Nothing by Chance

He stepped up on the wooden porch and unlocked the office.

“Nice field, you got here,” I said.

“Not bad, for bein’ sod.”

Bad news, I thought. When the owner doesn’t like sod, he’s looking for a concrete runway, and when he’s looking for a concrete runway, he’s looking to make money on business planes, not barnstormers.

“What were you boys doin’, tryin’ to see how close you could come without hitting?” He touched a switch that set the gas pump to humming.

I looked at Paul and thought I-told-you-so; we don’t want to have anything to do with this place.

“Just a bit of loose formation flying,” Paul said. “We do it every day.”

“Every day? What are you boys doing? You part of an air show?”

“Sort of. We’re just barnstormin’ around,” I said. “Thought we might stay here a few days, hop a few passengers, get people out to look at the airport.”

He thought about this for a while, considering implications.

“This is not my field, of course,” he said while we gassed the airplanes and added some quarts of oil to the engines. “Owned by the city and run by the club. I couldn’t make the decision by myself. I’d have to call a meeting of the directors. Could do that tonight and maybe you could come on down and talk to them.”

I couldn’t remember anything about barnstormers meeting with directors to decide whether or not to work a town. “It’s nothin’ that big,” I said. “Just us two airplanes. We do formation and a few aerobatics, and then Stu here does a little parachute jumpin’. That’s about it, and carrying passengers.”

“Still have to have the meeting, I’d think. How much do you charge?”

“Charge nothin’. It’s all free,” I said, reeling the gas hose into the pit. “All we’re tryin’ to do is make gas and oil and hamburgers on the passenger rides, three dollars a throw.”

Somehow I got the idea that the town had been hurt in the past by a troupe of roving sky gypsies. It was a completely different meeting than the normal cheer we had come to expect at smaller towns.

“Joe Wright’s the name.”

We introduced ourselves around, and Joe got on the phone and called a few of the directors of the Palmyra Flying Club. When he was done, he said, “We’ll be getting together tonight; like to have you come on down and talk. Meanwhile, I guess you’d like to get something to eat. Place is just down the way. Give you a ride, if you want, or there’s a courtesy car.

I would rather have walked, but Joe insisted and we piled into his Buick and drove. He knew the town well, and gave us a pretty little tour of it on the way to the café. Palmyra was blessed with beautiful grass places; a millpond that was still as a lily-pad and green-reflecting quiet like millponds should be; dirt roads through the country, arched overhead by tall curving trees, and quiet back streets with timeless lapstrake and stained glass and oval strawberry-glass front doors.

Every day’s barnstorming made the fact a little clearer … the only place where time moves is in the cities.

By the time we arrived at the D&M Truck Stop Café, we were well appraised of the town, whose primary industry was a foundry sheltered back in the trees; and of Joe Wright, who was a kind-thinking volunteer airport-operator. He dropped us at the door and left to do some more calling and meeting-arranging.

“I don’t like it, Paul,” I said when we had ordered. “Why should we bother with a place if it’s gonna be no fun? We’re free agents, remember … go anywhere we want to. There’s eight thousand other places than here.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” he said. “What’s the matter with going to their little meeting? We just go there and act nice and they’ll say fine. Then we don’t have any problems and everybody knows we’re good guys.”

“But if we go to the meeting we hurt ourselves, don’t you see? We came out here to get away from committees and meetings, and to see if we could find real people, you know, in the little towns. Just being greasy old barnstormers, free in the air, goin’ where we please and when we please.”

“Now look,” Paul said. “This is a good place, right?”

“Wrong. Too many airplanes here.”

“It’s close in to town, it has lakes, it has people, OK?”

“Well …”

We left it at that, though I still wanted to leave and Paul still wanted to stay. Stu didn’t want to take sides, but I thought he leaned to the staying side.

When we walked back to the airplanes, we found a few cars parked, and a few Palmyrans looking into the cockpits. Stu unrolled the FLY $3 FLY signs and we went to work.

“PALMYRA FROM THE AIR, FOLKS! PRETTIEST LITTLE TOWN IN THE WORLD! WHO’S THE FIRST TO FLY?” I walked toward the parked cars when the cockpit-watchers said they were just browsing. “Are you ready for an airplane ride, sir?”