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Eric: Hey there, writer man. How are you doing? My name is Eric, and I’m ready to tell you my tale.
BK: Thanks, Eric, but can you just give me a moment?
Eric: Sure. Are you alright?
BK: I feel strange. I’m having a hot flash and keep seeing white spots dancing before my eyes. I could really use some water too.
Eric: Hold on, let me go get you a drinky drink of water. I don’t have any bottled stuff, so you’ll need to settle for what comes out the tap. It can be a little yucky at times, but such is life in a small town.
Author’s note: There was a period of about three or four minutes here where the recording continued, although it sounded as though it was nothing but dead air. No background noise, no muted conversation, and no music or singing. Nothing but the sound of my breathing, which, to be honest, sounded a little shallow.
BK: Thanks for that, Eric. Is the water always this color?
Eric: Usually, yeah, but it tastes just fine. Drink up and tell me when you are ready to start.
BK: I’m good, honestly. So, “This Flight Tonight” was your karaoke song. Tell me a little about what that means to you, as well as a little about why you sing it.
Eric: Truth be told, I’m tired of singing it, yet here I am again, belting it out as loud as ever. I suppose it makes sense in some way why it would be in my head given the story I’m about to tell you, but I would sooner get that thing out of there and never hear it again.
BK: So, just stop, Eric. Why keep coming back and putting yourself through the wringer? I want to ask that to everyone I’ve spoken to. I don’t understand what’s going on here.
Eric: Drink your water, sit back, and relax, writer man. Each and every one of us here has a story to tell, but we have never sat down and spoken about what happened and why we do the things we do. I don’t care about anyone in here but myself, and I would suggest that they all probably feel the same way I do. If you want to try and figure it out once we are all done, you are more than welcome to do so. For now, I just want to say my piece and move on.
BK: This is all so strange, so very strange. Okay, go on then. Where do you want to begin? I’m sure whatever you tell me is going to be brutal, so jump right in wherever you like. This town is fucked.
Eric: Fucked it may be, but it’s my town, and it’s in my DNA. I was born and raised here, went to school here, got my first job here, and I’ve never once thought about moving on. If Redfield was good enough for my family when they settled here, then it’s sure as shit good enough for me.
BK: Are you telling me, just like all the others, that your family was one of the original settlers in Redfield?
Eric: That’s correct. There were eleven families that built homes here and worked the strawberry fields. Once the town started to build up, those families became royalty in these parts. Harold over there even had the high school named after one of his kin. Did he tell you that or was he too modest?
BK: Yes, he told me. I thought he may have been messing with me, though. He seems the type.
Eric: He’s a joker, to be sure, but I’d wager that he was on the up and up with everything he dished to you. Listen here, writer man, I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but can we just get to my part in this whole thing?
BK: My apologies. I didn’t mean to get you off track. So, you were saying that you were born and raised in Redfield. What was that like?
Eric: I have no complaints. Life here was chill, and I had it pretty good. I was an only child, so my mom doted on me quite a bit. My dad was a pilot with Delta, running international routes, which meant he was gone on a regular basis. When he came home for a stretch, he would always return with something really cool from wherever he had been on his last flight out. My bedroom was filled to brimming with all kinds of cool little trinkets and statues from all over the world. Some of my buddies thought I was a little dorky, but I think they were jealous. I mean, come on, I had the cool dad in town. He drove a little red sports car, and, no, not the Barracuda, and he would come roaring into town still wearing his pilot’s uniform. To me, he was the coolest man alive, and I know the other kids thought so as well.
BK: What would you guys get up to when he was home?
Eric: The usual dad and son stuff. We’d go fishing a lot, but if he was really tired and just wanted to chill around the house, he would read to me. He had a huge book collection and was always coming home with two or three new titles at a time. He was the most patient man you ever met in your life. He would read his books aloud, always taking time to answer questions about the bigger words in there, as well as the plotlines that left me a little confused. When I started reading a lot on my own, we would sit side by side with our books, and I would still pester him with questions related to whatever book my face was stuck in at any given time. He didn’t seem to mind even though I was probably bugging the ever-loving shit out of him. He would always take time to explain what needed to be explained.
BK: He sounds like a truly wonderful man, Eric.
Eric: He was. The only thing that used to bother him was when I would ask about him taking me up in his plane. He would very calmly explain that it wasn’t his plane and how knowing that I was on board would make it tougher for him to concentrate on his job. I would go on and on, begging the way kids always do in hopes of getting their way, but he would shut me down and call it end of discussion. My dad wasn’t rude about it; he was simply making it clear that there was no conversation to be had on that subject.
BK: Did he ever decide to take you up?
