Guy Gilpatric
When the engine quit and my left wing hit that Ferris wheel, I said to myself, “Well, here we go now!” Next thing I smelt a hospital, and I opened my eyes and sure enough it was.
I was still groggy and I hurt all over. There were a lot of hospital people standing around, and the head doctor told me I had crashed my plane. I said yes, Lee surrendered the other day too, and did he know any more live news? He acted kind of sore, but I heard somebody giggle, and that was when my real troubles started.
I looked toward the giggle expecting to see the kind of nurse they usually have, which, believe me, they’re an awful thing for sick men to look at. I played football at college and I’ve been flying ever since, so I know my hospitals! But this girl looked like the nurses that other fellers who have been in the hospital are always telling you about. When you looked at her it was like when you’ve left the ground on a rainy day with everything dark and gray, and you fly up and up until suddenly you break through the clouds and you’re all alone in a world where everything’s blinding white and clean, cool blue. Anyway, that’s how she looked when she smiled at me that day, and I smiled back and said “Hello, fair weather!” and then I passed out again. You see, one of those leg bones had come clear through.
Well, do you know who that girl was? That girl was Annabelle Green—the Annabelle Green—San Diego’s Sweetheart, the Sunshine Girl, and all those other names. I guess today she’s the most ballyhooed female since Cleopatra; but then she wasn’t even a real nurse, but kind of a student that would get a nurse’s license after she’d mechanicked in the hospital for a year or so.
Looking back at things now, I know Annabelle never intended to stick at nursing. She’d always lived in that hick town, and had been trying to get out since she was sixteen. She was so smart that she knew she wasn’t the prettiest woman in the world, and when a pretty woman is that smart, she’s a genius. The first few days I noticed that even the head doctor got fussed whenever he came within her wave length. And myself, I got to know her footstep coming down the hall, and I used to lie there listening for it and wishing they’d have somebody shave me so I wouldn’t look like I’d just hit town on a freight. Annabelle’s step was quick and busy and pretty and made you think of silk stockings and Spanish dancers. At first I thought it was only me that recognized it, but one day when I heard her coming, I saw the head doctor and the interne kind of prick up their ears and lay off dressing my leg and turn toward the door. She didn’t come in, but just smiled as she twinkled past.
“Good morning, birdman!” she called.
“Good morning, sunrise!” I told her.
When I looked at the doctor and the interne, they were very busy and serious and fooling with the drain in my leg. And just then, somehow, all three of us were sore at each other and jealous, and we all knew why, though none of us had said a word.
Well, after I’d been a month in that bone garage, they took my leg out of the block and tackle that they’d rigged to the ceiling, and I could sit up and rest fairly comfortable. Annabelle would come in when she was off duty, and even sometimes when she wasn’t; and we’d talk. She was ambitious, all right, and she admitted it. She wanted to be somebody and she’d give almost anything to get out of Caine. The trouble was, they’d always wanted her to give too much. For instance, there was a bird that could have made her Miss Caine in the Iowa State Beauty Contest, and if she hadn’t drawn the line, it was a cinch she’d have been Miss America by the end of the season. Then she’d danced a hundred and seventeen hours without stopping in a Marathon contest, but all the publicity she got was a column in the local papers, and maybe half a stick in Chicago. It seemed that the guy who gave the prize got too eager.
Well, we talked about all this and about flying, and once in a while she’d swipe a medicine bottle full of alcohol, and we’d squeeze an orange and put in some ice and have a little snort, and we’d take turns on a cigarette so if we heard anybody coming she could pass it to me.
We got pretty chummy, all right, and in a nice kind of way. You see, I got to thinking a lot of her. My mother shipped my trunk out to me, and my scrap book of press notices was in it, and Annabelle read the ballyhoo and got all steamed up about it. And one day I showed her a post card I’d just got from Johnny Howe, who was flying the fairs down South with Diabolo, the wing walker. This Diabolo’s a guy by the name of Haggerty, and he’s an acrobat who climbs around on Johnny’s ship and hangs from a trapeze on the landing gear and all that stuff, and the post card had a picture of them on it taken from another ship alongside them in the air.
“Oh,” said Annabelle, “why, he’s hanging by one hand! How high are they, Tommy?”
“Maybe a mile.”
“Well, the height really don’t make it any harder, does it?”
“No, but it don’t make the falling any softer.”
She acted like she didn’t hear me. “My,” she said, half to herself, “I bet there’s a good living in that, isn’t there?”
“Good while it lasts, but it’s a long way down,” and I lay thinking of the night out in Hollywood when we scraped up what was left of Ormer Locklear, the first man to walk a wing.
Annabelle laughed and suddenly stood up. “Look, you old mossback,” she said, “I can do that stuff with the best of them!”
And she stepped to the foot of my bed, sprang up, grabbed the tackle on the ceiling they’d had my leg fastened to, and put on the neatest show of acrobatics I’d ever seen. It was big-time stuff and I mean it.
Well, she was still up there, and I guess I was blushing, because she wasn’t exactly dressed for that kind of work, when in walked the head doctor. Annabelle did a double cut, dropped down to the bed, patted her nurse’s cap straight, and smiled, “Good morning, Doctor!” Then she hopped to the floor, took a bow, fluttered out the door. And as the doc and I were staring toward where she’d vanished, we heard her giggle in the distance.
