14
Earl Shaw’s Flying Circus
Newcastle, California * May 5, 1940
Word traveled surprisingly fast—catching on faster than one of the terrible grass fires that periodically plagued that part of the California foothills—that Harry Yamada and Louis Thorn had dared each other to walk on the wings of a biplane. The sun came up that morning bright and blaring, the herald of a warm, dry day under a cloudless sky. By noon, well over a thousand people had gathered in Irving Sumpter’s field, and the air vibrated with the steady buzz of people speaking in excited, jittery tones.
Ava watched as Earl greeted people with plenty of dapper fanfare, urging folks to buy a scenic ride and herding them into line. His scheme was working; by noon, Ava had sold more scenic airplane rides in one hour than she had during the entire previous month—she had to put sales on hold briefly when Earl sent her back into town to fetch more gasoline, as no one had anticipated the planes would need so much. Buzz and Hutch had their work cut out for them, chauffeuring what seemed like an endless stream of passengers up into the clouds and back down onto solid ground. Making and selling lemonade, Ava’s mother could barely keep up with demand. Twice she was forced to send a boy for a fresh block of ice from the icehouse and more lemons.
It was plain to Ava that Earl was delighted with the bargain he’d struck. She found herself surprised that it had not occurred to him before: that he could simply invite a pair of crazy farm boys to wing walk (or attempt to, anyway) and instantly draw larger crowds than he’d ever managed to draw before. He’d always wanted to hire stuntmen, but this proved too difficult. All of the quality men who regularly did wing walking only wanted to work for Hollywood, which not only paid more handsomely than your average flying circus but also immortalized the stuntmen’s daredevil tricks on the silver screen. Earl’s shoddy flying circus held no appeal, and was illegal, besides.
But now, as Ava watched her stepfather flit around the field, a greedy smile curling his pink lips under his moustache, she knew Earl had had an epiphany and that he was thinking these two crazy farm boys might as well be dipped in the legendary gold that had been mined from the Sierra Nevada foothills all around them. And yet, for all the free publicity they’d accidentally drummed up, when Harry Yamada arrived on the field that day with the sum Earl Shaw had previously named clutched in his hand, Earl did not hesitate to take that, too. He was, above all else, a businessman.
“Very good, my son!” he exclaimed, coming over to clap Harry on the back and supervise as Ava accepted the money. Earl’s eyes were glassy with excitement as Harry handed over a twenty-dollar bill. “That’ll fetch you one extra-special premium flight! Indeed, it will!”
“You mean two,” Harry reminded Earl. “Ten each, and that’s twenty. Twenty dollars was the price you named for both of us to walk on the wings.”
“Of course, of course, you’re quite right,” Earl hastily added. He smiled, his white teeth flashing under his groomed moustache. “Where is your friend?” Earl asked, glancing around with an air of innocent inquiry.
“Louis?” Harry repeated.
Harry stiffened as he pronounced Louis’s name, yet cast a glance around as though anxious for him to arrive. The mixed reaction puzzled Ava.
“I expect he’ll turn up . . .”
“Wonderful!” Earl replied in a distracted manner. “Now, why don’t you take a walk around, have a lemonade—” A sudden atypically generous impulse gripped him. “On the house! Everyone will be wanting to shake your hand! Your friend hasn’t arrived yet, and I assume you’ll want to go up together . . .”
At this, Harry gave a small nod. Again there was that air of ambivalence. Ava wondered again about the ties between the two young men. The mystery intrigued her.
“We’ll have you boys go up for your rides once all the other customers have had their turns,” Earl continued. “Seeing as how your rides are”—Earl searched for a way to phrase it—“more deluxe.”
Ava shot Harry a look, wishing he’d heeded her warning. She knew Earl wanted Louis and Harry to go up last for a reason: If they fell to their deaths—and it was clear that Earl believed this was a possibility—it would be the end of Earl’s sales for the day, and those who had paid for a scenic ride but hadn’t gone up yet might even demand their money back.