Eric: He did, but it was very much on his own terms. As a pilot with a big airline, he was basically able to travel anywhere on the cheap whenever he felt like it, plus he got to bring his family along too. I remember him coming home one weekend and not having his usual present for me in tow. I quickly got it into my head that he was mad at me, which was why there was no gift coming, but it was nothing like that at all. He sat me down for a moment and told me that I had a big decision to make. My heart was racing to the point where I thought it was going to come bursting out of my chest and go pinging off all the walls in the house.
BK: How old were you?
Eric: I was just coming up on my tenth birthday. I mean, I was literally a couple of weeks away from heading into double-digits in years, which I believed made me an adult. I may have mentioned that to my dad once or twice, which is why I think he allowed me to make this big decision.
BK: Which was?
Eric: I’m getting there, writer man. Let me revel in this part of the story a little bit. As I was saying, he sits me down and tells me that I have a big decision to make. He says that I need to go into my bedroom, look at all the things that he has brought home for me over the years, and decide which is my favorite. I was thinking that I would just grab the first thing that I saw, and he must have read my mind because he told me to have valid reason why the piece I was selecting was my favorite. I had a couple that I liked, but there was a snow globe that he had brought from Switzerland that I would shake and shake for hours on end.
BK: What was it about the snow globe that you loved so much?
Eric: Being a kid from Georgia, it would be easy to say that it was the snow, but it was more than that. Sure, in the course of my nine years I had never seen as much as a single snowflake, but the truth is that it was the mountains in the snow globe that caught my attention. There was a small village sitting at the bottom of the globe, and I remember thinking that those mountains must have been absolutely massive. I explained this to my dad, telling him what it was I loved about that gift and then asking him if planes could fly high enough to get over those peaks. Some people would have laughed at the stupidity of the question, but not my dad. He explained how he had flown over them countless times and how awesome the Swiss Alps looked from his vantage point.
He took a moment to study the globe, giving it a little shake and watching the snow come down on the mountains and the village below. The anticipation was killing me, but he was so entranced by the falling snow that all I could do was sit and watch him take it all in. By this point, my mom was on the sofa with us, a cheeky grin on her face. Once the last flake of snow settled inside the globe, my dad smiled and asked me if I would like to fly over those mountains with him. I couldn’t speak, so I nodded and started crying, noticing that my mom was spilling a few tears of her own. He took my mom’s hand as he hugged me and told me that he would be happy to take me, but on his terms.
BK: What did he mean by that?
Eric: We would be going to Switzerland on a family vacation, but he would not be the one flying the plane. I was absolutely fine with that little detail, just as long as I was up in the air with my dad. He told me that he would get everything planned out and that I should be ready to go the day after school ended for the summer. That meant having to wait another couple of weeks, a period of time that I soon convinced myself was going to be torture. It was, but it certainly didn’t help that I started packing a bag that very night. I would see that stupid bag sitting at the end of my bed every time I walked into my bedroom, and I swear the clock would tick backward a few seconds every single time.
BK: Ha-ha. That’s rough on a kid.
Eric: You’re telling me. Anyway, the day before we were due to leave, my dad told me to get my stuff together and take it out to the car. I thought he was just being overly prepared, but it turns out that he had booked us into a fancy hotel close to Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. The room we were in was up on the top floor and had a clear view of the runway. My dad sat with me for what seemed like hours, talking about all the different planes that were taking off, telling me how many passengers they held, how fast they could go, and a ton of other details that I soaked up like a sponge. I didn’t want that part to end, but he had booked us into a nice restaurant for dinner, a move that was more for my mom than anything else. She got all gussied up for the occasion, and while I wasn’t totally happy about it, I got into dress pants and a shirt with a tie. I thought I looked ridiculous, but when I saw how happy my get-up made my mom, I got over it pretty quick. We had a morning flight out the next day, so the dinner reservations were for earlier than I was used to eating, which felt a little odd. The food was amazing, though, and I ate a ton, all of which made me very sleepy. I think that may have been the plan all along, as I had been shot out of a cannon crazy for the previous two weeks.
BK: Tell me about the day of the flight.
Eric: I was up at the butt crack of dawn, pestering my mom and dad and basically forcing them out of bed before they were really ready to get the day started. Luckily, it was only a few short hours before we had to head to the airport, so they were able to get me under control and ready to roll in no time at all. My dad told me to save all my questions for the flight, saying that it would be easier to answer them all once we were on board and ready to take off. He had a pre-flight checklist made up for me, which certainly helped me calm down.
BK: What was on the list?
Eric: Nothing of any real importance. It was all little tasks designed to ensure that I stayed busy over the next couple of hours. It was things like brushing my teeth, eating a full breakfast, making sure that my favorite toys were in the carryon bag and other things of that nature. It was all very trivial stuff, but it made me feel like I was the most important kid in the world. My mom and dad were great at that type of thing and were able to instill a lot of confidence in me at an early age without turning me into an obnoxious little shit.
