Flaming Zeppelins (25 page)

Frankly, I still don't see the big deal.

I'm a seal. I don't wear britches. So, well, it's out there when I get ready for it to be. I get the urge, it pokes out.

I suppose, if I wore britches, I might not think about it as much.

But the bottom line is, up there in the air, hot, bored, frightened, I would have given my left nut for a big wet mackerel to slake my urges.

Or a sardine.

Or a tuna.

Or a salmon.

Most any kind of fish.

I looked over the edge of the balloon, down at all that water, begin to think about how much I would like to be there, all wet and sleek and diving down deep, hunting fish.

It even occurred to me to leap from the balloon, but I knew better. My brain had not been enhanced by Doctor Momo for no reason. It worked well, and I had studied much. I knew that from that height, were I to dive and hit the water, it would be the same as diving into a brick wall. I would be one splattered seal.

The wind died down, and the balloon slowed, and the day grew hotter and more miserable. For a seal without water it was murder.

Mr. Twain awoke, and seeing my distress, poured some of the remaining water on his hand and gave me a rubdown with it. It felt good, but its pleasurable sensations were brief. The sun dried me out quicker than a female seal's ass on a hot rock.

We drank a bit more of the water, ate some crackers from the second storage bin — just the wrong thing for such a hot, dry trip — but it's what we had, and tried to make the best of it.

Mr. Twain looked over the side of the craft, said, “Look, Ned, could that be land?”

A gray mist floated above the water and the mist was wide and thick, like a wool patch on the ocean, but at the edges of the mist we could see patches of what looked like shoreline.

“There must be land beneath that,” Mr. Twain said. “I would stake my royalties from
Tom Sawyer
on it. If I had royalties.”

Mr. Twain stirred Mr. Verne and Passepartout from their slumber, took a look. It was generally agreed that it might be land.

As we floated nearer, it became more evident that it was indeed land. Misty and wet-looking, but inviting, considering how hot we were up there. Outside of the mist, we could see for certain a sandy shoreline, a glimpse of trees. Still, it was quite contained in the mist, like a rock hidden in cotton candy, Mr. Twain said.

“Jules,” Mr. Twain said. “How do we go down? We must go down.”

Mr. Verne took in the situation immediately, looked up at the balloon and made a face.

“We seem to have made an error,” he said. “There is in fact a release valve, but we unfortunately forgot to prepare a way to make it work from within the basket here, monsieur.”

“What?” Mr. Twain said.

I wrote on my pad. WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK? THAT'S DUMB.

“I'm with Ned on this one,” Mr. Twain said. “That was just plain old shit stupid.”

“Actually,” Mr. Verne said, “so am I. Not the shit stupid. But in agreement with Ned. I would like to remind everyone, though I provided the money for this device, I was not the one who designed the blueprints.”

Passepartout cleared his throat. “You examined them.”

“I am not an expert of the blueprints. I am not the builder.”

“It is a prototype, my good monsieur.”

“So it is,” Mr. Verne said. “But now, what do we do, my good sir?”

Passepartout looked up, said, “Well, I fear there is but one thing to do.”

“And that is?” Mr. Twain asked.

With a sigh, Passepartout said, “I'll need to climb up there and work the release valve. The problem is, when I climb up, it will distribute the weight in a not so good manner. Like when Ned takes the shit. You must arrange yourselves evenly about the basket.”

I wrote:

ONE GOOD THING. I DON'T NEED TO GO RIGHT NOW.

“That is good, Ned,” Mr. Twain said.

Everyone else agreed that was good.

“I can tell you this,” Passepartout said, “don't let this device tip, or you will fall very far. I am going up now.”

Passepartout took hold of one of the cables and said, “I'm going to put my foot on the edge here, so I can take hold of one of the cables to climb. Perhaps you should all move to the opposite side when I put my weight down and start to climb. But you will have to adjust as my weight is redistributed. You will need to do that instantly. And I advise strongly that you do not make with the fuck up.”