Harry, however, appeared to understand Earl’s master plan and the motivations behind it. Earl seems like a true businessman, Harry had remarked the day before. He might very well be crazy, Ava thought, but at least it seemed like Harry Yamada was not a dupe.
About an hour or so later, around one o’clock, Ava spotted the familiar shape of Louis Thorn making his way across the field. While Harry had approached with a confident swagger, Louis looked slightly miserable and terribly pale. Ava felt more nervous for him, just seeing the state he was in. Nerves could get a fella killed, she thought.
“You know,” she said as Louis approached her table, “common sense is an admirable and brave quality, too. You don’t have to do this.”
“I . . .” Louis hesitated, looking into Ava’s eyes. “I want to.”
“You sure?”
He laughed. “Not entirely. But, hell . . . I reckon I won’t get this chance again. And if Harry Yamada can do it, well—”
“There you are, my boy!” Earl interrupted, hurrying over to Louis’s side, just as he had done earlier with Harry. When he clapped Louis on the back, Louis flinched.
“Your friend, Harry—he’s already paid,” Ava piped up, before Earl could mislead Louis.
“He’s not my friend,” Louis said, as though murmuring a memorized line.
Noting his vehemence, Ava cocked her head. “Well, you’re about to risk your lives together,” she said, “so what would you call him?”
Louis didn’t answer.
“What are you two on about?” Earl asked, clearly disinterested in the reply. His head swiveled as he scanned the field, pleased by the number of spectators. “Your friend, the young Chinaman, is somewhere yonder.” He pointed.
“Harry’s not Chinese,” Louis stated. “He’s Japanese.”
“How fascinating!” Earl replied, though it was plain he was not fascinated in the slightest. “If you’d like to join him, that would be splendid . . . Everyone here is keen to get a look at you both.” Earl patted Louis on the shoulder, simultaneously nudging him in the direction of the table where Harry stood and Cleo sold lemonade. “I’ll fetch you both when it’s time for you to go up!”
Louis nodded and obeyed, walking to where Earl had pointed as though in a trance. He’d woken up in a cold sweat that morning, remembering his foolish pledge from the day before to walk on the wings of an airplane. The sharp edges of terror had worn off, but now he was a bit numb and dazed. Harry spotted him approaching and smiled.
“Ready to make history?”
Harry’s tone was amicable, and Louis recognized an old vestige of the short-lived friendship the two boys had once shared—a happy alliance between two neighboring kids many years ago when they were boys. Louis felt the forgotten glimmer of something familiar but pushed it away.
“We’re hardly making history,” he replied. “Plenty of people have gone wing walking before.” Louis had collected several newspaper and magazine clippings over the years. He’d been fascinated with airplanes, with barnstormers and stuntmen—fascinated, that is, from a comfortable armchair distance. But just because he’d read about it didn’t mean he was eager to do it himself. Why had he agreed to this insanity? He’d been baited.
“Must mean it’s perfectly safe!” Harry replied with a smile.
Louis glared at him.
“I take it you’re nervous.” Harry smiled. “Me, too.”
But Harry did not look nervous. Harry never looked nervous. Louis knew all too well: If Harry had nerves, they were made of iron. Louis felt all the more rankled. As they continued to wait, Louis made an effort to avoid further interaction with Harry. It wasn’t difficult. Earl Shaw had been right: People all wanted to get a look at the two boys, shake their hands, wish them luck.
Over an hour and a half elapsed as Earl made certain to beat the bushes for every paying customer he could. Buzz and Hutch loaded up each passenger in turn. Finally, there were no more people standing in the line waiting to go up for a scenic flight.
But the crowd had not dissipated—if anything, it had steadily grown. Everyone was waiting to see what would become of Louis Thorn and Harry Yamada. The air was filled with electric anticipation tinged with a hint of morbidity.
