Nothing by Chance

“Yeah. Made it in here nonstop from Ohio, that’s why I didn’t stay any longer over the field there. Just about out of gas. And that field is too short for me.” He was apologetic, as if it was his fault that the field wasn’t right.

“No prob. Throw your stuff in the front seat and we’ll hop on over. If you trust me. No controls up front …”

It took a while for the 1960’s to fade from Paul, and as he helped Stu finish packing the chute, he told us about the shootings he had done. It was depressing to hear that the other world still existed, out there, with people still running around in business suits and discussing abstracts that had nothing to do with engines or tailskids or good fields to land in.

That evening, even without a parachute jump, the biplane had fifteen passengers to carry, and when she was covered for the night, we were sure again that an unorganized barnstormer could get along in spite of a few lean days.

There was the usual lively conversation over the restaurant table, but all the while, in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the Luscombe unable to work the short fields. If it had been hard to find this place where the biplane could land, it was going to be twice as hard to find a hayfield long enough for both airplanes to work well.

A barnstormer can survive, but is he stacking the cards against himself by working with an airplane that wasn’t built for short-field flying? Would the Luscombe be the downfall of The Great American and its dreams? I couldn’t get the questions out of my mind.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I CHECKED THE TAILSKID SHOE first thing in the morning. It needed some extra wire to hold it in place and this meant lifting the tail back onto the oil cans.

Paul stood glumly by.

“Think you could give me a hand with lifting the tail?” I said. “Stu, you ready for us to lift?”

“Lift away,” said Stu from his oilcans underneath the tail.

Paul apparently hadn’t heard me, for he didn’t move to help. “Hey, Paul! Why don’t you stop sucking that cigarette for a minute and give us a hand here?”

Paul looked at me as though I was some kind of repugnant beetle, and moved to help. “All right, all right I’ll help you! Take it easy.”

We picked up the tail and set the skid on its oilcan jack. Later, we walked to town for breakfast and Paul trailed behind, saying nothing, the picture of depression. Whatever his problem is, I thought, it is none of my business. If he wants to be depressed, that’s his option. It was the quietest, most uncomfortable breakfast we ever had. Stu and I traded comments about the weather and the tail skid and the wagon jack, how it couldn’t possibly work, and all the time Paul said not a word, made no sound at all.

We all had separate places to go after breakfast, and for the first time since we began the summer, we did not walk together, but went three separate ways. It was an interesting sort of thing, but puzzling, for the same wave of depression hit us all.

Well, heck, I thought, walking alone back to the airplane, I don’t care. If the other guys want to do something else and feel bad, I can’t stop ’em. The only guy I can control is me, and I’m out here to barnstorm, not to waste time feeling bad.

I resolved to fly to the airport and change the biplane’s oil, and then I was pushing on. If the other guys wanted to come along, that was fine with me.

When I walked onto the hayfield again, Paul was sitting alone on his sleeping bag, writing a note. He said nothing.

“OK, buddy,” I said at last. “What you do is none of my business except when it starts to affect me. And it’s starting. What is bugging you?”

Paul stopped writing, and folded the paper. “You,” he said. “Your attitude has changed. You’ve been acting different ever since I got back. I’m leaving today. I’m on my way home.”

So that was the problem. “You’re free to go. You mind telling me just how my attitude has changed? I no longer want to fly with you, is that it, you guess?”

“I don’t know. But you’re just not there. I might as well be some brand new guy you never met before. You can treat other people like outsiders, but you can’t treat me that way.”

I scanned back over everything I had done or said since Paul returned. I had been a trifle stiff and formal, but I had been that way a thousand times since I had known Paul. I am stiff and formal with my airplane when we haven’t flown for a few days. It must have been my comment about the cigarette this morning. Even as I had said it, it sounded a bit harsher than it was meant to be.

“OK,” I said. “I apologize. I’m sorry for my crack about the cigarette. I keep forgetting you’re so darn sensitive …”

Heck of an apology, I thought.

“No, it’s not that only. It’s your whole attitude. It’s like you can’t wait to get rid of me. So don’t worry. I’m getting out. I was writing a note to leave for you, but you came back too quick to finish it.”

I stood there. Had I been so wrong for so long? Would this man, whom I considered among the very best friends I had in the world, judge me without listening for my defense, find me guilty and then leave without a word?

“The only thing I can think of …” I started slowly, trying to speak as truly as I could, “… is that I wish to goodness you would have been able to land in this field. I was mad at you when you didn’t land, because this is such a good field. But I wouldn’t land the Luscombe here myself, and I think you’d be dumb to try it. You did the right thing, but I just wished that the Lusk could be a little better barnstorming airplane, is all.” I began to roll my sleeping bag. “If you want to bug out, fine. But if you leave because you think I want to get rid of you, you’re wrong, and that’s your problem to overcome.”

We talked the trouble back and forth, and gradually we were talking like ourselves again, bridging a chasm that had been hidden under ice.

“Are you going to settle down now,” Paul said, “and treat your troops like they were human beings?”