Passepartout put his foot on the edge of the couch, or the basket as he referred to it, and indeed, the basket leaned in that direction, even with Twain, Verne, and myself on the opposite side. For a moment, I thought we were making with the fuck up.

Passepartout scooted up a cable, pulling with his hands, locking his feet around it for support. As the cable tapered to the center, and his position changed, the basket wobbled. We did our best to maintain proper distribution. Moving this way and that.

After what seemed like enough time for me to have eaten quite a lot of fish, he made it to the release valve, or just below it, where there dangled a hose and a clamp and a lever. He said, “I'm going to let out a bit of the helium. Be prepared for a sudden drop.”

He pulled the lever and the hose opened. The hose whipped, and the helium gushed. The hose struck Passepartout so hard in the face, he let go of the cable.

And fell.

He fell to the center of the basket, and the basket slung back and forth, but remained centered. The balloon began to descend.

A little too quickly.

“Too much,” Passepartout said. “I must fix it.”

Passepartout, pushed upright, put a foot on the side of the basket, grabbed a cable, went up swift and nimble as a monkey this time. The basket shook like dice in an eager gambler's hand. (Note these similes. I read a lot and am quite proud of it. I am, after all, a seal.)

Passepartout fought to get hold of the flapping hose, and finally, after being struck on hands and face by the thing, which was popping about like an electrified eel, he nabbed it. (I like eel by the way. I have had it smoked and it is very good. I like it raw. They can shock you, some of them. You have to be careful. A little fishing tip.)

Passepartout closed off the lever with some difficulty, but maintained his position. He found that by locking his feet against the slanted cable, leaning into it, hanging onto the hose and using the other hand to release the lever, he could maintain a position on the cable and control the release of helium. Still, we were dropping a bit fast, and finally he closed it off.

Scootching down the cable to the basket, he said, “I think that we are low enough for the moment. It might be best that we acquire the lay of the land, and then plan our descent a bit more precisely. Otherwise, to put it bluntly, we might end up with the pointy top of a tree up our asses.”

“That wouldn't be good,” Twain said. “I like your suggestion.”

I wrote:

IT WOULD HAVE TO BE SEVERAL POINTY TOPS TO STICK IN ALL OUR ASSES.

“You are right, of course,” Passepartout said.

The descent had created a new problem. Down there was a humid mist, and it rose up and surrounded us. We couldn't really see what was below us, only above us, and up there was the bright orange balloon and the hot blue sky, and as we dropped down into the mist, like drugged bug specimens in cotton, the sky and the sun began to disappear.

It was while I was looking up that I saw something moving through the mist. A big, dark dot. And the dot was growing, descending from on high. And then I saw what it was. I grabbed my pad and wrote.

LOOK UP! A BIG FUCKING BAT, I THINK.

Twain looked up. “Oh, shit.”

Mr. Verne said, “My God, a pterodactyl.”

I JUST SEE THE BAT.

The beast attacked the balloon.

The creature, bat, pterodactyl, winged snake, whatever, was diving at a rapid rate. Its mouth was open and it had as many teeth as a barracuda.

Perhaps the oddness of the balloon, its bright color (can birds see color? I can since the operation , but before, I saw in black and white) had annoyed the bird. I know bright orange annoys me. I am not overly fond of lavender, either. And there are some shades of green I find irritating.

“Shoooo, shoooo!” Verne screamed at the beast, but we were, as they say, shit out of luck.

The beast hit the balloon with its mouth open; its fangs tore at the balloon. There was a sound like a whale spouting water through his blowhole. The blast of helium hit the creature full in the face and knocked it back.

It screeched, whirled and wheeled in midair, went up into the higher reaches of the mist, out of sight, and at the same time we lurched and wheeled and the basket slung us all over the place.

We were nearly thrown out. Our water and much of our supplies were tossed, and the water canister grazed my head and bounced into Mr. Twain, which made him cuss, and then I was hardly aware of anything.

We clutched whatever we could grab as if it were life itself, and in a sense, it was. The basket dropped out from under us at times, then snapped back under our feet (in my case, I use that euphemistically), as we were jerked about by the wheezing, cable-tugging balloon.

