The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

  ONE

  She'll be here today. I looked down from the cockpit, down through the wind and propeller-blast, down through half a mile of autumn to my rented hayfield, to the sugar chip that was my FLY-$3-FLY sign tied to the open gate. Both sides of the road around the sign were jammed with cars. There must have been around sixty of them, and a crowd to match, come to see the flying. She could be there this moment, just arrived! I smiled at that. Could be!

  I throttled the engine to idle, pulled the nose of the fleet plane higher, let the wings stall. Then stomped full rudder, full left rudder, and jammed the control stick back.

  The green earth, harvest corn and soybeans, farms and meadows calm at noon, the bottom dropped out and they exploded in the whirling blur of an airshow tailspin of what would look from the ground like an old flying-machine suddenly burst out of control.

  The nose slammed down, the world spun into a color-streak tornado wrapping faster and faster around my goggles.

  How long have I been missing you, dear soulmate, I thought, dear wise mystical lovely lady? Today at last, coincidence will bring you to Russell, Iowa, take you by the hand, lead you to that field of alfalfa hay, down there. You'll walk to the edge of the crowd, not quite knowing why, curious to watch a page of history still alive, bright paints spinning in the air.

  The two-winger twisted down thuddering, kicking against me on the controls for a thousand feet, the tornado going steeper and tighter and louder every second.

  Spin ... till ... Now.

  I pushed the stick forward, came off the left and stood hard on the right rudder pedal. Blurs going tighter, quicker, one, two times around, then the spin quit and we dived straight down, fast as we could go.

  She'll be here today, I thought, because she's alone, too. Because she's learned everything she wants to learn by herself. Because there's one person in the world that she's being led to meet, and that person right now is flying this airplane.

  Tight turn, throttle back, switch off, propeller stopped . . . glide down, float soundlessly to land, coast to stop in front of the crowd.

  I'll know her when I see her, I thought, bright anticipation, I'll know her at once.

  Around the airplane were men and women, families with picnic baskets, kids on bikes, watching. Two dogs, near the kids.

  I pulled myself up from the cockpit, looked at the people and liked them. Then I was listening to my own voice, curiously detached, and at the same time I was looking for her in the crowd.

  "Russell from the air, folks! See it floating adrift on the fields of Iowa! Last chance before the snows! Come on up where only birds and angebfly. ..."

  A few of the people laughed and applauded for somebody else to be first. Some faces suspicious, full of questions; some faces eager and adventurous; some pretty faces, too, amused, intrigued. But nowhere the face I was looking for.

  "You're sure it's safe?" a woman said. "After what I saw, I'm not sure you're a safe driver!" Suntanned, clear brown eyes, she wanted to be sold on this.

  "Safe as can be, ma'am, gentle as thistledown. The Fleet here's been flying since December twenty-fourth, nineteen twenty-eight-she's probably good for one more flight before she goes to pieces. ..."

  She blinked at me, startled.

  "Just kidding," I said. "She'll be flying when you and I are years gone, I guarantee you that!"

  "I'd guess I've waited long enough," she said. "I've always wanted to fly in one of these. ..."

  "You're going to love it."

  I swung the propeller to start the engine, showed her the way to the front cockpit, helped her with the safety-belt.

  Impossible, I thought. She's not here. Not-here is not possible!

  Every day convinced today's-the-day, and every day wrong!

  The first ride was followed by thirty other rides, before the sun went down. I flew and talked till everyone went home to supper and to their nights with each other and left me alone.

  Alone.

  Is she fiction?

  Silence.

  A minute before the water boiled, I took the pan from my campfire, tapped in hot-chocolate mix, stirred it with a hay-stem. Frowned, talked to myself.

  "I'm a fool, to look for her out here."

  I poked last week's cinnamon-roll on a stick, toasted it over shreds of fire.

  This adventure, barnstorming through the 1970s with an old biplane, I thought. Once it was spiced with question-marks. Now it's so known and safe I might as well be living in a scrapbook. After the hundredth tailspin I can do them with my eyes closed. After searching the thousandth crowd, I'm beginning to doubt that soulmates appear in hayfields.