Louis listened as Earl began to address the crowd.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for . . . two of your very own local boys will take to the skies in an attempt to perform a harrowing, hair-raising act of bravery! Will they or won’t they—that’s the big question, folks! Will they find the courage to walk in the footsteps of barnstormers and daredevils everywhere, and step out onto the wings as they fly high, high, high above the earth . . .”
Louis couldn’t hear the rest; the whoosh of blood in his ears had drowned everything else out. Earl’s voice droned on. Spectators whispered excitedly to one another. Louis stared straight ahead, seeing nothing and comprehending nothing as the minutes ticked by. The next thing Louis became aware of was Harry’s elbow gently prodding him in the ribs. Louis intuited the elbow’s message: Showtime.
“Lads!” Earl Shaw swooped over to them both. “Are you quite ready? Your grand adventure awaits!”
Louis took a breath. He and Harry exchanged a look and nodded nearly in unison. Earl shepherded them off in the direction of the two biplanes.
“Good luck!” someone from the crowd shouted.
“Don’t break yer necks!”
Louis walked toward the blue plane, where Buzz was waiting. Harry walked toward the red plane and Hutch.
“So here’s what you want to do, kid,” Hutch was saying to Harry. He pointed to the wings of the biplane. “Walk out on the lower wing here; that way, if you need to, you can steady yourself with the struts or the cable wires that run between the two wings. Try not to be too rough if you can help it.”
“Hear that?” Buzz said to Louis. “Listen to what Hutch is telling him.” Louis nodded.
“And walk slowly,” Hutch continued, “so I can feel ’er as she goes and correct for your weight. That way I can keep ’er level. Don’t just shoot out to the tip of the wing; you’ll make my job difficult. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Harry replied.
“We’ll put both planes on a nice, steady course, directly over the field. You can start your walking a little before we get near the crowd. We’ll tell ya when.”
Hutch climbed up into the cockpit of the red plane, and Harry followed suit. Buzz and Louis did the same.
“Get all that?” Buzz asked Louis.
Louis nodded, though he couldn’t feel his neck. The cold, numbing sensation was spreading. “Anything else we oughta know?” he asked.
Buzz thought about this for a second and shrugged. “You know how to walk?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I imagine that’s the long and short of it. Only you’d better lean just slightly into the wind. Don’t want to get blown off the wing.”
“You ever wing walked before?”
“Hell, no,” Buzz said, pulling on his cap and goggles. “I ain’t an idiot.” Before Louis had a chance to respond, Buzz yelled out, “CONTACT!” and pressed the electric starter. Louis felt his stomach turn over, churning in sync with the propeller. He cast an anxious glance at the red plane, where Harry sat in the cockpit in front of Hutch. Harry’s stoic face was unreadable. His eyes behind the goggles seemed unseeing.
In no time flat, they were in the air. Buzz’s takeoff was smooth and steady. Louis was too nervous to appreciate it, fixated as he was on the task before him. Suddenly the cockpit seemed impossibly steep and snug. How was he supposed to climb out and crawl onto the wing? he wondered. He was aware, too, of the wind whipping over his face: Had it been that forceful during yesterday’s flight? Louis felt himself starting to sweat under his clothes. His forehead and cheeks, too, were sweating, but the wind dried them instantly, chilling him in spite of the warm spring sun overhead. He twisted around again to get a look at Harry. The red plane floated just behind them. Harry looked like a statue, his expression focused but serene.
Buzz and Hutch flew a distance away from Sumpter’s field and then circled around. They fell into formation side by side and dropped a bit lower to the ground, then leveled out, both of them flying a steady course, just as Hutch had promised. When they were still some distance away from the field, Buzz and Hutch signaled to each other and traded a thumbs-up.
“Okay, kid!” Buzz shouted to Louis. “Time to climb out onto the wing.”
Louis nodded and clenched his jaw but didn’t move. He glanced over at the red biplane. Presumably, Hutch was hollering the same instructions to Harry. As Louis looked on, Harry carefully kneeled on the seat, then stood, leaning forward at the waist and clutching the rim of the cockpit. He swung first one leg over to the wing, then the other.
