Flight of Passage: A True Story (33 page)

“Kern and Rinker have always been affectionate and close,” my father lied in one of those articles. “In a family of eleven children, you learn to care.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Almost anything could get into a newspaper. But I didn’t understand the point yet, and I wouldn’t for years. Jack Kennedy was dead, and we still hadn’t gotten over that. The tragedy of Vietnam was unfolding. The country was rocked to its foundations by the civil rights struggle and student protests. America just wanted a good dose of innocence that summer and we perfectly fit the bill. The Jack-and-Bobby look-alikes bouncing out to California in their homemade Piper Cub was a heartwarming tale for the masses.

Besides, Kern gave very entertaining interviews, in his dumbass, silly old way. He was a total greenhorn but didn’t seem to know it.

After the interviews, the TV reporters wanted to do a voice-over shot of Kern and me looking at our map laid flat over the tail of the Cub. While the cameras were rolling, one of the reporters yelled out.

“Boys! Where are you headed next?”

We looked on the map, which happened to be the Phoenix sectional. It was obvious that we’d have to make a fuel stop at a place called Tucson, Arizona. Neither of us had ever heard of Tucson before. Kern stabbed Tucson on the map with his finger, and stared straight into the cameras.

“Tucks-on,” he said. “That’s where we’re headed next. Tucks-on, Arizona.”

Haw! The reporters couldn’t believe it, and everybody started to howl with laughter and furiously scribble on their notepads. Here were these two kids from Nu Jursa, peddlin’ across America in their penny loafers, in a Piper Cub without a radio, and the dumb little shits didn’t even know how to pronounce Tucson.

But Kern was on a roll and he wasn’t stopping. Another reporter yelled out.

“And what’s after that—what’s your route of flight?”

We checked the map again, and it looked like this small city right along the border with Mexico, Yuma, was another logical stop. From there, it was just a hop, skip, and jump across the Salton Sea into southern California. Kern smiled again into the camera.

“Yumma,” he said. “After Tucks-on, we’ll land at Yumma.”

Haw! The reporters laughed their asses off, and they had their angle now.
The Beverly Hillbillies
fly coast to coast. They all howled again when we did the Brakes, Throttle, Contact! routine and taxied the plane over to the tie-downs. I could see them shaking their heads as we taxied off. Jesus. These tykes actually made it over the Rockies in that crate.

Our van arrived. As we were piling in with our pillowcases and our bag of maps, the television crews were loading their gear into their own vans. Watch at 5:30, they said. You’ll be on the local news.

We dawdled, getting back to the motel. The van driver was a nice fellow and he insisted on giving us the VIP tour of El Paso. We liked that low-slung, antiquated city out on the far edge of Texas. The driver showed us the big cattle yards and auction hall, the railhead, the iron bridges crossing the river into Mexico, and the adobe Old Town. Everybody drove around in dented pickups and wore Stetsons or sombreros. El Paso was very slow-paced and twangy, and we were starting to relax.

“Here, just take the key,” the man behind the desk at the motel said. “We’ll check you in later. Room 19. And run! They just said on TV that you’re coming up next, right after the commercial.”

Clutching our pillowcases, we ran down the flagstone walk and past the blue swimming pool. Halfway down to Number 19, a room door was wide open and the color television set blared. Filling up the screen—cowboy hat, blue button-down shirt, white Levi’s, Ray-Ban case on the paisley belt—was Kernahan Buck. We pulled up short and watched from the open door.

“Well, the only tough part was crossing the Rocky Mountains,” Kern was saying on the screen. “But, obviously, we made it.”

Kern looked great on color television. I’d only seen one or two color TVs so far, mostly on display at the Sears Roebuck store. I couldn’t get over how realistic the picture was.

Inside the room, on one bed, was a man with a big smoky cigar, a flattop haircut, and heavy, lace-up logger’s boots. On the other bed, propped up with pillows, were two attractive women, a blond and a brunette, a lot younger than the man.

“Hey, girls, get a load of this!” the man said. “These two boys from New Jersey are flying a Cub, coast to coast.”