Once we got to the airport, we were able to skip the security line and get right through. We were also allowed on the plane ahead of everyone, giving my mom time to sit and relax while my dad introduced me to the captain and gave me a little tour of the cockpit. One thing I remember as being odd about the visit was that my dad seemed to bristle when he saw the pilot. He was a man that got along with everyone, so it was weird to see the tension between him and the captain. I’ve replayed that entire day in my head countless times, but it wasn’t until I got older that the weirdness between those two registered with me.
BK: What was it all about? Did your dad ever tell you?
Eric: We didn’t talk much about that day in the years following, but when I asked my dad outright if I was imagining the tension, he filled me in on the details. I’ll get to that in a minute since it might help explain what went down. I was still incredibly excited to be on board, but that quickly turned to fear once we started backing away from the gate. The plane had been quiet and calm up to that point, but once we got moving, it felt as though I was trapped inside the belly of a big, hungry beast that was growling and generally acting pissed off. Sensing that I was about to flip out, my dad took my hand and started talking me through all the different sounds. It took him a minute, but I did eventually calm down, and once we started barreling down that runway, I was back to being giddy again.
The first couple of hours of the flight were uneventful, and I think I might even have slept for a while. I had initially been sitting in the middle seat, but I asked my mom if she would let me sit by the window for a little while. She was happy to oblige, letting me scooch over so that I could get a look at the clouds floating below us, seeming to move ever so slowly in spite of how fast the plane was going. I became transfixed on those clouds, looking for animals and other shapes hidden in the fluffy masses. I might have stayed that way for the rest of the flight had I and the rest of the passengers on the plane not been distracted by a loud booming noise.
BK: Did one of the engines go out?
Eric: Yeah, that’s what I found out later. After the initial boom, there was a high-pitched whining sound and the plane tilted off to the left, which is the side that I was sitting on. I pulled down the plastic blind on the window, as it felt as though we were going sideways towards the ground, but we probably didn’t drop down that much. I looked at my dad and saw that he was gripping the armrests on the seat, muttering to himself as he looked at the cockpit door. The whining started to get even louder, and the plane started rocking from side to side. I was terrified by that point and was snuggled up against my mom. I could hear and feel her heart pounding, so even as she was trying to soothe me, I could tell that she was scared too. Over the noise of the plane, I could hear my dad still muttering, only he was getting louder and easier to hear. He was alternating between saying “correct the bird” and “make an announcement,” and seemed to get angrier when neither was happening.
BK: How long did this go on for?
Eric: I honestly don’t know, but I can tell you that it felt like an eternity. Passengers were starting to scream and cry, and I heard more than a few people praying. One of the flight attendants went into the cockpit, and when she came back out, she looked terrified. You could she was trying to hold it together for the passengers, but she was scared. That was when my dad took action. We were sitting just behind the first-class section, so he was up at the cockpit door in a matter of a few strides. He spoke to the flight attendant, who I guess he knew, and she let him into the cockpit. I only caught a glimpse, but the co-pilot looked as though he was out cold, while the captain was sitting there doing nothing. The door slammed shut right after my dad stepped inside, and it felt as though the plane returned to normal a few short moments after that.
BK: I’m guessing your dad took control.
Eric: He did, but it was a struggle to do so. It turns out that the captain of the flight had been suspended by the airline a couple of years earlier. There had been rumors of him drinking before flights and of having some issues with depression and anxiety. He was frequently tested for alcohol before flying, but he always passed with flying colors. Still, many of the flight attendants and co-pilots that he worked with complained about his behavior, to the point where Delta took action and grounded him, forcing him to seek some professional help. He was cleared to fly shortly before our trip, which explains why my dad was a little surprised to see him there.
BK: What happened in the cockpit?
Eric: My dad didn’t go into too much detail, but the official investigation was released to the public and told quite the tale. After the engine blew, the captain totally froze and appeared not to know what to do. When the co-pilot tried to take over the controls, the captain socked him and told him not to touch his plane, all the while still doing nothing to get the situation under control. It seems that the flight attendant walked in just as the violent part was going down. The reports said that my dad had to physically remove the captain from the seat so that he could get in and get the plane back under control. I had stopped looking after my dad left, and I had my face buried in my mom’s chest. It seems that there was an off-duty air marshal on board. He was called into the cockpit to restrain the captain until we were diverted and landed safely.
BK: What happened after that? Did you and your parents continue with your holiday as planned?
