Page 80 of The First Gentleman

She hands me my change and a receipt. “Then you should talk to the Romeos.”

“The Romeos?”

“Yeah. ‘Retired Old Men Eating Out.’ They hang out at Olie’s, a coffee shop about five miles down the road.” She points east. “Wind ’em up and they’ll talk your goddamn ear off.”

Olie’s turns out to be a run-down brick building with a counter covered with coffee urns and glass pastry containers. I get a cup of black coffee.

In a back corner, six white men with the lined faces of seventy-somethings are clustered around two tables pushed together, talking and laughing. The three men facing the door give me the eye. The others just keep on yakking.

I gather my nerve, drag a chair over, and give the men my brightest smile. My secret weapon. “Morning! I heard you gentlemen know everything there is to know about this area.”

At first, the faces are stern. Suspicious. Then one of the guys grins back. “Ain’t no gentlemen here.” The others guffaw at the joke. Can’t blame them. The delivery was spot-on.

One of the other guys shifts his chair to the side to make some room. “Slide in, honey. What do you want to know?”

“She’s not your honey,” another man says, wagging his finger.

“Youwishshe was,” says a third. He chuckles into his coffee mug. The others laugh.

I feel like I’m at a Friars Club comedy roast. “My name’s Brea Cooke. I’m working on a book about airplanes, and I’m looking for some local history.”

“What kind of history?” Judging by his looks, this is the oldest guy in the bunch. Bald head. Bushy white eyebrows. All the others are wearing caps—Hanover FD, Caterpillar, John Deere, and two with Vietnam patches.

Veterans.

In an instant, I have my spiel. And the first part is totally true. “My great-grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman. A fighter pilot. Before the war, he was a mechanic with the regular Army Air Corps.”

The bald guy gives me a nod. “Those Tuskegee men kicked ass.”

I nod right back. “They did. My great-grandpa was part of a transportation wing that flew planes up to Canada so they could be transferred to the RAF and the RCAF.”

“Sure,” the man on my right says. “I heard of that.”

From here, I’m just winging it, so to speak. Pure invention. “So there’s a family story that on one flight, my great-grandpa’s plane lost an engine, and he landed at an emergency strip somewhere around here. I already checked with Lebanon, and I looked at Canaan—”

“The grass strip?” says one of the vets. “They call it Triumph now.”

“And it wasn’t even there in the forties,” says the other. “Opened around 1962.”

The guy in the John Deere cap hasn’t said much. I wonder if he resents my intrusion. He narrows his eyes and looks at me.

“Etna Drags,” he says.

Silence all around. Then the bald guy slaps the table. “Shit, yes! Etna Drags. It was a refueling stop and emergency depot during the war. After that, they turned it into a racetrack for cars. A drag strip. Went bankrupt about sixty years ago.”

The guy in the Caterpillar cap leans toward him. “About the time your balls dropped, right, Lou?” Uproarious laughter.

“Hey, hey!” one of the vets shouts. “There’s a lady present!” He looks over at me. “Apologies, Brea.”

I wave my hand. “No worries. I’ve heard worse.” I grab my coffee and get up from the chair. I look right at Mr. John Deere. “Etna Drags. Thank you!”

He nods and tips his cap. “Do right by your great-grandpa, now.”

“I will.”

That’s one more person I need to do right by.

CHAPTER

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