“Hey, kid!” Buzz shouted. “Did you hear me? Time to climb out on the wing.” He followed Louis’s gaze and spotted Harry. “See! Like your friend there is doing.”
Louis didn’t move. Frozen, he watched as Harry gripped the strut—the bar running between the cockpit and the upper wing—and slowly straightened up, testing his footing on the wing. After a few seconds, Harry removed one hand from the strut, then the other. He staggered just slightly, got his bearings, and tilted forward into the wind.
“Say, kid,” Buzz hollered. “It’s now or never!”
Louis willed himself to move, but nothing happened. Meanwhile, Harry began to inch his way farther out on the wing, sliding his feet over the metal surface rather than lifting them. They were drawing near to Sumpter’s field now. Louis could make out the crowd of onlookers far off in the distance.
“I don’t blame you, kid, but I gotta warn you: This is your last chance,” Buzz called. “Do you want to leave all the wing walking to your friend?”
Oh, hell, Louis thought. He finally willed himself to move. First he did as Harry had done, climbing so as to stand on his seat and gripping the rim of the cockpit. His legs felt absurdly weak and rubbery. Doubled over like that, he placed one tentative foot on the wing, then the other, his knuckles white where he gripped the strut overhead. He caught a glimpse of the ground below—it was only when you looked directly down that you could tell how fast the plane was traveling—and his mind silently and involuntarily strung together a sequence of more expletives than Louis had ever realized he knew.
He stood there for several seconds, gripping the strut where it made a diagonal slash above his head. They were now nearly over Sumpter’s field. What looked like a blur of colorful dots turned into people, and Louis could see a sea of upraised arms, all of them pointing and waving with excitement. He looked over and saw that Harry had made diligent progress, moving all the way to the tip of the wing and on the verge of initiating his return voyage. Something surged in Louis.
All at once, he released his grip on the bar and made a speedy beeline all the way to the tip of the wing as fast as he could.
He had forgotten the warning he’d overheard Hutch give Harry: not to dash out to the tip of the wing too suddenly. The biplane tipped with the abrupt weight redistribution, and for a brief, terrifying second Louis lost his balance. He pitched forward on his toes and his arms wheeled in the air. Down below, spectators screamed and various mothers clapped quick hands over their children’s eyes.
But Buzz quickly righted the plane while at the same time one of Louis’s wheeling arms caught hold of the vertical struts that braced the far end of the biplane’s two sets of wings.
“Ho-leee shit, kid!” Buzz shouted. “You gotta take it more slowly out there! Or, at the very least, give a fella some warning!”
Louis nodded. His heart was in his mouth by that point. A few more seconds went by as he continued to grip the bar at the far end of the biplane’s wing.
“Now inch your way back to the cockpit,” Buzz hollered. “SLOWLY. If you need to, use those guide wires there to steady you.”
In all the commotion, Louis had lost track of the other biplane. He looked for it now and saw that Harry was already crawling back into the cockpit. Once safely within, Harry raised a hand and waved. Was he taunting Louis or encouraging him?
Either way, a flicker of something Louis believed he glimpsed in Harry’s wave triggered him, and he found himself letting go of the outer strut and shuffling inch by inch back toward his own cockpit. His knees still quivered but he made sure progress. As Buzz had instructed, he steadied himself with the wires. After a minute or so, he reached his destination, grabbed on to the rim of the cockpit, and felt a flood of relief wash over him. Resisting the urge to scramble, he climbed back in deliberately and carefully.
“Wooo-hooo, kid!” Buzz shouted. “Attaboy! You did it! I almost thought we were going to have to clean you up off of that farm field down there. I’m overjoyed we ain’t gotta!”
Louis did not reply. They flew on for another minute or so.
“Well, kid? Cat got your tongue? How do you feel?”
Louis turned around to face Buzz. He was still wordless. But the giant grin on his face did all the talking for him.