Velva Jean Learns to Fly (30 page)

I said, “The Scenic?”

He said, “No. Some parkway. The Blue-something Parkway.”

I stopped dancing. There were a lot of boys that worked up on that road, hundreds of them. But somehow I knew without asking. I said, “Do you know his name?” Vince Gillies was on his way over to me. I could see him coming.

Zeke Bodine said, “I don’t know. Indian fella, at least part Indian, part something else.”

I told myself: Don’t get ahead of yourself, girl. It could be anyone.

He said, “Doesn’t talk much. Keeps to himself. And plays the guitar like one mean and angry son of a bitch.”

December 25, 1943

Dear Hartsie and Sally-Hally,

So here I am, still in Texas, only without my best pals. Texas ain’t the same without you girls, and I’m hoping to transfer soon as I can. This is going to sound dull as dirt to you, but I’m flying cargo and ferrying new planes from factories. So far I’ve been to Salina, Kansas; Detroit, Michigan; and Long Beach, California. Do me a favor and don’t tell me too much about the important work you’re doing in North Carolina. I don’t think my ego can handle it, and you know how fragile my ego is.

Guess what? Some of the officers built a golf course nearby, so that’s the one good thing. I’m practicing every day when I’m not flying and studying. (I thought we were done with ground school—what gives?) It’s scary how rusty I am, but by the time I leave here, I aim to be better than I ever was. When this war’s over, I’m getting right back on the circuit.

Seriously, I miss you like hell. I’m not much of a letter writer, but I wanted you to have my address so you know where to send care packages.

Love,

Paula

P.S. Did you hear about Mudge? She got a part as a female pilot in a movie called
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
, starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson!

December 25, 1943

Merry Christmas, Mary Lou!

What do you know? I’m engaged. Not to a gardener or a married man this time or anyone my father would ever approve of—this one’s a soldier. A sailor, actually. He came through Nashville on his way to New York, and we spent one week together, mooning around the town. His name is Clinton Farnham, and he’s not dashing at all, which is one thing I love about him. He’s just the nicest guy I ever met and he loves me exactly for me. We’ll get hitched after the war, although I wanted to do it before he went. He wants one of those fancy weddings with a hundred guests and a champagne fountain, so I guess we’ll have to wait. He’s been gone two days now, and I’m a wreck. I’ve given up all plans of going to China and hunting snow leopards. Instead I’m thinking of joining the WAVES just to be near him.

You take care of yourself. Don’t fly those rotten ol’ planes for rotten ol’ Jackie Cochran if you don’t want to.

Your old pal,

Gossie

THIRTY-THREE

C
hristmas fell on a Saturday, and Sally and me spent our morning in Holly Ridge, since it was the closest town to Camp Davis, lying just outside the swamp. We called it “Boom Town” because it was so small that boom, you were in it; boom, you were out.

We wore the only everyday uniform we had, not counting coveralls, which was men’s dress pinks and greens—a light-drab shirt with an olive-drab tie and dark-olive trousers. The Army Air Forces General Headquarter’s patch was sewn on the upper left sleeve of the shirt, and we wore our silver WASP wings above the left breast pocket.

Over all this we were bundled up in wool coats and scarves so that you couldn’t tell we were girls at all. I thought we looked like penguins. We walked up and down the three short blocks, and everything was closed up tight except for a music store that sold records.

We went inside and I rubbed my hands together. They were freezing even in my gloves. Up on the wall over the cash register was a banjo, the only instrument in the place. It shone bright and silver, and Sally stood there staring at it, her hands on her hips.

There were records in bins and crates, and some were stacked up in corners and against the wall. I started looking through them, and I heard Sally ask the man at the counter how much that banjo was. I said to her, “I didn’t know you played banjo.”

She said, “I don’t yet.”

I picked out an album of Xavier Cugat playing congas and one of Martha Tilton, who had the sweetest voice I’d ever heard. As I walked to the counter, I passed a stack of records and there on top was Roy Acuff. I almost picked it up and then I didn’t because I decided that was my old life—a life spent worrying about the Opry and singing for Darlon C. Reynolds—and Roy Acuff had no business here in my new one. When I went up to the counter to pay for the records, Sally was counting out just enough money for the banjo.

She said, “Once I learn to play, I’ll be able to serenade Gus Mitchell.” She winked at me.

I said to the man behind the cash register, “Why are you open on Christmas?”

He said, “I’m not. I just came in to fetch something for the wife.” He held up a record—George Gershwin’s
Piano Rolls
. He said, “I had to hide it here otherwise she would have found it before today and ruined the surprise.”

I said, “Thank you for letting us buy these things.”

He said, “Merry Christmas, girls.”

Sally picked up her banjo and held it like a baby. She said, “What do you know, Hartsie? It was meant to be.”

Back at the barracks, a group of us gathered in Janie’s bay, the one she shared with Ruth. The two of them had an old Victrola that Ruth had brought from home. We put on Xavier Cugat, and I brought out my Mexican guitar and Sally sat down with the banjo, plucking away at it even though she didn’t know what she was doing. Janie played the drums on her footlocker, using pencils as drumsticks, and we all sang Christmas carols. It sounded awful, but none of us cared. Even with a war going on everywhere you looked, and my brothers off to God knows where, and me worrying about them and missing them and missing everybody up on my mountain, even with all that, it was one of the happiest Christmases I’d ever had.

On December 26 we were back in the air. Even though it was a Sunday, we had to make up the time we lost during the holiday. An A-24 had just been delivered to Camp Davis from Wyoming, and Ruth and I were scheduled to fly it down to a base near Fort Myers, Florida. A captain named Leonard Grossman—the man with the bulldog face from Janie and Ruth’s “no” list—flew with us, and we knew that we were carrying something important that he would be dropping off, but we didn’t know what it was. Head mechanic Harry Lawson wasn’t even allowed near the plane when the officers were loading it.

