Machine Dreams (27 page)

“It’s so small in here,” Danner said, “like being in a tent.”

Billy pointed. “There’s a box strapped underneath. Look inside.”

She felt under the instrument panel without bending to see; Billy heard the leather straps unsnap. The box was in her hands then; she held it level in her palm, as though afraid the contents would spill.

“It’s okay,” Billy said. “Open it.”

The brown leather of the box was thick; it was neat and square, and the top fit tight like the lid of a cigar box. Danner lifted it. Inside was a narrow, cut-glass flask with a silver base and cap, and a silver goblet on either side; all three objects were held snug by molding covered in dark fabric. Danner lifted the flask carefully. The base was inscribed in small block letters:
BEHIND
STANDS
THE
GENERAL
NAVIGATOR
—COURAGE. 1949.

“What does it mean?” Danner whispered, staring at the letters.

“Navigator is the name of the plane,” Billy said, “Beechcraft Navigator.”

She turned the bottle from one side to the other, touching the ridges of the textured glass. High up in the rafters of the hangar, swallows called. Their calls were high, drawn-out whistles, echoing, ending on high notes like repeated questions. Danner looked up, then closed the box, smoothing the leather cover with her hand. She took care to replace it exactly. “I don’t know if we should be sitting here,” she said.

The metal hangar doors rumbled then, sliding back on runners. Billy saw Cosgrove and another, younger man at the entrance, leaning with their shoulders to push the old doors. “Get down,” Billy said, and they leaned flat across the seats of the Beech, their bodies overlapping. “It’s just a pilot coming to get a plane.”

A voice spoke. “Sorry to get you up so early.”

Cosgrove answered. “Don’t matter. Doing some shooting anyway.”

“Get any raccoon?”

“Not in the field here. Not till you cross the creek.”

Silence as the men walked. They must have come after one of the Piper Cubs near the front; they stopped not far from the entrance. “I’ll help you pivot her,” Cosgrove said.

Billy heard them turn the plane; then Cosgrove walked back outside. Now the pilot would be attaching a tow bar to the nose gear so he could pull the plane slowly out of the hangar to the runway.

“Let’s get out of here,” Danner whispered.

Billy signaled her to stay quiet. She nodded. They listened as the Cub moved, creaking, the sound growing more faint. Billy sat up and looked. “He’s outside. We can hide in the field at the end of runway and see him take off.”

“You’re going to get us in trouble.”

“They won’t see us, the grass is high. Slide out on my side.”

They were out quickly. Billy remembered to latch the door of the Beech. The hangar was lit now with daylight, and they squeezed out through the same opening between the tin panels of the siding. They ran straight across the field, hidden from sight by the hangar itself until they cut over to the far end of the airstrip and threw themselves down on their bellies. They were just in front of the dirt runway, several feet back into the tall field. Billy saw Cosgrove and the pilot talking near the hangar. The Cub was in position to take off and the pilot was paying Cosgrove. He turned and got into the Cub; Cosgrove walked back toward the hangar, holding his rifle low against his leg.

“The plane will taxi straight toward us,” Billy told Danner. “Don’t move. Promise.”

The engine coughed and caught, the single propeller turning seven or eight slow turns. The Cub was moving, picking up speed, the whirring propeller a flash of motion radiating outward from the spinner. The plane came on fast. Billy pressed himself flatter against the ground, staring intently to see through the grass. He stopped thinking then as the Cub approached, the grind of the engine heightened in pitch, smoothing out. There was a sensation of noise and the ground itself slanting, as the nose of the plane honed in.

Then it was airborne.

He’d never seen a plane in flight so close. Streaks of rust were on the underside, and the small wheels of the landing gear still turned. Billy rose up; the plane was perhaps thirty feet above them as it passed over, lifting off, roaring. He stood into the roar, Danner grabbing his arm hard. Then she was on top of him, yelling into his neck as the sound of the plane was everywhere, rumbling through the tall grass. As the plane banked left, Billy saw the pilot look down at them, a shock of surprise on his face. Billy looked back elated as he sank to his knees in the spongy dirt.
He knelt and the field was eye level, glossed with the yellow tassels of the blooming weeds. He could see Cosgrove at the other end of the runway, standing blocklike in overalls and work hat, his back to them.

“Get down,” Danner said urgently.