After a long, silent minute the doc turned and looked at me, and there was so much trouble in his face that I was sorry for him. He made a couple of false starts to say something, and finally walked over, shut the door, and coming back, sat down beside my bed.
“Son,” he said, “there’s no fool like an old fool—except a young one.”
“Meaning you and me,” I answered. “Thanks for the compliment.”
“You’re welcome. And now the old fool’s going to come clean with the young one and—and—”
“Go ahead,” I told him, “get it off your chest.”
“Right,” he said, bucking up and getting set, “I’m in love with Annabelle.”
He sat there looking at me, ashamed, and sad, and at the same time proud as anything. And just then I realized that I liked him a lot, although until that moment I thought he was a washout. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said: “Yes?”
“Yes!” he repeated, “I’m in love with Annabelle—and boy, how I’ve wanted to say it to somebody! Say it out loud, I mean. I’m in love with Annabelle. I haven’t any business to be. I’m fifty-three years old. I’m married. My son’s in college—”
“Well,” I said, “what are you telling it all to me for?”
“I don’t know, except I’d like to help her—and you. I see she’s wearing your fraternity pin. Have you come to any understanding yet? I mean, do you know what you’re going to do?”
When he asked me this, I lay back and thought for a minute, and suddenly I began to realize that he was a pretty wise old boy at that. “No,” I said kind of slow, “Annabelle and I haven’t come to any agreement—and yet, I guess I can see what’s going to happen all right.”
“What?”
“Well, now that you speak of it, it all seems pretty clear that she and I are going on the road, flying exhibitions, and she is going to do aërial acrobatics and wing walking. She hasn’t said so, but I guess she’s kind of made up her mind.”
“I know!” he said. “Oh, don’t I know! It was the same way when she came to me with a blister on her heel after some fool dancing contest she was in. She made up her mind she wanted to be a nurse; she didn’t have to say anything, I just knew it. And so—she became a nurse. The poor chap who owned the theater sold out, lost half his wad, and went God knows where. And before him was Finley, who owned the newspaper—”
“Oh, yes, she’s told me about those guys,” I said, acting as tough as my game leg would let me. “Are you just another one of that kind?”
“No,” he bristled, “I’m not that kind, and neither were they. I know what you mean, and I knew Edward Shanley and George Finley as well as I know myself. They were on the level with Annabelle and don’t you forget it. They, too, were—well, old fools. Why, son,” his voice dropped, “here am I, fifty-three years old. Too old for her by thirty years. I love my wife—sure, I love my wife—but gosh, what thoughts I’ve had! South America—Australia—I’ve thought of them all. And do you know, I’ve spent hours in front of the mirror wondering if I could put a stitch or so in the skin on my temples, under the hair, to pull up my face and get the wrinkles out? Imagine me thinking of that! I’m crazy as a loon, hey? Crazy!
“Well,” he stood up, all very brisk, his voice cold again, “so Miss Green is going to do wing walking, is she?”
“She is,” I reassured him as confidently as I could.
“Do you want her to do it?”
It was my turn to be uncomfortable. “No,” I said, “I don’t. Wing walking’s bad enough even with yeggs like Diabolo, which you don’t care whether they fall off or not. But with Annabelle to worry about—well, Doctor, it’ll be hell.” And I guess I squirmed a little when I said it.
“Son,” he said, “I’m going away on my vacation tonight. I’ve made a good job of your leg, and in three weeks you’ll be out of here. So will Annabelle. Tommy,” he took my hand, “be careful of her—”
That was the last I saw of him, and in a month Annabelle and I were in Florida. I had to go to see the aunt she’d lived with in Caine; she was an old crab, and so was her other aunt who lived in Miami.
I had twelve thousand dollars which had been my take on the season before I crashed, and Elmer Baker gave me a nice new ship on time payments. Annabelle and I flew every morning working up our act. And I want to say there never was a girl like Annabelle. Maybe you’ve done night flying on the air mail, or got shot at by Richtofen during the war, but I bet you wouldn’t do half the stuff that Annabelle did after two weeks in the air.
Every night I’d wake up two or three times with my heart stopped dead, dreaming of her falling. Sometimes, ’way up there in the blue above Biscayne Bay it used to make me weak and sick to see her walking out there on the wing, leaning against the wind, hanging by one hand over six thousand feet of nothing and throwing kisses at me with the other. And we’d end up the act by going into a spin and her jumping out with her parachute; only she’d keep the chute closed and drop like a rock until she was six or seven hundred feet from the ground. Then she’d pull the ring, the chute would burst open like a big white flower, and she’d float down and land.
This business of keeping the chute closed was her own idea, and gosh, it was awful. “There’s a kick in it, big boy!” she’d say. “With that speed, the old air sure hugs your Annabelle tight. It’s—it’s wonderful! Bet you’re jealous, big boy!”
