Rocket Science (3 page)

Floyd smiled again, flashing that million-dollar grin. He played lousy poker because you could always tell when he knew he had won. “Just take a look in the crate. One peek, I promise. After that, either you’ll be in or you’ll be out. And I guarantee you’ll know what you want the second we open that crate.”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop from cracking a smile. “Floyd, I’ve got to hand it to you,” I said. “You could sell ice makers to Eskimos.”

He handed me one of the crowbars. “Take that end of the crate,” he ordered, “and I’ll work the other. We can pull this face off all at once.”

We dropped the wooden stakes off the right side of my Dad’s old Mack truck. With a strain on my gimpy right leg I got up on back of the bed where I pulled and tugged with the crow bar on my end of the crate. It had been nailed shut by an expert, that was for sure. The wood groaned and splintered before the first nails loosened. As I worked, I noticed that the crate had the words “Scrap Metal — Sharp Edges” stenciled on the side. I wondered if that was a sample of Floyd’s sense of humor.

With a mighty grunt, Floyd heaved at his end of the crate. The wooden wall came swinging down. I jumped back out of the way, falling off the truck onto my butt on the littered floor of the old barn. That hurt like blazes, and it was a miracle I didn’t get punctured by some old nails or worse. There was a resounding crash as the wood hit the floor, sending loose straw and dust clouds flying and bringing outraged squawks from the bantam hens. It darn near nailed me, too.

As the dust settled I stood up off the floor on my shaky legs and craned my neck to look into the crate. After a moment, I knew two things.

First, even though I couldn’t properly see the oddly twisted and curved lines of the thing, I knew I was looking at the most gorgeous aircraft I had ever seen. It looked as if it had been milled out of solid titanium, so smooth I couldn’t even see the joins.

Second, I was going to find a way to fly it or die trying.

Chapter Two

T
he Cuban War
!
There
was a war!” Mr. Bellamy promptly fell into a coughing fit. He had become so ill so fast, it was strange.

The Bellamys’ dining room was a claustrophobic landscape dominated by a claw-footed dark oak table with matching chairs upholstered in a faded blue floral print. An orphaned breakfront that wasn’t related to any of the rest of the furniture hulked along one wall, while the remaining open space was littered with strangely-carved end tables and stained glass floor lamps from back East somewhere. Doilies were scattered on every flat surface like white crows in a cornfield. Everything was sandwiched between carpets the color of my gums and a pressed-tin ceiling corroded to a splotchy black.

Mrs. Bellamy patted Mr. Bellamy on the back. They were of a feather, those two, old as the hills and tough as nails, at least before Mr. Bellamy’s latest illness. Mrs. Bellamy looked like everyone’s grandmother, pale with curly white hair and thick around the waist. Mr. Bellamy was an old shoe — wrinkled, brown and tough.

“Now Daddy, what have I told you about yelling?” Mrs. Bellamy turned to face me and Floyd, her pinched face flushed with anger. “What is the matter with you boys? You know not to excite him.”

“I, we —” I started to say, then stopped at a look from Floyd. Mrs. Bellamy was already ignoring me again, patting Mr. Bellamy’s back as if he was a colicky baby.

“Don’t bother,” whispered Floyd. “You’ll just cause a fight. He comes out of nowhere with this stuff, and Mama always blames me. At least you’re here as a diversion.”

I picked at my baked chicken. One of the yard hens had met an untimely demise to give us a fresh, farm-cooked dinner. The feral bantams in the barn were too small to bother with.

“Now Archie, there was a hero,” announced Mr. Bellamy as he got his breath back. He resumed his oration as if he had never been interrupted. I was fascinated by the way he blindly waved his carving knife to punctuate his monologue. “Archie rode up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt, you know.”

He stabbed the knife at me. “Did you serve in the Spanish-American War, Veldon?”

“Ah, no sir.” I wasn’t even born during that war. I was certain that the question was rhetorical anyway. Mr. Bellamy wasn’t interested in my biography.

“He was a hell raiser, that Archie,” said Mr. Bellamy with the great sigh of old man who’d wrested satisfaction from his life.

“Alonzo, don’t you use those words in my house,” warned Mrs. Bellamy. “Besides, poor Archie died of the influenza down there in Florida along with all them other boys.”

“He was serving his country,” grumbled Mr. Bellamy. He set down his knife and glared at me. “Which is more than I could say for some people at this table. Your parents never did have a candle in their window for you, did they Varney?”