  There's enough money, passenger-hopping, I'll never starve. But I'm learning nothing new, either, I'm hanging on.

  My last real learning happened two summers before. I had seen a white-and-gold Travel Air biplane, another barnstormer in a field, had landed and met Donald Shimoda, retired Messiah, ex-Saviour-of-the-World. We became friends, and in those last months of his life he had passed along a few secrets of his strange calling.

  The journal that I kept of that season had turned into a book sent oif to a publisher and printed not long ago. I practiced most of his lessons well, so new tests were rare indeed, but the soulmate problem I couldn't solve at all.

  Near the tail of the Fleet, I heard a low crackling; stealthy footsteps crunching in the hay. They stopped when I turned to listen, then crept slowly forward, stalking me.

  I peered into the dark. "Who's there?"

  A panther? A leopard? Not in Iowa, there haven't been leopards in Iowa since . . .

  Another slow step in the night hay. It's got to be ... A timber-wolf!

  I dived for the tool-kit, grabbed for a knife, for a big wrench, but too late. In that instant around the wheel of the airplane popped a black-and-white bandit's mask, bright eyes studying me, furry whiskered nose sniffing inquisitively toward the grocery-box.

  Not a timber-wolf.

  "Why . . . why, hello there . . ."I said. I laughed at my heart, pounding so, and pretended I was putting the wrench away.

  Baby raccoons, rescued and raised as pets in the Midwest, are set free when they're a year old, but pets they are ever after.

  There's no wrong, is there, in crackling through the fields, in stopping by after dark to ask if a camper might have, oh, a little something sweet to nibble on, while a night slows by?

  "That's OK . . . c'mon, c'mon little fella! Hungry?"

  Any little sweet thing would be fine, a square of chocolate or ... marshmallows? I can tell you have marshmallows, The raccoon stood on its hind feet for a moment, nose twitching, testing the air food-ward, and looked to me. The rest of the marshmallows, if you won't be eating them yourself, they'd be fine.

  I lifted the bag out, poured a pile of the soft powdery things on my bedroll. "Here y'go . . . come on. ..."

  Settling noisily to dessert, the mini-bear stuffed marsh-mallows into its mouth, chomping them in happy appreciation.

  It declined my homemade panbread after half a bite, finished the marshmallows, downed most of my honeyed puffed-wheat, lapped the pan of water I poured. Then it sat for a while, watching the fire, sniffed at last that it was time to be moving on.

  "Thanks for stopping by," I said.

  The black eyes looked solemnly into mine.

  Thank you for the food. You're not a bad human. I'll see you tomorrow night. Your panbread is awful.

  With that the fluffy creature trundled away, ring-striped tail disappeared into the shadows, steps crunching fainter and fainter through the hay, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the wish for my lady.

  It always comes back to her. r />
  She is not impossible, I thought, she is not too much to hope for!

  What would Donald Shimoda tell me, if he were sitting here under the wing tonight, if he knew I hadn't found her yet?

  He'd say something obvious, is what he'd say. The strange thing about his secrets was that every one of them was simple.

  What if I told him I'd failed, searching for her? He'd study his cinnamon-roll for inspiration, he'd run his fingers through his black hair and he'd say, "Flying with the wind, Richard, from town to town, has it occurred to you that's not a way to find her, that's a way to lose her?"

  Simple. And then he'd wait without a word for whatever I had to answer.

  I would have said to that, if he were here I would have said, "OK. Flying over horizons is not the way. I give up. 'Tell me. How do I find her?"

  He'd narrow his eyes, annoyed I'd ask him instead of myself.

  "Are you happy? Are you doing, this moment, exactly what you most want to do in the world?"

  Habit would have answered of course I am, of course I'm running toy life just the way I please.

  Came the cold of tonight, however, the same question from him, and something had changed. Am I doing this moment what I most want to do?

  "No!"

  "What a surprise!" Shimoda would have said. "What do you suppose that could mean?"

