Page 21 of Fly Boy
“No, he flew back commercial to Denver yesterday. His brother wanted to catch a gig of some up-and-coming rock star or something, so he left early.”
A light tap hits against the metal frame of the door, and I turn to look at Jeffery, his yellow hi-vis jacket shining brightly in the early morning sun as his head pops forward. “All fueled up, buddy.”
“Thanks, man,” I reply, checking over the figures on his receipt and scribbling my initials next to them.
“Safe flight.” He spins and jogs down the stairs, then hightails it across the tarmac like his ass is on fire. I like Jeff, the dispatcher at Westchester, a hell of a lot better than Colin. Chatty Colin with the inappropriate comments about Miss Cartwright. A surge of annoyance cascades down my spine as I realize I’ll soon be face-to-face with him in a few hours.
Phillipa pulls her earbuds out of her pocket and pops one in as I finish the last safety checks and close the door. “Ready for take-off, Miss Cartwright.”
As we reach cruising altitude, the sky is like a clear blue sea, and the weather radar on the onboard computer mirrors what I can see outside of my window. The odd wisp of cloud, like cotton candy, floats by, creating blobs of white on the hills of Pennsylvania, leading to the wide-open plains of the Midwest.
From this high up, the landscape is endless. Up here, I’m not bound by the constraints of my thoughts. Up here, I’m free.
Or at least I should be.
My leg bounces incessantly as I flick the autopilot button and settle into the flight. Drumming my fingers on the armrest, I stare across the horizon, shifting in my seat a second later and then looking around the cockpit. Glancing at the instrument panel, I check and recheck the readings, noting that nothing has changed since the last five minutes I looked.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter, itching the back of my neck. I continue up and dig my fingers into my hair, the pressure ebbing some of that inside my head. I thought as soon as I was in the air, the melancholy and tightness in my chest would have shifted. Instead, the soft hum of the engines, the vibration of the powerful jet under my control, and the vast expanse of the space before me, are doing nothing to help my frayed edges.
This isn’t me. I don’t wallow. Or overthink. Life is too short to worry about the past or thewhat ifsof the future when you are powerless to change any of it. Roll with the punches and all that.
I shouldn’t have walked—stormed—out of my dad’s house last night, barely giving him a chance to explain why he’d mentionedmy birth mother’s name. It wasn’t fair to him. It’s just thatFionais like waving a red rag in front of a bull—an unstable male bull with mommy issues way into his thirties.
My teeth ache as I think about her again. Only pain and misery follow that woman. My childhood isn’t exactly one I like to reflect on. Not right now, anyway. What man wants to sit in a confined area with no escape and assess why his mother didn’t want him, not once, buttwotimes before reaching the age of six?
Flicking the noise-canceling button on my headphones, I mute the standard sounds emanating from the plane, forcing myself to focus on my job and not my fucked-up past. Reaching for the tablet mounted next to me, I download the latest weather conditions and scroll across the screen, each coded data describing what I already know. Cloud cover, visibility, wind speed… nothing massively different detailed in the report from this morning.
I rummage around in my flight bag, tugging out my logbook with a long sigh. It’s the one aspect of my job I despise and never manage to keep up with, but at least it will keep my mind busy. Opening to the most recent page, I launch my roster app and start transcribing the flights I’ve completed in the last four months.
As monotonous as admin tasks are, they serve their purpose. The hours slip by, we eat up miles in the sky, and I haven’t thought about last night for at least two of them. I’m zipping up my bag, putting the journal away, when I glance at the weather radar, noticing patches of green and yellow.
My gaze darts to the window at the darkening sky, the clouds rapidly getting thicker the closer we get to Colorado.
As the plane lurches, hitting unstable air, my stomach clenches. Turbulence causes the entire jet to drop about fifty feet, but to Phillipa sitting in the cabin, it will undoubtedly feel like thousands. My hands dart to the yolk, even though it’sstill on autopilot, and my attention snaps back to the weather radar, the new bright red and yellow lights depicting a storm cell growing and moving with greater intensity than the forecast could have anticipated.
Thirty percent chance, my ass.
Thirty minutes. That’s all I need to descend and land, and then I can ride out the storm on the ground before flying home. But in the distance, hovering near where I need to go, is the partially developed thunder cell, all dark and gray and expanding as it reaches the troposphere.
I dial into the automated recording for Colorado Springs airport on the radio, the mechanical, robot-like voice relaying the information for landing. Saying a small thank you that the runway is still open, I push a headphone off one ear, raising my voice but keeping it as calm as possible as I call out, “Miss Cartwright?”
“Wyatt,” she cries, and I flick my gaze up to the mirror installed in the middle of the deck, just like in a car, noticing her hands curled tightly around the armrests. “What’s happening?”
“Don’t worry, everything’s fine. But if it’s not already, I need you to buckle your seatbelt.”
The plane shakes violently, and she screams, her eyes squeezing tightly shut as the turbulence worsens. The instrument panel in front of me flashes as the autopilot adjusts, tweaking its settings. Repositioning my headphones, I change the radio frequency again, tuning in for Air Traffic Control.
“This is November-Three-Niner-Juliet-Lima,” I say, holding down the push-to-talk button for the microphone attached to my headset and giving my tail number. “Experiencing some really bad turbulence up here. Have there been any other reports in this area?”
Static crackles in my ears as I strain to listen for a response. Seconds tick by before a male voice replies, “It’s expected.We’ve had several reports of moderate-to-severe turbulence at all levels.”
I curse under my breath, the confirmation that no matter what I try to do to avoid it, I can’t—shit weather at all altitudes.
“Roger.”
The red lights continue to take over the weather radar, mimicking the storm outside as it expands. From my window, I can see the top of the cloud forming a mushroom, punching through the first layer of the Tropopause, the image before me similar to the explosion of an atomic bomb. If I wasn’t the one flying the plane or the fact that the entire thing continues to dip and dive sporadically, I’d have pulled out my phone and snapped a picture for Bowie.
Another air current engulfs the jet, and the muffled screams from the cabin smack me in the chest as I risk more glances at Phillipa. She’s coiled in on herself, her shoulders hunched forward, her head tilted down, her expression hidden by the long curtain of brown hair that sways in time with the plane.