The people in the room looked very friendly and we didn’t want to miss any more of Kern on color television, so we just edged through the door to watch.

“Ah, excuse me,” Kern said. “Do you mind if we see this?”

“Sure, be my guest,” the man said, waving his cigar in the air. “These two goddam little kids, see, they’re flying a Piper Cub coast to coast.”

“Yeah,” Kern said. “We are those kids.”

“Well Jesus H. shit!” the man bellowed, blowing out a huge cloud of cigar smoke.

The fellow looked to the TV. Cowboy hat, blue shirt and white pants, Ray-Bans on the paisley belt. Then he looked to Kern in the doorway. Cowboy hat, blue shirt, white pants, Ray-Bans on the belt.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he said.

The women on the bed clapped their hands and squealed.

“Everybody quiet!” the man barked. “We’ll watch this, and then we’ll talk.”

So we stood there in somebody else’s smoky room, with the women on the bed giggling behind us, watching ourselves on TV. The segment on us only lasted a minute or so. They showed the interview with Kern, the Brakes, Throttle, Contact! routine and, of course, the “Tucks-on” and “Yumma” gaffe. Kern looked great on the air, but when the cameras panned to me, I hated myself. My nose was too big and my voice, when I yelled “Contact!” broke into an embarrassing falsetto.

When it was all over everybody exploded off the beds and made a fuss over us. The man, barrel-chested and a fast, hearty talker, stepped over and pumped our hands. He waved his cigar as he talked.

“Girls, get a goddam load of this, wil’ya? These are the boys! Jesus H. Christ. Congratulations fellas! Coast to coast in a frigging Piper Cub. You got a radio in that thing son?”

“No radio,” Kern said.

“Shit! That’s even better!”

That is how we met Robert Warren Pate, a glorious headcase of a man, and the find of the trip.

He was a flyer himself, he said, a former Stearman man and a B-52 jockey for the Air Force. He’d flown out from his home near Sacramento, California, just this week in the family Cessna. Today, they’d all been flying around the Guadalupe Mountains themselves, taking pictures.

Pate’s story was as improbable as his appearance, which, when he pulled on his rumpled Stetson and stood tall in his logger’s boots, gave him a
Treasure of Sierra Madre
look. He was a poet and a songwriter and a self-educated archaeologist, a retired Air Force pilot and rocket scientist whose exploits, according to him, had been reenacted in several movies and books. John Wayne, he said, had played him in one movie; Steve McQueen was looking at the next one. Now, at forty-three, he was retired from all that and making a living hunting buried treasure. His exploits sounded stunning. Had we ever heard of Drake’s Cave along the coast of northern California? Well, he was the one who found it. Montezuma’s Lost Treasure in the Guadalupe Mountains? He knew where that was too. Did we know there was billions of dollars worth of silver and gold buried up on Guadalupe? We’d flown right over it, practically. He’d tell us about it over dinner.

The women were beautiful and petite, the perfect foil for Pate’s gruff front. Ellen, Pate’s wife, was compact and athletic, with a pageboy bob of brown hair, freckles, and a broad, pert smile. She bounded right across the room and gave Kern a bear hug. Elsa, Ellen’s younger sister, belonged on a Beach Boys album cover. She was tall and very blond and bouncy, with a bashful, seductive smile, and piercing blue eyes. After Ellen was done with him, Elsa crashed into Kern and gave him a long sexy embrace.

“Congratulations!” she said to Kern. “You look great on TV!”

“Gee, thanks!” Kern said. “Ah, excuse me, what’s your name?”

“Elsa.”

“Well hi Elsa. I’m Kern. Kern Buck.”

Ellen and Elsa began hugging Kern and planting kisses on his cheek, stepping back with their hands on their hips to size him up. Kern stood there with his arms spread wide, smiling and laughing, enjoying the attention he was receiving from these women.

I was pissed about it. This always happened to me around Kern. Women always fell head-over-heels for the shy, vulnerable type, Kern, and treated me like a doormat. Besides, we’d just been on TV, and these great-looking California girls were interested in the pilot, not the navigator. I was being ignored, over in the corner.