“No, he isn’t facing this way.” Billy craned his neck to keep the plane in sight as it gained altitude, then grabbed Danner’s wrist. “Come on. We’ll run. He won’t see us now.”

“No, wait!” She stayed crouched, trying to pull Billy into the cover of the grass.

Billy tightened his grip on her arm and stood; then he let go and ran. He knew she’d follow him. He ran, hearing the swish of grass against his legs. He ran flat out and saw her beside him, a peripheral moving image. He smiled, running. The plane had gone up just above him, so loud and so close. The pilot had seen him: it was like a pact.

M
itch took her to work in the big white Chevrolet. She had a job that summer as a banquet waitress at the local Methodist college, carrying eight heaped plates to conference tables of ministers. The girls piled the plates on oval trays in the kitchen, squatted, balanced the weight on one shoulder, and held it with both hands as they stood. The manager kept the swinging door open as the waitresses, all fifteen and sixteen years old, walked to their assigned places and squatted again, straight-backed, sliding the trays onto stands. Amazed at their own feats of strength, they smoothed their dark skirts and delivered roast beef. Danner hated their uniforms: white blouses, black straight skirts, nylons, and dark shoes. August was so hot that if Jean took her to work, the black ’59 Ford having baked in the sun until the seats smelled of hot rubber, Danner’s legs were clammy with sweat by the time they arrived. Mitch’s car had an air conditioner, and if he was in a good mood he’d turn the engine on and cool the car before Danner got in. She sat in the encapsulated
coolness and watched the landscape while they drove to town; the fields by the Brush Fork road seemed to steam with heat, and the edge of the sign that marked the city limits shone sharp and brilliant.

Mitch smoked a cigarette, leaving his window open a sliver to take the smoke. “What time do you want me to pick you up?”

“You don’t have to pick me up, it’s Friday.” Riley always picked her up on Fridays after he got off work at the A&P. Without looking at Mitch, Danner knew her father was shaking his head and frowning. “I won’t be late tonight. Eleven was just too early—the drive-in doesn’t even start until eight or nine. Mom said I could come in at midnight until school starts.”

“I’ve told Jean what I think of that, but she doesn’t give a damn what I say.” He glanced over at Danner, then scowled at the road. “I know Riley’s father and I like Riley, but he’s eighteen and he’s a little too old for you.”

“I’m almost sixteen,” Danner said, and fell silent. After work she and Riley would go to Nedelson’s Parkette to eat, then to the drive-in, where Danner would fall asleep exhausted midway through the first feature. The sound of the movie close to her face filled her mind with pictures. Usually she woke in an hour or so, happy, with Riley drinking a beer beside her.

“I know how old you are,” Mitch said. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Danner knew, but what difference did the time of night make? Riley had taken her parking since last winter, when her curfew was earlier. Now their rituals were established. What moved her most was the moment when he said her name involuntarily; then she was sliding down on the seat under him, and it was like the soundtrack at the drive-in—a surface closed over her. What was near and solid drifted far off and sounds came indescribably close; his breathing was all she heard. They lay down fully clothed and he moved against her until he came, so hard in his pants that she could move her legs slightly apart and feel the shape of him. Danner had still never touched a man. Riley stroked her thighs, moving his hands higher in subtle circles until she clasped his fingers. He would major in business at Lynchburg
State, forty miles away; already, Danner knew she couldn’t stay with him. She didn’t confide in him, not really.

“What do you think about this moving idea of your mother’s?” The cigarette smoked in the ash tray. Mitch drove with one hand and kept the other on the back of his neck, as though to cushion some blow.

“Well, the house she’s picked out is nice.”

“There’s nothing wrong with our own house. It was good enough for her when I built it. I don’t know what your mother is doing. She needs a good slap.”

Danner turned to look at him. He’d combed his gray hair back with water; under the band of his hat it had dried in the teeth marks of the comb. The hat was a summer baseball hat with a green bill. In the shadow of the bill, his face was profiled. “Don’t you ever hit her,” Danner said evenly.

Mitch tilted the hat back on his head and raised his voice. “I said a slap. I didn’t mean I was going to break her jaw.”

“It doesn’t matter what you break. A man shouldn’t hit a woman.” Danner smoothed her skirt nervously, then asked, less assured, “Don’t you think I’m right?”

“Hell,” Mitch said quietly.

