorrow there might be snow. I can put the Cub down at Barclay’s. It’ll be fun for you, watching the old fart do it.”

  Little shivers of fear and pride trembled through me whenever my father gave himself a challenge like that. My father was good, very good at flying. There wasn’t a pilot around who had quite his touch. He probably could put the Cub down at Barclay’s. But it would be hazardous, and there wasn’t much point to it. We could always break the plane down at the airport and haul it home from there.

  But Kern and I knew that it was useless to challenge my father when he was in a mood to prove himself. In his repertoire of barnstorming blarney tales, precarious landings were his favorite. It was a matter of self-esteem for him. He could shoehorn a plane into places that other pilots wouldn’t even look at.

  After breakfast, Kern gypsied around the barn for his tools, and then we all piled into the chalky warmth of our battered Willys pickup and drove out to the airport in Basking Ridge.

  At the airport, nobody was flying. There were reports of severe turbulence and a cold front with snow moving down the east coast. My father wiggled into his old sheepskin flying suit and sat by the gas stove in the pilots’ shack to stay warm. Kern and I walked down the flight line, preflighted and started the Cub, and taxied it up to the shack. We tied it down near the shack with the engine still idling. My father told us to leave right away for Barclay’s. The wind was blowing so hard he thought he might need us to hold down the wings once he landed.

  When we got over to the Morrison place, Barclay walked down to his grass strip with his Irish wolfhounds. He was an elegant, quiet man, immaculately dressed in wool trousers, polished shoes, and a tweed cap. He sat with us on the warm hood of the Jeep waiting for my father and the Cub to show up. His own ship, a Helio Courier bush plane, sat nearby, its tiedown chains snapping and banging in the fierce wind.

  Barclay glanced at his windsock up on the hill. It was rifled straight out, indicating a strong crosswind directly across the grass runway.

  “That’s quite a wind,” Barclay said.

  Kern felt defensive about it.

  “Barclay,” he said. “If he doesn’t like the look of it he won’t land. He’ll wiggle the wings for us to pick him back up at the airport.”

  “That’s all right son,” Barclay said. “I know your father. He’ll at least try to put the plane down.”

  Under normal wind conditions, landing a plane is a relatively straightforward business, no more difficult than docking a boat. Pilots land by pointing the plane directly into the wind, to retain lift and slow down the groundspeed before the wings are stalled just above the ground. Landing into the wind also helps avoid the dangerous crosswinds that can sweep the plane off the runway as it becomes vulnerable at slow speeds.

  In a light crosswind, there’s an accepted procedure for landing. Lining the plane up with the runway, the pilot banks one wing into the wind to correct for drift. The tail rudder is pushed the opposite way to correct for the wing being down and to keep the plane straight. Thus cross-controlled, the plane crabs into the wind toward the runway. The crab is corrected and the wings leveled just before touchdown. There are all kinds of variations—side slips; approaching the runway at a slight angle; touching down on one wheel—for every pilot has his own “crosswind technique.”

  One thing a pilot is never supposed to do, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rule book, is exceed a plane’s published “crosswind component.” Generally, that means winds deflecting more than 45 degrees to the runway, blowing above ten or twelve knots. According to the laws of aerodynamics, a plane simply can’t be put down in such conditions. Most pilots learn the lesson for good by trial and error. Some of the finest flyers I’ve known have taken out trees and gas trucks before establishing their personal “crosswind limit.”

  Barclay’s strip that day was so far beyond any known crosswind component that it was an FAA violation just looking at it.

  My father had a distinct personality in the air. Whereas on the ground he was all bravado and blarney, inside a cockpit he had a jaunty, old-fashioned grace. He was strictly seat of the pants, a throwback to the barnstormers of the 1930s. When landing he approached high and fast, insurance against an engine failure, and then he spilled off the extra height and speed on final approach with a dramatic sideslip. Flying somewhere, he dreamily meandered off course to follow rivers and other landmarks.

  There was no mistaking the Cub we saw darting around the low clouds that morning at Barclay’s. We could see the wings rocking as my father fought the turbulence and the nose dipped down in level flight from running the prop too fast, which was the way that he flew. As he turned in toward the field he banked the wings over sharply, kicking out some top rudder to slip off the extra altitude.

  My father was too gifted a hand to even consider fighting a crosswind as strong as the one he faced that morning. He didn’t linger either like most pilots would, circling carefully to check the wind and the field.

  Instead, a quarter mile out, he simply turned perpendicular to the runway and pointed the nose of the Cub at the tip of the windsock, flying directly upwind. He ran the engine at half-power to penetrate the strong wind and held the nose high so the Cub dropped like a elevator. He threw open the side windows and stuck his head out into the air for better visibility. The long white scarf he liked to wear when he was flying fluttered out into the slipstream like the tail of a kite.

  That’s how he flew it, a
ll the way down. Perpendicular to the runway, directly into the wind. It was the ultimate crosswind technique. At 30 feet, dropping down below the trees, the nose was still pegged on the windsock.

  It was all one graceful and unified motion, what he did next.

  At the edge of the runway, right over our heads, my father gunned the engine. Then he made a sharp 90-degree turn to line up with the runway, banking so low and so hard that the wingtip looked as if it was pivoting against the ground.

  When he was lined up with the runway he snapped the wings in the other direction back past the level point and planted the windward tire on the grass. He was still carrying a lot of power and he was fast, very fast, nowhere near a stall, but it was a brilliant stroke because he needed all that power and speed to keep air moving over the controls so he could fight the wind drift. Very few pilots would think of handling it this way, but then there very few pilots like him. He knew—actually, he was betting—that the motion of rocking the wheels back and forth on the grass to fight the plane onto the ground, and fish-tailing the fuselage to fight the wind, would load up enough drag to slow the plane in time.

  The end of the runway and the ravine below were racing up quickly to swallow the plane. But there was nothing my father could do about that now because he was committed, and his only choice was to fight the wind all the way down the strip and keep the plane running straight and in one piece.

  It was a hauntingly beautiful moment, those three or four seconds while my father and the Cub darted past. Plane and pilot and the elements they faced were locked in perfect combat, so evenly matched, so near disaster, that it was impossible to determine where skill left off and luck, or fate, or the divine protection extended to the truly foolhardy took over. The risk my father was taking, and the grace he handled it with, seemed transmitted from him and the plane into me. And he was really exerting himself now, working that plane for every last ounce of effectiveness. Through the windows of the Cub I could see him leaning into the controls and pumping his arms back and forth on the stick, beating the four-point arc all the way to the stops, and he was furiously walking the rudders to keep the plane tracking straight and to get the other wheel down, and all of these bodily movements were visible in the rapid deflections of the controls on the wings and the tail. The power and swiftness and peril of it all was entrancing, and there was something in the vision of that plane straining to get on the ground that transcended each of these things individually and became, whole, an act of supreme competence. As he skittered past us on one wheel my father had this grim half-smile of determination on his face.