My Year with Eleanor (12 page)

“Will we be expecting any more of those?” I asked nervously, eyeing the portable life preserver Boom had clipped to my waist before takeoff “just in case.”

“Naw, probably not,” he said, but he put some distance between our planes nonetheless. We'd been in the air for less than ten minutes when he said, “Okay, you have the plane.” He let go of his control stick, palms facing out in one of those “look, Ma, no hands!” gestures.

“What?! Jesus!” The right wing started to drop, and I fumbled for my stick. I was filled with the same surprised indignation I'd felt when my dad taught me how to ride a bike. He'd been jogging along behind me, holding the back of my seat, and then without warning, he'd let go. “Stop it!” I'd shrieked. “Don't let go!” But there had been little I could do because it had taken all my concentration not to crash the bike.

“See? You're doing great!” Boom said as I struggled to even us out. The control stick was so sensitive that pushing it a millimeter was enough to move the aircraft.

When I was little, I liked to play on the seesaws at the neighborhood playground. Sometimes I'd stand in the middle of the seesaw, trying to balance both ends in the air at once. This was hard to do. I'd always end up putting too much weight on one foot, and when the seesaw started to drop on that side, I'd ease up and shift more weight to the other foot, and then
that
side would start to drop. This was what it was like trying to fly. I was trying to hold the control stick still, but the plane was somewhat cockeyed. So I nudged the stick slightly to the left.
Too much!
Back to the right again. The plane wobbled drunkenly. As I moved my control stick, I could see Boom's stick move with it as though guided by an invisible hand.

“Now we're a little high,” Boom cautioned. “Push forward on the nose a bit.” I urged the stick forward and the plane lurched. I overcompensated by pulling the nose up too fast. Eventually I straightened out. There was no way I was going to be able to dogfight. It was time to break the news to Boom.

“Um, I don't think I'll be able to, you know, do any tricks or go upside down or anything.”

Boom waved this off. “Don't worry. When you're dogfighting, you'll be so focused you won't even notice when you're upside down.”

“Trust me, I'll notice.”

“Now I want you to get behind Lenny and practice getting him in your crosshairs. During the dogfight, he's going to be flying all over the place, so you won't look for him through your gunsight. Look for him out in the sky, maneuver the plane toward him, and then line him up in your crosshairs.”

He added: “Always be looking for the bogey. Never lose sight of your enemy. You lose sight, you lose the fight.”

I steered the plane over to Lenny's, and squinting one eye, I positioned him inside my orange circle with a cross in the middle. “Should I pull the trigger?” I asked.

“We're not activated yet, but why the hell not? It's emotionally satisfying.”

I pulled the red trigger with my pointer finger, making
pew, pew, pew!
sounds. It
was
satisfying.

“Okay, now I want you to do a barrel roll. You're going to pull the control stick all the way to the left and keep going, flipping the plane over three hundred and sixty degrees.”

Panic surged through me. “Oh, I don't think that's a good idea!” My voice was uncharacteristically girlish and fluttery. “Really, I'm fine right here. Can we just hang out?”

“To the left, now! Go! Go! Go!” he barked militarily, leaving me no choice.

With a stream of expletives running through my head, I pulled the stick over until it was pressed against my left leg and could go no farther. We were turning. The flickering gray ocean beneath the plane was replaced by the steady seamless blue of the sky. I felt a pronounced, but not uncomfortable, pressure on my body. Then the water rotated back into view and we were right side up again.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Boom grinned.

It . . . was, actually,
I marveled. I couldn't believe I'd just done that. Now I understood how commanders got their soldiers to charge into battle. The human instinct to please could be more powerful than our survival instinct.

Boom had me hold the plane steady while we let Lenny practice getting me in his crosshairs.

“Time to dogfight!” Boom announced.

Oh no. There was no way out of this. Boom took the controls and steered me far away from Lenny and Slick's plane. When we were a good distance apart, he turned the plane around so Lenny and I were facing each other. We were two gunslingers moving toward each other on the main street of a deserted town. As we closed in, I took great care to stay toward the right side.