I flushed a deep, hot red. My brother Ricky may have died in the Philippines, but all the bombers built in America would never make up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to serve. Not to people like Mr. Bellamy. Never mind that Mom was gone too.

Mrs. Bellamy came to my rescue. “Alonzo Hartwig Bellamy, you apologize to poor Vernon right now. He did his best for our boys in the war, with his bad leg and all, which is more than you did when poor Archie went off to die, or during the Great War, either.”

“I served my country!” bellowed Mr. Bellamy, picking up his carving knife. He started off into another coughing fit and collapsed into the tureen of gravy next to his plate.

“Vernon, I’m so sorry,” fluttered Mrs. Bellamy as she helped her husband up, dabbing at him with a napkin.

He seemed disoriented as they walked slowly out of the dining room. I could hear him muttering, “Never know what Floyd sees in that Volney boy anyway...”

Floyd shrugged and smiled at me. “Hey, Vern, I’m sorry, too. I guess I shouldn’t have asked you to stay for dinner, but I was excited.”

I felt distant, sad. I understood how hard it was to be Floyd, beneath the bluster and the charm. “Is he always like this now?”

This wasn’t the Mr. Bellamy I remembered from my childhood, who taught me how to drive when Dad was busy and Mom wouldn’t get in the car with me. I realized how out-of-touch I’d been with Floyd’s folks while he was fighting overseas. I was preoccupied with Mom’s death and Dad’s drinking, but that was no excuse.

“Yeah.” Floyd toyed with his chicken, using his fork to shove it around. “Uncle Archie died of the flu in a camp in Florida. Daddy never got over it, I guess.”

“Archie was your Daddy’s brother?”

“Yeah,” said Floyd. “They were twins. There’s a picture of the two of them at the 1896 Kansas State Fair in the upstairs hall.”

“I always wondered who those boys were.”

“Hey,” said Floyd. “He didn’t mean that stuff — about not being in the service and no candle in the window. Mama knows about your brother and everything. And Daddy’s just old and confused. Some days he’s fine, some days he thinks he’s Woodrow Wilson.”

“I know. I’m used to it, Floyd. The worst thing that could happen to a fellow in the war was to get killed. Back home, we just went on living and living, and the young guys like me that couldn’t go...well, it wasn’t much of a life.”

He laughed. “You’re crazy. You had the jalopies, the jills, the jobs. Heck, I’ll bet you got three squares a day all through the war. You should see what we ate over there.”

“Yeah, maybe I had a job, but half the town thought I was a coward and the other half thought I was a fool.” I slammed a fist into the table, setting the plates to rattle. “I can’t even walk straight up a flight of stairs. There’s people said I should have lied about the polio. Like I could have hid my game leg from an Army doc? And none of the girls wanted anything but a soldier to date. No action here.”

Floyd smirked. “Not like the action we saw in Europe, that’s for sure.”

I knew exactly what he meant — Belgian girls and French wine. I don’t think Floyd ever saw a bullet in Europe. Not even with his Battle of the Bulge story. Floyd worked on bomber engines, and they park those nice, expensive airplanes a long way from the front lines. Nevertheless, he was over there while I was safe at home in Kansas.

“Besides,” Floyd continued, “without you fellows home building tanks and planes, I’d still be hip deep in a trench somewhere in France, I’m just sure of it.”

“I know. They also serve who stay home and listen to the radio.” I pushed my plate away. “Let’s clean up for your Mama. I’ll bet she’s got her hands full with Mr. Bellamy acting up.”

“Now that’s the Vernon I know,” laughed Floyd. “Always ready to do someone else’s chores.” He followed me into the kitchen with an armload of plates.

And yet, underneath the pain of his snippy words, I could still remember Floyd carrying me through summer fields, laughing at the crows and singing campfire songs.

We went back into town late that afternoon, driving the Farm-All because we couldn’t bring Dad’s truck or the halftrack, and Floyd had left the Willys down at the station.

“I can’t believe we’re riding fifteen miles on a tractor to go back and get your dad’s truck,” I said, shouting over the clatter of the engine. Mr. Bellamy needed to give this thing a valve job, really bad. A new muffler wouldn’t hurt, either.

“It’s a longer walk,” Floyd yelled back. “Especially with your leg. I’ll bring the tractor back tonight. You come over tomorrow in Daddy’s truck.”