After what seemed like enough time to have had a great meal of fish and a squid, the balloon became less radical in its movements, but more determined in its descent. We would not be choosing our landing area now, and I thought about what Passepartout had said about a pine tree up the ass, found myself tightening my sphincter muscles.

I chanced a look over the side of the basket, saw mist, and then poking up from the mist, what Passepartout had suggested might be there, and what I feared.

The tip of a tree.

Though, at that moment in time, I couldn't tell if it was in fact a pine.

1
See
Zeppelins West
by Joe R. Lansdale (taken and adapted from diaries and journals by Ned the Seal, plus speculation).

And so we fell, and the tip of the pine (for so it proved to be) jammed through the bottom of the basket, poked right through the wooden floor of our craft until it seemed to rise in front of us like a decorative parlor plant. Then suddenly the pine expanded as the branches, momentarily trapped by the floor of our craft, sprang back into position. Our vessel burst apart, except for the leaking balloon, which still hovered above us, whistling helium out of itself like a slow fart from a fish-filled seal, unlike myself who was fishless and fartless.

(We seals make a lot of fart references. It is not considered rude to fart when you are a seal. Though, I will say that what a walrus passes for gas can be considered very rude in most kinds of company, mixed or otherwise.)

We found ourselves clinging to the limbs of the pine, the shattered pieces of our former airborne ride raining all around us, and slowly above us the bright balloon lost its special kind of air, withered like a geriatric woman's breasts, fell down over us and the top of the great tall tree, concealing us in a rubbery darkness.

Carefully, we climbed from beneath the balloon, clutching at limbs.

It was decided that the others would go to the ground, and that I, being a poor climber, would wait amongst the pine limbs, draped over them like a lumpy rug.

They went down to search for the scattered supplies, and in time, a metal box that had been in a compartment under one of the cushions was recovered. There were all manner of things inside. A pistol. Ammunition. Flares. A first-aid kit. A large hacking instrument. A kerosine lantern wrapped tight with cotton and cloth. A corked bottle of kerosine, also wrapped in cotton and cloth. And, for me, most importantly, a rope.

Mr. Twain climbed up to help me, which for a man his age was remarkable. He removed his coat and shirt and managed a rig for me out of them, so the rope wouldn't cut into me too badly. I was also protected by my vest. The rope was attached to me and dropped over a strong limb. Below, Verne and Passepartout helped lower me down.

While Mr. Twain restored himself to his shirt, and I rubbed my chest with my flippers, trying to dispel some of the rope pain, for in spite of shirt and vest, I had been temporarily indented, Passepartout clambered monkey-like back up the tree, slipped under the balloon. Using his pocket knife to cut the rubber around the cables loose, he managed, with much effort, to push the balloon free of the pine. It dropped to hang in the boughs of another tree.

On the way down, Passepartout, in continued monkey-like fashion, swung over to that tree, and with a bit of effort kicked the balloon loose of that tree. It fell in a flutter and a crash to the forest floor, not far from where we stood.

When Passepartout was on the ground, Mr. Verne said, “And why, may I ask, did you bother with that business?”

“Because we may need shelter,” Passepartout said. “I thought the balloon might make quite a good one. At least for keeping the rain off. From the lushness of this island, it is my guess it rains frequently.”

Mr. Verne thought about that for a moment. “Of course. Sam, what do you think?”

“What's to think,” Mr. Twain answered. “He is as right as rain, so to speak. Thing I'm worried about at the moment is food. What little we had, those crackers, got knocked all over this island or jostled out at sea.”

“Tubers,” Passepartout said. “There are quite a few of those about. We can dig those up. And we do have matches.”

“And, with the sea nearby,” Mr. Verne said, “we should be able to wash them and clean them. We might even catch some fish.”

“We have quite a fisherman right here,” Mr. Twain said, nodding at me.

I pushed my chest out with pride.

A fish would have been good right then.

Several would have been better.

Fish are good to eat and they give me solace.

Like masturbation, they relax me.

Did I mention that I think it is okay to masturbate?