“Fight's on!” Slick's voice crackled over the radio.

Fwoom!
The planes passed, left wing to left wing. Instead of turning and engaging with Lenny, I kept going straight. Maybe I could just outrun him? I
did
have a head start.
What this plane needs is a rearview mirror,
I thought, looking over my shoulder to see how far behind he was. It was bizarre taking my eyes “off the road.” Then again, there was no one else up there that I could possibly crash into. Lenny was arching high across the sky, with obvious intentions to circle around behind me. Staring at the underbelly of his plane, wings jutting out like fins, I was reminded of scuba diving and how it felt to see a shark cruising overhead, knowing it was about to swoop down on me.

“Cut him off! Cut him off!” Boom shouted.

Cut him off? He wants me to cut off a plane? Using my plane?

“Bank left!” Boom ordered.

Cautiously, I eased the plane to the left.

“Harder! Harder!”

Clenching my teeth, I applied more pressure to the stick. The plane rolled violently sideways into a ninety-degree bank. The wings were completely vertical. I stole a glance out the left window. Eerily, all I saw was a wall of water.

“Tip the nose down!” he commanded.

I followed his order and suddenly we were dropping nose-first toward the ocean. My body felt empty. It was a horrible sensation.

“Oh, what's happening?” I asked in a rising tone of alarm. “Can you jump in here, please?!”

Boom was unfazed. “No, you've got it.”

Instinctively, I pulled up on the nose and straightened out the plane, so that I was driving like a car, with the water beneath us. That was better.

“What are you doing? Don't look where you're going!” Boom reprimanded. “Look for the enemy!”

I blinked at him. The enemy?

“Lenny! Remember, lose sight, lose the fight!”

Right. Lenny. I braced my elbow on my headrest and shifted in my seat. I craned my neck, frantically scanning for a plane amid the blueness. Where the hell had he gone? You'd think he'd be easy to spot in an empty sky, but it was not like standing on a flat plain and looking for someone in the distance. He could've also been below me or above me.

Suddenly Lenny was upon us. While I had been struggling with the plane, he'd swung in behind and nailed me. White smoke poured out of my tail. The entire dogfight was over in a matter of minutes.

“Good kill,” Boom congratulated Lenny over the radio. Then he turned to me. “You're doing a great job. Just remember, concentrate on watching the enemy, you can't hurt the plane.”

“No offense, but I don't give a crap about the plane. It's me I'm worried about hurting!”

He chuckled good-naturedly. “As long as the plane is safe, you're safe.”

We lined up for the second dogfight. This time around I was less nervous as we charged toward each other. We passed, left wing to left wing; then Lenny fanned out to the right and I went left. For a second I was unsure of what to do next.

Boom hollered, “He's above us! Don't let him get away. Pull back! Pull back all the way! Pull! Pull!”

Slowly but firmly, I drew the stick toward me until it could go no farther. The earth dropped away as I steered the plane straight up. We were in a high climb, crusading against gravity. All I could see was the white blue sky and Lenny. Something was happening. What was this? I was pinned back in my chair, slumped over to the right, head tilted so far that it was practically resting on Boom's shoulder. I looked like someone should be wheeling me out during a telethon. The g-forces were so intense that I couldn't lift my head, not even an inch. I couldn't move anything.

“Keep pulling!” Boom was saying. I felt the g-forces coaxing the control stick out from under my fingers. If it popped out of my hand, we'd lose our thrust. All I could think of was the demonstration of what happened if you half-ass a backflip.

It was hard to speak, as if gravity was trying to keep the words down. In a feeble voice, I pleaded, “Help . . . me.” That was all I could manage.

To my relief, Boom took over the stick. He steered us behind the bogey, lined it up in the crosshairs, and squeezed the trigger. White smoke streamed forlornly out of Lenny's tail. Boom hooted with pleasure. As he maneuvered the plane, I could only stare straight ahead. Clouds and ocean and sky twisted and turned in my eye line, as if through a kaleidoscope. Suddenly the pressure on my body ebbed. I could move again. I lifted my head and straightened in my seat and saw that we were flying right side up.

