Chapter 6: Getting Ready
The airstrip was a half-mile stretch of razed grass in the sugar cane fields outside Thibodaux. A small shack sat at the end closest to the highway, full on with a radio tower and wind sock that blew in the breeze. Frederick jointly owned the strip with another Army buddy who flew crop-dusters over a fifty mile radius. In all, there were three light planes in the long, metal hangar: two old Piper Cubs, one yellow and the other a fading red Jelly used for dusting; and then there was Frederick's Piper Cherokee, a plane in a lot better shape, and used almost exclusively for a completely different purpose. Paperwork stated all equipment was owned by Dusters, Inc.
Frederick pulled into the parking lot next to the control shack. Inside they had rudimentary equipment, weather shit, FAA regulations stuff, the usual. And St. Martien, a smelly old shit who watched the property and mowed the grass, could usually be found inside. He was actually the reason for the tower. Fucking ham radio freak. Duster’s Inc. had bought the forty-foot antenna a year ago, planting it just outside the building to stand like a barren, metallic pine tree.
Sure enough, the old Cajun’s ancient Ford rusted like a ship wreaked hull beside the clapboard structure. As he opened the car door, Frederick saw the screen door of the shack swinging in the breeze. St. Martien was never the type to be bothered by mosquitoes. Frederick wouldn’t have been surprised to find he ate the motherfuckers, as skinny as he was.
He got out and walked over, peering around the door jamb. St. Martien had his head turned to see who'd driven up, grinning around a hideously billowing King Edward cigar with his ever-present earphones clamped vice-like around his head. "Hi'ya, Freddy," he spat around the cigar, billowing a cloud of pestilence into the air. Frederick acknowledged him with a curt wave as he made his way to the right side of the building. The hangar was only a short distance away, and he closed his ears to the Cajun’s drivel as he walked toward it.
One of the three sliding bay doors lay open. Glancing up at the sky, Frederick saw clouds piling in from the south, pushed together by the massive air streams pouring in from the Gulf. There was a deep blue tint hanging at the bottom of all the incoming, a deeper grey above.
He paused to listen for the buzz of a Cub but heard only the wind through the break bordering both sides of the runway. He fished in his pocket and withdrew a cluster of keys. Until a few years back he hadn't needed a lock, but right after he got the Piper some asshole had walked up in the middle of the night and relieved Frederick of close to $2,400 worth of electrical equipment and a brand new trim tab. After that, a fight in a bar and the fucking lock.
He huffed against the sliding metal door with a smile on his face. Nothing on the airstrip had been fucked with since. What’s a night in jail to make a point? The door got looser near the end of its track and he pushed it away with a grunt, banging it against the rubber stop. He turned to look at the plane. The single-engine, four-passenger Cherokee hunkered brilliantly in the fine, dusty shadows inside the hangar. The only smudge on her delicate lines and red capped nose was a light dusting which was impossible to keep off any object kept in here.
He walked up to her, as always, trailing his finger along the leading edge of the right wing, appreciating the frightening gleam reflecting off the propeller when he pulled the string for the overhead light. On a table against the far wall was a perfectly lined order of every stage and phase of Craftsman necessaries. Every tester and wrench, every Torx-head screwdriver and universal elbow was fixed in regimented fashion along the length of the heavy cedar work table. The Cherokee was his baby and he pampered her like a millionaire attending his only child.
Inside, the seats were immaculate and red, mirroring the nose and the fuselage stripe. The body and wings were bone white, save for a red slash on the fin. It'd been almost two weeks since he'd taken her out and his impatience grew just staring at her. He kicked one of the tires, and walked back to the entranceway. The sun broke suddenly from behind a cloud bank, splashing the area with bright heat. He made a play of tapping on the window before he rounded the corner, even though he was pretty sure St. Martien wouldn't hear it for the racket inside his head. The Cajun would not expect him back so soon and that was just fine. He pulled back the screen door and kicked the dust off his boots before coming inside, not that it made much difference. St. Martien was hardly as fastidious as Frederick. His value to both Frederick and Jelly lay in the fact that it was an odd day when the old man didn't haunt the shack and airstrip like some lonesome ghost on an eternal hunt. Poetically it was fitting and sad; realistically, it kept people from ripping them off. St. Martien was like a guard dog with a passion for the ham radio; only difference was he paid for his own food.
"How you doing today, Mart?" Frederick asked, pausing to strike a match alongside the door frame. The man had caught sight of his shadow as it raked across the table before him and even now was wrestling free of his earphones.
"Damn fine, Freddy,” he finally managed. “You'd never believe it but I actually had mainland China for a while today. Fuckin amazin with the atmospheric pressure the way it's been lately." Frederick raised his eyes in pretended interest.
"Oh?" he said, blowing out a razor-thin trail of smoke. "I didn't know they had that over there...hams I mean."
"Oh, hell yeah! You'd be surprised--"
"You don't even speak Chinese, St. Martien. How the hell do you communicate with anybody over there?"
"Codes, frequencies, Freddy. You should see some of the new patches I've got." He'd shaken the headphones down around his neck, but his curly hair still bore the reminder; his ears were beet red. "You ought to come in here sometimes and watch how it's done...you'd never want to leave." He gestured expansively across the desk, piled high with books and other manuals that Frederick hadn't the slightest interest in. "Even last night I--"
Frederick held out his hand to interrupt him before he got up a head of steam. When he got going it was like a freight train headed downhill. "Hold up, Mart. Where's Jelly? Ms. Blue (he'd never figured out why Jelly'd named a yellow Piper that, but what the hell) is gone. He take it out or was it one of the boys?"
St. Martien jabbed the cigar back to its relegated corner in his rubbery mouth before replying, and then it was only as he turned back to his set. "Yeah, it was Jelly. Early this morning. Said he had some fields to work near Chackbay. He ought to be back afore long." He situated the headphones on his skull again, concentrating too hard on such a trivial task, insulating himself from having to speak to Frederick any more. It didn't matter; with St. Martien it was either ham-radio or one of his assorted aches and pains. Neither was of any interest to Frederick and he knew the old man knew it too. His wife probably felt the same way, so Frederick could understand why neither wanted to spend much time around the other: too much competition.
"Going to gas up the plane," he muttered as he turned to leave. They'd managed to get Exxon to install a pump and a thousand gallon, fiberglass tank near the hangar for a huge initial fee, but the gas came cheaper because of it. Frederick knew the old man didn't hear a word he'd said because he'd already began tapping out a stream of patterned beeps from his console.