Hey, Elsa, I thought, come on over here and give me one of those hugs.

Elsa finally did come over, stood about three yards off, and politely shook my hand.

Pate lit another cigar and cleared the room.

“Jesus, women. Stop slobbering over these goddam boys. Let ’em get cleaned up and take a shower. We’re all going to dinner.”

When we got into the motel room, Kern stripped down and changed into his swimming trunks.

“Rink,” he said, “You know what I want to say to you about this trip?”

“No, what?”

“Well, on the phone, you’ve really handled Daddy like an ace. I admire that. I don’t want him to get into the habit of always talking to me first. While I take a swim, you call home.”

What the hell. He was the pilot-in-command.

So, I dialed home, collect, for the El Paso gam. When my father picked up he already knew where we were. More reporters had called. He was relieved that we had made it safely over the mountains and exultant when I told him that Kern had given me the controls halfway through the pass. That was such a “good” thing for Kern to do, my father said, typical of his generosity toward me. This annoyed me, because it had nothing to do with Kern’s generosity. His freaking arms gave out.

“Hey, how’s the waterbag?” my father asked.

“Ah shit Dad.”

“Rinker. Did you just say shit?”

“No. I didn’t say shit.”

“No. I heard it. You said shit.”

“Dad. I didn’t say shit. It’s probably a bad connection or something.”

“Goddamit Rinker. Stop saying shit.”

“Dad. I did not say shit. I said, 'It’s it.’”

“It’s it?”

“Yeah. It’s it. The waterbag. It’s right here in the room.”

“The waterbag? In the motel room? What’s the waterbag doing in the motel room? And don’t bullshit me. You just said shit. To your father.”

“I didn’t say shit.”

“Bullshit. You said shit. And you just said shit.”

“Shit.”

“Ah Jesus Rinker, stop saying shit. What if your mother was listening in?”

“If Mother was listening in, she’d hear me say shit.”

“Ah Jesus. Stop saying shit, wil’ya? Mother could be listening in.”

“Good. Then she’ll blame you, for teaching me to say shit.”

“You see? You just said shit. Again. You said shit.”

“Shit.”

“Ah shit. Rinker, you’re saying shit.”

“Shit.”

“Stop saying shit!”

“Shit.”

“Rinker, you are not to say shit to your father. Do you understand?”

“Shit.”

“Ah shit.”

“Hey, Dad, shit. Okay? Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. I mean, I am fifteen years old. We have just flown eight hundred miles across Texas and made it over the Guadalupe Pass and you are yelling at me because I said shit. Well, shit. I mean, you know, shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit. If I want to say shit I am going to say shit. Got it? From now on, I say shit whenever I want to. It’s better than this 'Ask not what your country can do for you’ shit.”

“Ah shit Rinker. Don’t talk to me this way. You’re spoiling everything, and saying shit.”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Okay? Don’t tell me not to say shit.”

“Ah shit.”

“Yeah . . . shit.”

“Why are we fighting like this?”

“I don’t know. Shit.”

“Where’s Kern?”

“Swimming.”

“Well, go get him. I want to talk to someone responsible.”

“Ah shit Dad. Let’s just let him swim.”

Robert Pate saved me from this infinite regress of shit. In the middle of my twenty-fourth shit, he came sailing through the door without knocking, carrying a large thermos of lemonade, glasses, and ice. He poured a glass for both of us.

From the looks of him, Pate was no Pillsbury Doughboy. I’d already heard him say shit several times, so I knew that he wasn’t going to mind that. He knew a phone call gone south when he walked in on one. He yanked the phone from my hand and cupped his palm over the mouthpiece.

“Name?”

“Tom. Tom Buck.”

“Tom?” Pate began. “Tom Buck? Well listen here, this is Robert Warren Pate. My wife and I are just having the time of our lives out here with your wonderful boys.”

Pate had the touch. He told my father that he was an old Stearman man, that he’d flown B-52s and practically every other plane the Air Force ever had, and designed half the rocket systems too. This kind of information about a man tended to relax my father. They were perfect together on the phone, two old Stearman men and grand bullshitters, comparing notes on World War II military flying.