“Wow, that was intense,” I breathed.

Boom gave me a happy nudge. “Congratulations. You won!” he said graciously.

My face was stuck in a huge, goofy smile. I didn't care that I hadn't pulled the trigger, I still felt like I'd won.
Holy shit,
I thought
, I'm actually doing this.

There is no such thing as “down” during dogfights, I realized. The sooner you wrapped your head around that, the more success you'd have. Down was whichever way your butt happened to be pointing at any given time. You couldn't worry about where you were in relation to the ground. You had to keep your focus on the target.

“I got beat by a girl,” Lenny moaned over the radio. I snickered even though Boom made the kill. Let him live in ignorance.

I was fired up as our third and final dogfight began.
Fwoom!
Lenny was a blur as we raced past each other.

“Do you see him?” Boom prompted in that teachery tone that implied he knew the answer but wanted me to figure it out for myself. I twisted around in the cockpit, skimming the sky for the bogey.

“Wait, where is he? . . . Oh, I see him!” He was off on the left below us, turning around so he could get behind me.

I rolled the plane to the side with the nose low and began an inverted dive. The ocean twinkled happily in front of me as I dropped toward it, but it was a nonentity. I was so focused that all fear was gone. Dr. Bob had been right. As long as I concentrated on killing the enemy, I stopped worrying about what my plane was doing. The bogey was the only thing that existed right then. I dropped until I was below Lenny; then I twisted the opposite way and pulled my nose up, climbing back up to his level. Now I was behind the bogey, fixing him in my crosshairs.

“You got it. Fire! Fire!” Boom said. I squeezed the trigger and got off a few rounds, none of which connected.

Suddenly Lenny drifted out of the gunsight. I unsquinted my right eye and look out the window. Now he was above us, over my left shoulder, and about to give chase.

My eyes narrowed.
Don't even try it, bitch.

I did a high sweeping turn and pulled back on the control stick. My plane's nose tilted upward and we were in a climb. I zoomed over after the bogey, determined to make the kill this time. I was closing in. Almost got it . . . almost . . . There was a loud banging sound and the wings started shaking. Buffeting. I was too steep. The airplane was about to stall. Fuck. Fucking
fuck
. I quickly shoved the nose forward and we tipped forward suddenly and it felt as though we were on the crest of a roller coaster so I jerked the nose back up. When I got the plane level again, I looked around for Lenny.

“Okay, where did he go?” I asked.

“He's right behind us.”

“Oh no!” I cried. “How do I get away from him?!”

“You don't,” Boom said flatly. “He just shot us.”

“Oh.”

“I think it's about time to head home,” Boom said, taking back the controls.

Already? That was it? But I was just getting the hang of it! I wanted to try another barrel roll. I didn't even care that I'd lost two of the three dogfights and that Boom had technically won mine for me. I had flown! Not only flown, but fought in air-to-air combat. And I hadn't freaked out or cried or asked to go home. I'd maintained possession of my stomach contents. I felt myself glowing. I could do anything.
Anything
. I was a warrior. Boom steered us in the direction of the flight school.

“Do you want to fly again?” he asked.

I nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay, you have the plane.”

I was in the lead. I glanced over my right shoulder and saw Lenny following on my wing. He was less than ten feet away, but I was at full throttle so I couldn't speed up and put distance between us.
Why is he so close? Step off, Lenny! Oh, he's taking a picture of me. While he's driving. That can't be safe.
Still, I grinned and gamely gave him the thumbs-up, just so he'd turn his attention back to navigating. He took the photo, gave me a thumbs-up in return, and dropped back a little. When the airport bobbed into view, Boom took back the controls. We had to separate the planes so we could land.

“Say good-bye,” Boom instructed me.

I pressed the radio button and said, “Byyyyeeeeeee—” but the word turned into a squeal when Boom banked sharply to the left.

“A little notice next time?” I asked.

He laughed and continued circling around toward the opposite end of the runway. We were maybe five hundred feet off the ground when the plane began to buck. Boom took a firmer hand with the control stick, wrestling with the beast.