“Maybe so, but don’t do it,” I’d plead with her. “Some time when you’re going headfirst and sideways, you’ll get dizzy and forget to pull that ring.” You see, she’d be falling at around four hundred miles an hour, and that’s faster than thoughts can travel through nerves. It was terrible, all right, but it sure got the crowds.
Yes, we got plenty of crowds. When we left Florida we had solid booking right across the country to California, and we packed ’em into the fair grounds all the way. Our act was a knockout, and Annabelle was in heaven, by which I mean she was on the front page.
As for me, well, I guess I’m too professional. What I mean is, when I’m working, I’m working. I never stopped loving Annabelle, but as long as we were working, I figured I couldn’t say anything about it. I just keep thinking and dreaming and worrying about her, and wishing the season would end so I could ask her to marry me. Somehow I had a hunch that if I asked her then, I’d lose my nerve and we’d both get killed. Or her anyway, which would be worse. So I just said nothing, and kept on flying and watching her and worrying. And even in the evenings at the hotel I didn’t stick around her much, but would leave her with the fair committee or the newspaper people or the ladies’ club, and go by myself for a walk or to the movies.
When we got to San Diego we met George Massy. In fact, it was him who booked us to fly. He owns about everything in sight out there, and he’s worth a sock of money. From what I saw of him he didn’t seem to be a bad skate, either. Kind of quiet and serious and a real nice guy. And it was him who backed us to fly the Atlantic. Annabelle talked him into it.
Now don’t make any mistake about my ever wanting to fly the Atlantic. To me the Atlantic was just so much water to get drowned in. Old terra firma was always good enough for me. I wasn’t out to kid anybody about blazing the way for science, or carrying good will to the heathen Frenchmen, or any of that stuff. I knew what an aëroplane could do, and I figured if we made it, Annabelle and I’d be lucky and famous and—which was most important—married.
But Annabelle was rarin’ to go, and as long as she wanted to, it was all right with me. So we came East, and while she was having her picture taken thirty times a day, and was endorsing cigarettes and face creams, I was out on Long Island working with Charlie Kirk in his shop, getting the special plane ready. I didn’t see much of her, but of course I read every day in the papers about the Sunshine Girl going to fly to France for her Paris gowns, and sometimes there’d be a note about her co-pilot, which meant me.
Well, eight weeks before we were set to go, Massy sailed for France to work up the ballyhoo over there. Meanwhile, you know how the papers played it up on this side. And one foggy morning, which seems like a thousand years ago, I dragged the ship over the trees and the movie cameras, took a long easy turn over Mineola, and headed for the ocean.
It may sound funny to you, but I really don’t remember much about that flight. I was in a daze. My nerves were working and I flew because it’s always been instinct with me to fly, but my mind was sort of a blank. I was scared, scared all the way; I won’t try to kid you that I wasn’t scared, because I was. And I had been for months. Worrying, worrying all the time. And toward the last I’d been posing for pictures and answering fool questions all day, and lying awake all night. I wouldn’t go through it again for a million dollars.
There’s only one thing I really do remember. That was the cigarette smoke in the plane. You see, we had a cabin ship, and if you opened the portholes it got too cold, and so we had to leave them closed. This would have been O.K. if Annabelle hadn’t smoked all the time. I asked her not to, but she only laughed and patted my cheek. The air in there was fierce and I had a blind headache, but she wanted to smoke, so that was that. She spent her time between sleeping and smoking. I spent all the time looking at sixteen different instruments, listening to the motor, looking out for ships, worrying, and having a headache.
But anyway, I found France. Found it within ten miles of the spot I was aiming for. And when I pointed to the Cap Duthiez lighthouse, winking down there in the gloom, and shouted, “Paris in seventy minutes,” what do you suppose Annabelle did? Kiss me? No, sir! She took her flashlight, shined it on her face with one hand, and fixed her make-up with the other.
Well, you read all about our landing—how fifty million Frenchmen, or whatever it was, came out on the field and shed tears and shouted about Lafayette. And when I finally unjointed myself and they lugged me out, the reception committee was leading Annabelle off.
“But don’t you want your baggage, Miss Green?” asked one of them.
“I’ve only a suitcase,” she answered, and then pointing at me, “My mechanic will look after it.”
And—well, now you know how Annabelle Green flew the Atlantic.
Next day, or maybe the day after, I met Massy in the Ritz Bar. At least I guess it was the Ritz Bar.
“Oh, hello,” he said, kind of embarrassed, “how are you today?”
“I’m fine, how are you?”
“Great,” he said. “Are you all rested up?”
“Rested—and liquored,” I told him. “How are you feeling?”
“I told you before I felt all right,” he said. “Say, what’s on your chest?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “Only I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Shoot,” he said, looking at his watch.
“Well,” I began, picking up my glass, “you know who I am, don’t you?”
“Why, of course I do, Tommy. What do you ask such a question for?”
“Oh, I was just wondering. But did you ever hear of Edward Shanley, who owned the theater in Caine, Iowa?”
“Why, no.”
“Or of George Finley, newspaper publisher of the same place?”
He shook his head.
“Or of Doctor Casper Ricker, of the Caine Memorial Hospital?”
“Nope, I never did.”
“Well, you ought to,” I said. And then I guess I passed out cold.