  I blinked, left off imagining and spoke aloud. "Why, it means I'm done barnstorming! This moment I'm looking into my last campfire; the kid from Russell at dusk, he was the last passenger I'll ever fly!"

  I tried saying it again: "I'm done

  barnstorming."

  Slow quiet shock. A buzz of questions.

  For a moment I tasted my new ignorance, shifted it on my tongue. What am I to do? Whatever will become of me?

  After the job security of barnstorming, a surprise new pleasure broke and surged over me ike a cool breaker from far deeps. I didn't know what I'd do!

  When one door closes, they say, mother opens. I can see the door just shut, it's got BARNSTORMING lettered on it and behind are crates and boxes of idventures that changed me from who I was into who I am. And now it's time to move on. Where's the door just oppned?

  If I were an advanced soul right now, I thought, not Shimoda but an advanced me, what would I say to me?

  A moment passed, and I knew what I'd say: "Look at everything around you this moment, Richard, and ask, 'What is wrong with this picture?' "

  I looked around me in the dark. The sky wasn't wrong. What can be wrong with stars exploding diamonds a thousand light-years overhead, and me looking out at the fireworks from a safe place? What's wrong with an airplane so rugged and faithful as the Fleet, ready to take off for anywhere I wish? Nothing wrong.

  What's wrong with the picture is this: She isn't with me! And I'm going to do something to change that now!

  Slowly, Richard, I thought. Be uncharacteristic this one time; please not so fast! Please. Think, first. Carefully.

  And sure enough. There was another question in the dark, one I had not asked Donald Shimoda, one he'd not answered.

  Why should it be that the most advanced of people, whose teachings, twisted into religions, last for centuries, why should it be that they have always been alone?

  Why never do we see radiant wives or husbands or miraculous equals with whom they share their adventures and their love? They're surrounded by their disciples and their curious, these few we so admire, they're pressed by those who come to them for healing and light. But how often do we find their soulmates, glorious and powerful beloveds right close by? Sometimes? Once in a while?

  I swallowed, throat suddenly dry.

  Never.

  The most advanced people, I thought, they're the ones most alone!

  The sky turned slow frosty clockworks overhead, uncaring.

  Do these perfect ones not have soulmates because they've grown beyond human needs?

  No answer from blue Vega, shimmering in her harp of stars.

  Attained perfection would not be my problem for a whole lot of lifetimes, but these people are supposed to show us the way. Have they said forget about soulmates because soulmates don't exist?

  Crickets chirped slow: could-be, could-be.

  Against that wall of stone my evening crashed to its end. If that's what they say, I growled to myself, they're wrong.

  I wondered if she'd agree, wherever she was this minute. Are they wrong, my dear unknown?

  Wherever she was, she didn't answer.

  By the time the frost was melted from the wings next morning I had engine-blanket, tool-kit, grocery-box and cookstove dumped neatly on the front seat, cover brought down and fastened tight. The last of the breakfast cereal I left for the raccoon.

  Sleep had found my answer: Those advanced and perfect ones, they can suggest, they can hint whatever they want, but it's me who decides what to do. And I've decided that I am not going to live my life alone.

  I pulled on my gloves, swung the propeller, started the engine for the last time, settled down into the cockpit.

  What would I do if I saw her now, walking through the hay? On silly impulse, a queer chill in my neck, I turned and looked.

  The field was empty.

  The Fleet roared up from the earth, turned east, landed at Kankakee Airport, Illinois. I sold the airplane- within the day, eleven thousand dollars cash, and stuffed the money into my bedroll.

  Touching the propeller for a long minute alone, I told my biplane thanks, told her goodbye, walked swiftly out of the hangar and didn't look back.

  Grounded and rich and homeless, I hit the streets on a planet of four billion five hundred million souls, and in that moment I began looking full-time for the one woman who, according to the best people who ever lived, wasn't there at all.

  two

  WHATEVER ENCHANTS, also guides and protects. Passionately obsessed by anything we love-sailboats, airplanes, ideas-an avalanche of magic flattens the way ahead, levels rules, reasons, dissents, bears us with it over chasms, fears, doubts. Without the power of that love . . .