“Think how you’d feel if Riley hit me.”

Mitch stubbed the cigarette out. The smell of ash mingled with the odor of mechanical air. “Riley shouldn’t be having anything to hit you about. If he could get that mad at you, you’re way too involved.”

“We aren’t too involved.” Danner drew a deep breath, and she could taste a tinge of tobacco. “Why don’t you ever say these things to Billy? He goes out on dates.”

“Your brother is just a kid, and that girl is his age. Riley is going off to college. I wasn’t born yesterday. If you’re going to go out, you should go out with someone in your own class.”

Danner sat back in the seat and said nothing. Now he’d have words with Jean, a cold tense scene, while Gladys Curry sat at the kitchen table pretending not to listen. Danner knew the look on her mother’s face exactly: she would keep her expression impassive, her lips set hard. Danner felt the expression stealing over her own face, and she focused only on the road. The concrete
glistened in the noon heat, a bright white band bending away toward Bellington.

There was silence between them.

Finally she said to her father, “You don’t have to worry about Riley, and that’s the truth.”

He didn’t reply, but they drove along and the atmosphere gradually lightened. Danner dreaded working another ministers’ banquet, and the voyage to work became an interlude of privacy. Her father’s cars were always big and luxurious, not quite new, impeccably clean and cared for. The motor of the Chevrolet hummed evenly; they rode so smoothly that Danner felt lulled, almost sleepy. She leaned her head back on the seat. “Dad,” she said, “do you remember your dreams?”

“Well, yes, don’t you?”

“What do you dream about?”

He looked out the window to his left, considering, then said slowly, “Haven’t remembered any in a long time.”

Danner touched the air-conditioning vent and turned it toward her knees, then left her hand in the stream of cold. The heat outside was thick and fluid like clear paint. Bellington’s wooden frame houses flowed by, their big porches shaded and still with heat. “What’s the last dream you remember?” Danner asked.

He tipped his hat back and ran his fingers along the curve of the bill. “Dreamed I was in a snowstorm,” he said.

“Alone?”

He was hesitant, or maybe responding to the pull of silence that punctuated most of his remarks in conversation. He looked over at Danner, half-frowning, half-smiling, as though she should already have known the answer. “I was driving in a snowstorm along a road,” he said, “and snow was flying at the windshield so fast you couldn’t see where you was going.”

“Were you in this car?”

“I don’t know. I was only watching the road.” He laughed. “Couldn’t see a damn thing.”

“What happened next?”

“Nothing, Hon. That’s all there was to it.”

They had turned down Sedgwick Street to the back campus of the college. Mitch pulled over while Danner gazed at the dining
hall. Red brick, with a concrete porch and white columns, the hall matched all the other buildings on the densely green lawns. The small campus ended here; behind the dining hall stretched the railroad tracks and the athletic field.

“You should see the ministers running,” Danner said. “It’s so hot, you’d think they’d drop dead. Afternoons while we’re cleaning, we see them running circles around the field.”

Mitch chuckled. “Damn right. Ministers should run, that’s about all they’re good for.”

The banquet hall was full of smooth clatter and murmuring talk while the ministers ate. They didn’t raise their voices and weren’t boistrous, but their combined noises were like those of a flock of serious, famished birds. They were all in their forties or older; Danner imagined them to be veterans of some sort—veterans of no less than six southern churches, for instance, or of thirty years’ service with merit. They ate with studious attention and talked intently. Immediately, they made the room hotter. The air conditioning in the hall didn’t work well, and the ministers sat moistly at long tables in their dark suits, eating roasted meat and mashed potatoes. The noon meal was the large one; for supper, the ministers ate hamburgers and french fries with ketchup. Danner thought them a sad lot and could almost be sad herself as she stood by the silverware cart, watching them chew. Automatically, she read the placard again.

Each day there was a placard with the title of the afternoon colloquium, and the titles were always questions about current events. The big card was displayed on a music stand at the back of the room. Today it said:
RIOT
IN
WATTS
,
IS
GOD
THERE
? The TV news had run pictures of Watts all week. Danner made remarks about the placards to the other waitresses. Today in particular, the question struck her as horrible and pathetic and funny, and she had to walk past the hand-lettered words every time she went into the kitchen. Now she stole a glance at the clock above the entrance doors, then gazed around the hall.