By the time we got to the depot, my ears were ringing. Odus Milliken was just locking up for supper.

“Boys,” he said as we shut off the tractor and got down to stretch. “Pretty strange shipment you got in today.”

Floyd smiled at me like he’d been expecting the question — which made me wonder if he’d planned to leave the pickup here for this exact purpose.

“Odus,” he said, taking the railway agent’s arm. “As one veteran to another, let me buy you a beer. The State Street Lounge good enough for you?”

“Well, I was heading home for—”

“Nope. Dinner’s on me, too.” Floyd cocked his head at me. “Come on, Vernon. We’ll let you sit in. But Dutch treat for you, mister stay-at-home.”

I was glad for lengthening shadows. They hid my renewed blush as I limped after Floyd and Odus.

The State Street Lounge was crowded with roughnecks from the Mobil refinery over on the southwest side of town. The war might be over, but America’s appetite for petroleum didn’t seem to be. The workers seeped in with their greasy overalls and their steel hardhats and took over the place. A lot of the guys were vets like Floyd — the women and kids and oldsters that had run the refinery during the war were dumped for men who needed the jobs as soon as those men had come home, despite Floyd’s fears about employment.

We wound up in a booth at the back, me, Floyd and Odus, not too close to the radio speakers. Everything was dark red, almost the color of wine, except the plywood floor which was covered with peanut husks. The whole place reeked of stale cigarettes and old beer — that bar smell you probably find everywhere in the world. Floyd flagged down a waitress, who surprised me by laying a big, wet kiss on Floyd’s cheek. I wondered what Mary Ann would have thought about that.

“Hey, Midge,” Floyd said. “You know Odus Milliken, from the station.” She winked at him. “And my buddy Vern, works over in Wichita.” I didn’t get a wink. “Beer all around.”

You couldn’t get liquor by the glass in Augusta. A fellow had to drive to Wichita for that privilege.

Even though Floyd was being free with my Dutch treat money, I wasn’t going to argue about the order — I’d just sip around the edges. It was Floyd’s show, and I wanted to see how he would manage Odus. My buddy could be a real artist when it came to handling people.

“I thank you kindly, Corporal Bellamy,” said Odus, “but what’s the real story here? You’ve never stood an old man a drink before. Why start now?”

Floyd leaned over the table with a look on his face like he was going to share the Secret of Life. “Business confidentiality, Mr. Milliken. Commerce in all its glory, bringing jobs and money to Augusta.”

Odus drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. “Floyd, it’s none of my business what people do or don’t bring in here from Kansas City or Chicago or Baltimore. Heck, London or Hong Kong don’t make me no never mind. But I saw you drive a Nazi war machine off that flat car Floyd Bellamy, me and half the town. That ain’t business, that’s plum
weird
. What the hell are you up to?”

I was pretty interested in Floyd’s answer to the question.

“Business, Odus, is about getting ahead of the other guy. Santa Fe Railroad’s going diesel, right? Tell me, why is that?”

Odus shrugged. “Don’t know the details, ain’t my job, but it’s about cost I reckon. Steam locomotive’s expensive to operate and maintain. I hear one man can run two, three diesels together. Try that trick with steam, you’re like to wind up in the ditch with thirty tons of scrap metal parked on your forehead, right quick.”

“Cost.” Floyd ticked his points off on his fingers. “Efficiency. Quality. Same reasons we won the war. We could do it better, faster and cheaper than anyone else.”

He glanced around the room, made a show of checking for eavesdroppers. The conversation paused while Midge brought our suds. Floyd got another wink. She never even looked at me. “I’d never be one to give aid and comfort to an enemy, but Odus, you’ve got to know the Jerries had some great technology. German optics, chemicals, color dyes, fertilizers, machine tools — best in the world before the war. Heck, they’d still be the best at that kind of stuff today if those bombers Vern built hadn’t flattened them.”

My B-29s only flew in the Pacific theater, which Floyd knew perfectly well, but this was his spiel.

“Maybe you have that right,” Odus answered grudgingly, “but it feels darned weird to be talking up the enemy.”

“They’re not the enemy any more,” Floyd whispered fiercely. “Those are our boys now. If General Patton had had his way, we’d be fighting side by side with the Jerries against the Red Menace already.” He sat back in his seat and took a long pull off his mug. “No reason in the world some hard-working American boys can’t make money off some of Jerry’s good ideas.”