  "What are you writing?" She looked odd puzzlements at me, as though she had never seen anyone work a pen and notebook, passenging south on the bus to Florida.

  Somebody interrupts my privacy with questions, sometimes I answer without explaining, to frighten them silent.

  "I'm writing a letter to the me I was twenty years ago: Things I Wish I Knew When I Was You."

  In spite of my miffment, her face was pleasant to see, lit with curiosity and the bravery to satisfy it. Deep brown eyes, hair a dark brushed waterfall.

  "Read it to me," she said, unfrightened.

  I did, the last paragraph to where it broke off.

  "Is it true?"

  "Name one thing you've loved," I said. "Liking doesn't count. What one driving obsessive uncontrollable passion . . ."

  "Horses," she said at once. "I used to love horses."

  "When you were with your horses, was the world a different color from other times?"

  She smiled. "Yeah. I was queen of south Ohio. My mom had to lasso me and drag me out of the saddle before I'd go home with her. Afraid? Not me! I had that big horse under me-Sandy-and he was my friend and nobody was going to hurt me as long as he was there! I loved horses. I loved Sandy."

  I thought she had stopped talking. Then she added, "I don't feel that way about anything, now."

  I didn't answer, and she fell into her own private time, back with Sandy. I returned to my letter.

  Without the power of that love, we're boats becalmed on seas of boredom, and those are deadly . . .

  "How are you going to mail a letter to twenty years ago?" she said.

  "I don't know," I told her, finishing the sentence on the page. "But wouldn't it be terrible, the day comes we learn how to ship something back in time, and we've got nothing to send? So first I thought I'd get the package ready. Next I'll worry about the postage."

  How many times had I said to myself, it's too bad I didn't kn
ow this at age ten, if only I had learned that at twelve, what a waste to understand, twenty years late!

  "Where are you headed?" she said.

  "Geographically?"

  "Yes."

  "Away from winter," I said. "South. The middle of Florida."

  "What's in Florida?"

  "Not sure. I'm going to meet a friend of mine, and I don't quite know where she is." There, I thought, we have the understatement of the day.

  "You'll find her."

  At that I laughed and looked at her. "Do you know what you're saying, 'You'll find her'?"

  "Yes."

  "Explain, please."

  "No," she said, and smiled mysteriously. Her eyes shone so dark they were almost black. She had smooth walnut-tan skin, no crease, not a mark to hint who she was; so young she hadn't finished building her face.

  " 'No,' it is," I said, smiling back.

  The bus boomed along the Interstate, farms rolling past, fall-colored palettes at the edge of the highway. The biplane could have landed in that field, I thought. Telephone-wires high at the edge, but the Fleet could have slipped right down. . . .

  Who was this unknown beside me? Was she a cosmic smile at my fears, coincidence sent to melt my doubt? Could be. Anything could be. She could be Shimoda in a mask.

  "Do you fly airplanes?" I asked casually.

  "Would I be on this bus? Just thinking about it makes me nervous," she said. "Airplanes!" She shuddered, shook her head. "I hate flying." She opened her purse and reached inside. "Mind if I smoke?"

  I shrank, cringed from reflex.

  "Do I mind? A cigarette? Ma'am, please. . . !" I tried to

  explain, not to hurt her feelings. "You don't mean . . . you're going to blow smoke into our little bit of air? Force me who has done you no harm to breathe smoke?" If she were Shimoda, she had just found out what I thought of cigarettes.

  The words froze her stiff.

  "Well, I'm sorry," she said at last. She picked up her purse, moved to a distant seat. Sorry she was, and hurt and angry.

  Too bad. Such dark eyes.

  I lifted the pen again, to write to the boy long ago. What could I tell him about finding a soulmate? The pen waited above the paper.

  I had grown up in a house with a fence around it, and in the fence there was a white smoothwooden gate, two holes bored round and low together in the wood so the dog could see through. One night, the moon high, late for me home from the school dance, I remember that I stopped, hand on the gate, and spoke so quietly to myself and to the woman I would love that not even the dog could have heard.