Eric: No. That whole incident seemed to suck the life out us, and we just wanted to go home. My dad was stuck giving statements for a few hours after we had our emergency landing. Once he was done, Delta arranged for a private jet to take us back to Atlanta. Let me tell you, the thrill of flying had left me by that point. I spent the whole flight back home in a state of frozen panic. It was the last time I ever set foot on a plane.
BK: Well, it’s nice to hear that it all ended so well, but given what the rest of the people here have told me up until now, I have a feeling that your story is not quite over.
Eric: You are very astute, writer man. There certainly is a little more to my story, although it is perhaps not as grim as some of the others that you will have heard already. It may not register as high on the horror scale as the others, but it leaves me in pain every time I think about it.
BK: I’m more than happy to let it go. What you have already told me fits the song nicely enough, so if you don’t want to tell it, I’m seriously okay with that.
Eric: That’s not really an option at this point. I don’t believe in leaving things unfinished, so let’s just soldier on and get to the rest of it. The telling hurts like hell, but that’s a pain that I live with all the time. So, shall I continue?
BK: Um, yes.
Eric: Life returned to normal, for the most part, once we got back to Redfield, but my dad was home permanently from that point forward. He had become a bit of a media darling after news of the incident got out, and while Delta was keen on rolling him out as some kind of hero, he wasn’t interested. He decided to retire and received a very nice settlement that was more than enough to keep us living comfortably. He already had a decent nest egg socked away prior to that. I guess I forgot to mention that my dad was a little older than the other fathers of kids my age. He had been laser-focused on getting his pilot’s license and building his career before settling down to marry and start a family. There was a 15-year age difference between my mom and dad, but he always seemed a whole lot younger than he was. After that flight, he seemed more than happy to put his career behind him and spend time hanging out with mom and me, but it didn’t last.
BK: He became bored?
Eric: Yes, but not with his life with us. Flying was always an adrenaline rush for my dad, and he missed the high that he got from being up and over the world. He wasn’t interested in going back to commercial flying, but he had an idea that he could start his own business, so he invested in a crop duster. We were surrounded by farmland, yet none of the land owners ever thought to spray their fields this way, choosing instead to go the old-fashioned route. They all claimed that it was too expensive to go with a crop-dusting plane, but my father made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. He wasn’t interested in making a buck off his neighbors. For him, it was more about getting back up in the air, so he charged the bare minimum required to keep that bad boy flying. Whenever there was any type of mechanical issue with the plane, Neil would come by and work his magic, getting that old bird up and running again.
Our house sat on a big bit of land, plenty big enough for him to build an airstrip and a hangar. The local farmers loved the new set-up. The crop duster saved them time and money, both of which they viewed as valuable commodities. Crops blossomed, the farmers made more money, and they tried to cut my dad in on their profits, but he just wasn’t interested. For him, it was all about the flying. Whenever he got done with the spraying, he would do a little fly-by over the house, maneuvering the plane so that it looked as though it was waving at us. I would hear the plane coming and run out onto the porch so that I could see him give that little wave before he landed.
BK: That’s a nice memory.
Eric: Yes, but it’s tainted now. The last day I saw him was just like every other. He ate his breakfast, spent some time talking to me about my day, gave my mom a kiss and a hug, and then left, telling me to listen for him coming back so that he could give me the wave. That day, I heard the plane coming a whole lot earlier than usual. I didn’t think anything of it, assuming that he was cutting out early to come home, which he did every now and again. I ran out to the porch and waited for him to fly over, but I could tell right away that something wasn’t right. The plane was sputtering and making noises I had never heard it make before. When he flew over the house, he was doing the wave maneuver, but you could tell he was fighting the movement as opposed to controlling it. Worst of all, the spraying mechanism was still doing its thing, shooting a fine mist of red liquid in the wake of the plane. The spray fell on the house, staining the white siding and spattering against the kitchen window.
I’m not sure if it was the noise of the plane or the pesticide hitting the house that brought my mom outside, but she came tearing out onto the porch, her hands still dripping wet from washing dishes in the kitchen sink. I heard her say something about blood before she caught sight of the plane, which was now looking seriously out of control. She let out a piercing scream at that point, a sound so piercing it raised gooseflesh across my entire body. Her scream was loud, but it was soon drowned out with the sound of the plane smashing into the town water tower. The booming noise it made reminded me of the one I heard on the plane to Switzerland, but I knew this one was going to be a whole lot worse, and I was right.
BK: I’m sorry, Eric. I really don’t know what to say. Your dad didn’t make it?
Eric: No, it was total carnage downtown, although the high school got the worst of it, other than my dad, of course.
BK: What happened with the school?
Eric: I only heard little bits and pieces, so I’m not the best person to tell that part of the story. Norm was the janitor at the school, and he was there the day of the crash. I’m sure he will unhappily fill you in on all the details.