Rocky’s window dropped and T.S., leaning in to speak, said, “Hey, thought you’d like the plane out in the sunshine. It’s chilly in the hanger anyway. Planes, like dogs, should be outside, don’t you think?”
“Funny you should say that,” Hanley said. He was surprised at how good seeing his friend made him feel at that moment. Feeling good was rare anymore. Maybe it was the lack of expectation between them, old friends who passed beyond that, well beyond that a long time ago. Criticism was taken for exactly what it was, nothing more, a laugh was appreciated for what it was, nothing more. Trust was genuine, respect expected, love, whatever it was between friends was there, given, received, delivered free of charge, taken without guilt. He hoped he had given it back to T.S., enough to have made a difference. He’s such a good friend, it wouldn’t matter to him, Hanley thought.
“Why, what’s funny about that? How much have you had to drink this morning? Rocky, it’s a shame you still resort to liquor to get him under control. A woman as beautiful as you should just have to wiggle something. I know it would work on me,” T.S. said, smiling.
“Charming, as always,” Rocky said, showing a bit of a smile.
Hanley said to T.S., “I hadn’t thought about a drink today until this very moment. Just seeing you makes me want to down a few. Jack Daniels would pay you a fortune if they only knew the effect you have on people. Come around here and help me out.”
“Rocky, I promise I’ll only drop him twice; once getting him out and then getting him in. It will almost be as good as doing it yourself, but you won’t have to endure all the bitching on the way home,” T.S. said, then laughed, a high bray that made Rocky laugh too.
Getting out and into the chair was not difficult. Hanley and Rocky practiced it so much that he only needed someone to bring him the chair. T.S. hovered until Hanley suggested he not, then held the chair while Hanley lifted his legs out and onto the ground, grabbed the right armrest of the chair, the top of the door jamb and lifted himself into the chair, grunting noticeably as he did.
“You sound like a female tennis player,” T.S. said.
“Fuck you,” Hanley responded as he strapped himself into the chair.
“Like you never left.”
Fingering the end of the strip of cloth which held his legs together, Hanley thought of untying them, then didn’t, thinking they would be more manageable, as if they were a bundle of sticks. Rocky closed the car door as Hanley wheeled himself away toward the Beech. He rolled only a few feet and stopped, looking up at the plane, searching for the two bullet holes in the engine cowling. He asked Michael Campbell to leave them, the scars, earned, reminders that the plane played a role, maybe even the greatest role, in what had been done for the children. As he rolled forward, Rocky and T.S. stayed by the car, Hanley turned slightly to see them staying behind, thinking perhaps they did not want to violate the space forming around he and the plane. The aluminum skin was again polished to a brilliance, the mirror skin turning everything around it into distorted reflections, dumb interpretations of those that looked at it and all that didn’t. Hanley thought it was beautiful and realized how proud he was of the plane and what it had done. He wasn’t proud of what he did, knowing his search for an answer came at a cost too dear to so many others. The rescued children did not make up for the people he loved or for Jumma, but they helped.
Rolling beneath the nose of the Beech, Hanley reached up, touched the cowling, felt the rough edge of the hole made by the same gun that killed Jumma, the gun that left his own legs dangling useless beneath him. Placing his hand over the hole, he felt connected to the plane, connected in a way he wasn’t certain he understood, but knew he felt. “We did make it back, didn’t we?” he asked the Beech.
Wheeling around, he pushed himself past the big engine, his left hand sliding over the propeller blade, feeling the cool smoothness across his palm, then around the wing and to the rear, where the cargo door stood open. Rolling up beside the steps leading up to the darkness inside, Hanley felt for an instant he could stand and enter the plane, but only for a second. In the presence of the plane, he seemed to gain strength.
His aching heart longed to fly this plane again. Wondering if any other plane but this one would have saved the children, the nun and himself, Hanley wheeled the chair forward and placed his hand on its cold, shining skin. He stared into the interior’s darkness and thought of the children. He thought that, perhaps, now, the return of the children to their families was payment enough.
THE END
Copyright
Published by Clink Street Publishing 2017
Copyright © 2017
First edition.
The author asserts the moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that with which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN:
978-1-912262-21-2 - paperback
978-1-912262-22-9 - ebook