I was first pilot on the trip down. I pretended the A-24 was the B-17 Flying Fortress. I liked ferrying work not just because it got me out of the swamp but because it made me feel like I was really doing something—taking planes to men who would be using them in combat. But I still wanted to do more. I wanted to fly farther and in a powerful ship like the B-17. I wondered if that feeling would ever go away, if I’d ever feel like I finally got far enough and high enough.

Just over the Okefenokee Swamp, the plane started to pull and suddenly I couldn’t get hold of it. The engine shook so hard that my teeth rattled and I knew we were running out of oil.

Ruth said, “Should we land at one of the auxiliary fields?”

Captain Grossman said, “I think we should limp home, get back to base.”

I couldn’t see anything but green and black down below for miles around us. I said, “I think we can make it to Jacksonville.”

We double-checked our safety belts. I didn’t say anything to Ruth or Captain Grossman, but I could barely keep control of the plane. It was trying to go in a circle, and I was fighting it. I retracted my flaps to restore normal flight altitude, but the speed was too low. Then I saw a town down below, and a field. I knew it wasn’t Jacksonville—it was too soon—but I could land in a field. The A-24 wasn’t an Aeronca, but I figured I’d done it once and I could do it again.

I aimed the nose in the direction of the field and said a quick prayer to Jesus. Somehow I brought it down, the plane jerking to the right and bumping along. When we came to a stop, Ruth burst into tears and Captain Grossman slapped me on the back. “Good work, Waspie,” he said.

I sat there trying to breathe. Slow and steady. Slow and steady. I closed my eyes and then I undid my belt and climbed down.

When we checked the engine, the oil was gone. There wasn’t a single drop left. Captain Grossman stayed with the ship while Ruth and I hiked to the nearest farmhouse. We came back with the farmer and enough oil to fill our tank. We flew on down to Fort Myers, and the next day we filled up the oil tank for our trip back to Camp Davis.

When we landed, there were cadets, men and WASP, gathered around, and when the three of us appeared they started clapping. Major Blackburn stalked up to me and I thought “oh no.” But he said, “Good work, Hart. Congratulations on bringing it home.” And then he stalked off.

Chief mechanic Harry Lawson inspected the plane and said that the oil had been drained—maybe because of a leak—even though the check-out sheet said oil was added before we took off. Harry Lawson was a balding man, formal and stiff as a drawing room, with the slightest hint of an accent, but not a southern one—it was a faraway, over-the-seas one that made me think of the young man at Los Alamos, the one with the round glasses. Harry Lawson seemed more like someone who should be reading books than someone who worked on airplanes. I went to bed that night thanking Jesus for keeping us all safe and for helping me land that plane in a field instead of in a swamp.

The next day Mr. Lawson wrote up his report, which held me responsible because I hadn’t double-checked to make sure the oil was in the plane before we left. Colonel Wells gave me an official reprimand because he said I burned up an engine, which was going to cost the government money. He said, “What’s the matter with you? Are you flying for the Nazis?” Everyone was, all the time, worried about spies. “That’s no scrap plane, Miss Hart. That airplane cost sixty thousand dollars!”

I walked out of his office, trying not to cry or hit something or kick something or yell. An hour before takeoff, I’d gone over the engine and double-checked the oil. I’d been doing this on every plane I flew since my flight back from Blythe, the time my engine went out over the San Francisco Peaks. The thing I’d forgotten to do was sign the check-out sheet saying I’d looked everything over and that all was okay.

I walked onto the flight line even though it was dusk and time for mess and the girls would be expecting me. I stood there thinking about rainbows and bluebirds and blue skies, and they all seemed too far away. All I could see was swamp everywhere. I thought: That’s it. I’m going to be court-martialed. I might as well just pack my things and go on home. And maybe it’s a good thing. This place is the worst place I ever did see. It’s worse than Devil’s Kitchen.

I heard someone walk up behind me but I didn’t budge or look. I didn’t care. It would probably just be one more person getting ready to write me up for something I didn’t do or lecture me or shoot at me.

“Nice landing.” It was a lazy-sounding voice, gravelly and rough, like the person speaking had just woke up. I froze. The hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms prickled like I’d seen a spook.

I turned around and saw the wide, high cheekbones and sleepy dark eyes, the brown-black hair, still long, not cut short like a soldier’s. In addition to his medicine beads, he wore dog tags, and he had the same crooked, gap-toothed smile. His uniform was the olive green-brown of an army man.

As I stood looking at him, the first thing I thought was, There you are. Then I heard his song in my head, the very first one I’d ever heard him play that long-ago July night down at Deal’s.

I said, “Butch Dawkins.”

He said, “Velva Jean Bright.”

I said, “It’s Velva Jean Hart now.”

He nodded like he’d been expecting it.

I tried to say I was sorry then for Harley and for everything, but he said, “It’s good to see you.” And that was it. I knew somehow we were square.

We walked to the mess hall but didn’t go in. Instead we sat down on the wooden benches just outside. I told him about Johnny Clay, who I hadn’t heard from in weeks, and how I learned to fly, and even a little about Nashville, and he sat there and listened, not saying a word. I didn’t mention Harley or Juárez, but I told him I’d gone home again and that I didn’t know when I’d ever be going back.

Then he said, “You’d best eat something, girl, before they put it up.” And he got up and walked me to the mess-hall door and said he had to go, and suddenly he was gone—back to join the other Indians? Where did they keep them? What was he doing here at Camp Davis? I stood there wondering if I was going to see him again or if maybe I’d made him up, just like a haint.